The Newest Challenger
by Kenchi618
Summary: No way home? Maybe so. But one Uzumaki Naruto doesn't believe that. This world is strange, filled with interesting people and things, but no matter where you are one thing never changes; with a strong will anything is possible. A few clones never hurt either.
1. What's the Harm in a Little Fight?

**Okay, now I know what you're thinking, "Another story Kenchi? Really? What's wrong with you? Have you been eating too many paint chips or something?"**

**Well I respond to that with a hearty shake of my head and a deep belly laugh. Yes this is another story, and it's one that popped into my head. Please take note that I thought of this story's parts over the course of Saturday morning and by the end of that night I was ready to roll with this pilot chapter. **

**If there's one thing I know, it's the continuity of the games that I play, and want to see if I can make this work out. A Naruto/Street Fighter crossover. Strange? More than likely. Do I care? Not particularly. If you don't get knocked on your ass you don't know how far you can go, and I want to see if this is going to knock me on my ass.**

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I want to make a sandbox-style game in the vein of Bully if you've ever played that, but just encompassing most of the things that people do in normal life without making it super boring. If done right I think it could do respectably business-wise… but then again I suck at idea-making.

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><p><strong>The Newest Challenger<strong>

**Chapter 1: What's the Harm in a Little Fight?**

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><p>How long had it been since he had ended up there?<p>

Three years…

Waking up over Three years ago in a strange place with people that didn't speak his language and all kept looking at him all pitiful. He didn't need to understand them to know that much at least when they looked at him. Before then pity wasn't what he had been used to, but he understood the look all the same. It almost got to him as much as the looks of people that tried to deny he existed.

Almost. With the pity though they'd feed him. They understood ramen well enough to get him some of that. Not the good stuff like what Ichiraku would have given him, but hey, whatever. He liked instant well enough anyway.

In a matter of hours they got someone that could speak his language and his face brightened up. Maybe now he'd get some answers. He knew he had been running toward the border of a different country before blacking out and reawakening wherever he was, but he had never heard of any other country in the Elemental Nations speaking anything other than his own native tongue.

And he had definitely never heard of any United States of America.

Apparently they had never heard of a Konohagakure no Sato either… or a Hi no Kuni… or even an Elemental Nations to boot.

They had to wait for six hours for Naruto to wake back up after fainting.

When he did they asked him the standard fare as to where he came from, his age, any contacts or family. Naruto didn't trust them as the last thing he had been doing was chasing Sasuke to the border of Hi no Kuni and fighting him. He loudly demanded to tell him where Sasuke was as he thought he was somewhere in enemy territory, but was only met with confusion.

After two weeks though, they had enough of the young twelve year old boy and deported him. Deport being a nice word for kicking him out of the country. At the very least they were kind enough to put him somewhere where he could understand the language. Some place called Japan. He would be their problem from that point forward.

He would have normally gone kicking and screaming, fighting all the way, but two weeks was long enough for Naruto to find out just how shit out of luck he happened to be. This world was huge, and out of all of the massive landmasses recorded on the planet there was no continent labeled Elemental Nations on the map no matter which atlas he was forced to look through to find his home by those keeping him.

There was definitely a way home. There had to be. But he hadn't found it yet. Not in three years… but it wasn't like he could go anywhere to look for it, because travelling required money, and he was most certainly not with money. But if there was a word that defined Uzumaki Naruto, it certainly wasn't quitter.

"There that gaijin punk is!"

Dressed in a dark blue school uniform, with a dark blue headband around his forehead emblazoned with a by now beaten up metal Konoha plate on it, Naruto turned around on a city street sidewalk to find eight teenagers his age looking at him predatorily, all wearing a uniform of a different color; black. A different school in the area obviously. Oh goodie.

"What do you guys want?" Naruto asked, looking them over with his blue eyes, even though he already knew the answer to that. It was the same thing and it had always been the same thing since middle school. Groups of jerks meant one thing.

"To kick your ass!" The main one, at least Naruto presumed he was the main one, said as he stepped forward. The others followed behind and the people that had been crowding the sidewalk cleared out upon seeing them try to face off with Naruto, "Just because you run Tamagawa Minami High doesn't mean you're the toughest guy in Aohura City!"

Naruto gave them a deadpan look, sparing a glance at the badge on the breast of his uniform that did indeed identify him as a student of that school, "…Says who?"

Damn it, it had always been like that to an extent since the first day he had first been forced to venture into school by those that had sent him to Japan in the first place. His blue eyes and spiky blonde hair weren't necessarily par the course for citizens of that nation and made him stick out like a sore thumb not even mentioning the three horizontal whisker-marks on both of his cheeks, but nothing really went down until Naruto was first asked where he had come from.

Naruto had said he came to Japan from America with a smile adorning his face at the rather innocent question. From the reaction he got when he told worldly knowledgeable adults about his actual factual home he was definitely not going to do the same to a bunch of kids. Not when he had a second chance among them, who knew how they'd take it? Besides, maybe he could make some fast friends this time instead of taking years to do it?

This was not the best idea though. He might as well have told them he was from a place that didn't exist as far as they were concerned because it might have gone over better. By the end of school that day a group of boys wanting to 'show him how things were done' tried to strong-arm him and intimidate him. When Naruto didn't cow and they tried to push him around he proceeded to strong-arm them… by kicking the five attackers around and going home.

From that point forward he periodically got into fights with every tough guy that had a chip on their shoulder and literally didn't like Naruto's face. By the end of his middle school tenure he had more or less cleaned his entire school out when it came to kids like that.

Then the World Warrior tournament was broadcast around the world and every jackass that could throw a punch halfway straight started thinking that they were the second coming of Ryu. _Especially_ in Aohura City. Punks without training that learned of his 'prowess' made his high school experience up until that point one big battle.

It was decent training to keep himself in shape anyway. When he got home if he couldn't have gotten much better he could have at least kept what skills he had sharp.

With that mindset, Naruto calmly looked the lot of them down through squinted eyes as he pulled out a cellphone and quickly dialed a number, "Hello, emergency response? I'm at Akakiji Intersection and I'm going to need…" Naruto trailed off to count the number of his would-be attackers, "Enough ambulances for eight people." Hearing that Naruto was prematurely calling ambulances for them pissed all of the boys off, "Thanks a lot."

The leader ran forward at Naruto with his fist drawn back to strike him, "You're just full of jokes aren't you, you-!" He was cut off from both his attack and his rant by Naruto's closed phone bouncing off of his forehead hard enough to draw blood followed by a rising kick planted under the chin that knocked him ten feet into the air.

He floated up into the air gracefully landing almost fully upside down on the ground on the back of his head, unconscious with a thud that had the others looking at their leader in abject shock and awe at how quickly he had gone down. Looking up at Naruto they saw him picking his phone up off of the ground and placing it back into his pocket.

"We can still beat him, just take him all at once!"

Naruto paled at hearing that and ran away down the street, turning into an alley that they chased him down only for each boy that went inside to come flying back out rather authoritatively, some of them landing in the street and disrupting traffic.

The last one standing didn't go into the alley immediately, instead stopping short of going in and pulling out a pocket knife, standing there to wait on Naruto to make his exit instead of charging in after him. Numbers obviously didn't work, "You've got to come out sometime Uzumaki! Let's see how tough you think you are now huh!" After a few seconds, nothing, "I can stand here all day! The longer you wait, that's just time for my boys to wake up, and then we all get another shot at you!" He noticed the people crowding around but keeping their distance and turned on them, "What are you all looking at? You want some too?"

"Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

Out of the alley while his opponent's back was turned, Naruto rushed out as quick as a whip and slammed his blue orb of energy right into the teen, sending him flying through a roadside display and out through the other side, crashing against a parallel parked car door and denting it significantly with his frame.

Naruto cringed when the sound of the car's alarm started going off and figured he had spent enough time messing with those guys. Walking at a brisk pace he quickly made to vacate the scene until a sharp clearing of one's throat got him to stop in his tracks.

Turning around in fear of it being the owner of the car, Naruto found that it was also someone his age, but his relief faded when he realized who it was and cursed aloud, "Fuck-! I mean, heeey Sakura-chan! What's up?" He greeted, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck.

Kasugano Sakura. Naruto's first actual friend that he managed to make for better or worse in Japan. Imagine Naruto's surprise when he met someone else named Sakura… and then found out that it wasn't that uncommon of a name at all. This Sakura's similarities to the one he knew ended more or less right there though. Instead of pink hair this Sakura had short brown hair and eyes and wore the uniform for girls of their school; a short blue skirt, a white and blue short-sleeved top with a yellow scarf tied in the front around her neck, a pair of red Converse shoes, and a white headband wrapped around her head.

"You said we were going to meet up out front after school was over with Naruto." Sakura said with her hands on her hips as she stared the uneasy Naruto down, "You haven't trained with me in almost a month you know." Damn her… ever since she actually met Ryu she was so hard to deal with.

Sakura had met Naruto not too long after he had shown up in Japan, and when Naruto had first performed a few of his ninjutsu to win a fight in the schoolyard after classes that had gotten out of hand she had hastily introduced herself as a fan of fighters and fighting in general. As his friend she had eased him into the whole experience of living there as best she could in exchange for just hanging around with her and her friends which he had no problems with.

Then came the World Warriors tournament two years ago and she had caught a glimpse of Ryu on TV. From then she had seemingly reverse-engineered her own fighting style based on the bit she already knew and from what she had scoped out of watching Ryu's fights in the tournament. It was kind of impressive if not a little scary how effective a little initiative and a pretty good training regimen could be for that girl.

Sakura pointed at Naruto and shook her head, "You're still doing your ki attacks the wrong way." She said as they proceeded to walk, getting a scowl out of Naruto. Like she knew the first thing that made his attacks work. Rasengan wasn't ki, it was chakra, and it wasn't just a ball of light, it was a pressurized ball of power that was spinning in all directions, "You might as well throw a punch the way you use it. Why don't you just let me teach you the Hadoken (Surge Fist)?"

Because his name wasn't Ryu and he didn't want to fight like Ryu either. His chakra or ki in this world as it seemed to be called operated under the same premise and it was just as widely known with certain kinds of people knowing how to use it after very hard training.

"Because your Hadoken sucks." Was the excuse Naruto used since he was sick of explaining that fact to her. In response though, Sakura thunked Naruto on the head… kind of like _his_ Sakura only he didn't end up eating pavement afterwards. She was nice enough to hold back, "Ow! What? It does suck! You know it does! You can't even throw it ten feet!"

Sakura stuck his tongue out at him, getting him to roll his eyes before a grin stuck itself onto their faces, "That's why I want to train with you. My techniques are better when I'm fighting people and you're the best fighter I know. Well… other than _him_ of course." She finished with a slight blush on her face.

"Get. Ryu. Off. The. Brain." Naruto said, poking her in the side of the head with each word uttered, "And I wouldn't say you 'know' him. You met him once… sparred with him… and that's it. It's been a year already, come on now. And the next time you go running all over the world for the summer to look for someone, don't leave me here." He pouted at not getting to go with her.

"I didn't have the money for you _and_ me to go…" Sakura defended. Last year she had left Aohura City to go find Ryu and ask him to train her the day after school let out. Naruto had to find out when he had dropped by Sakura's house from her mother and little brother. Needless to say he was quite upset because Aohura was very boring other than the fights he kept getting into.

"Speaking of money…" Naruto said, changing the subject before he depressed himself with his neverending quest for funds, "…I can't even do anything with you today. Sorry." He added when he saw her perturbed pout. An angry Sakura wasn't good for his health… just like the other one. Huh… go figure, "I've got a job today."

Hearing that he had a job got Sakura to narrow her eyes at him, "When you say you have only one job 'for today' that usually means only one thing Naruto. What does she want from you today?" She asked in an exasperated manner.

"Um… who exactly?" Naruto said, looking away, trying to play dumb.

"You know Karin hired you to show up again." Sakura remarked with a twitching eye at his cavalier attitude on the matter, "Why can't you just take a different client or something?" She whined, trying to coerce him to shirk his prior engagement to train.

The two girls were not particularly fans of each other and from meeting Karin, Naruto could honestly see a few reasons why, but it wasn't too bad, "Because she pays better than anyone else in town would for the same work." He said just thinking about how one job from Karin had Naruto sitting pretty with four months of rent paid forward the last time she hired him, "And she's never asked me to kill anyone either, so there isn't any reason to ever turn her down."

The most he ever did for Karin was beat up a few street toughs that had been caught wolf whistling at her at her school or pranking the ever loving hell out of the same people. The hardest thing Karin had ever asked him to do was to courier her last birthday present all the way to Aohura City from a cargo ship in Tokyo. It almost got carjacked on the highways back, but Naruto kept it safe, and he got to drive a completely cherry ride that he would have never afforded himself.

"The way you put that you'd think people ask you to kill others a lot." Sakura said, only being met by silence that explained all she needed to know, "Wait, you _do_ get asked to kill people?"

A shrug met her from Naruto as they started rounding into the neighborhood both lived in, "Sometimes. I never do it though." No one he was ever requested to go after ever gave him a good enough reason to end anyone's life, and Naruto wouldn't kill unless his life were truly on the line, "I _am_ a ninja you know." He said with a saucy grin.

"Right. I forgot." Sakura said with a smile, "I never see you do anything… ninja-ey until you start fighting for real." Wrapping her head around the fact that the fabled assassins legends from the past spoke of just hung out in the open sometimes was difficult, but she'd seen him.

Naruto raised an eyebrow, "Most ninja do walk around in public you know. How else would I have a place to stay in town or be able to buy groceries if I was just-." He moved his fingers in a frantic, mysterious fashion, "_-Lurking in the shadows_ all the time?"

Yes, Naruto was a very eccentric person and was at times difficult to deal with, but he was a dear friend. He would have been a good friend based sheerly off of the entertainment factor of hanging around with him alone, "Yes, yes… because when I think of Uzumaki Naruto I think of the word lurk. Right behind all of the shouting, the arrogance, and the short temper."

Naruto righted himself as his cell phone went off, "One sec Sakura-chan, let me get this. Hello?" The two walked and a frown made its way to Naruto's face, "I'm almost home, what's the big deal?" Silence as he listened to the response and answered back, "I got sidetracked on the way back from school and I had to walk anyway." More silence to listen again and what was said obviously didn't please him, "…Why does everyone who knows I'm a ninja say that to me? What good would jumping from roofs do if I'm not hiding from anything! *sigh* I'll be there in a minute." He finished in a defeated voice.

Watching her friend hang up his phone, Sakura raised an eyebrow at him, "Who was that?"

They rounded a corner and got to Naruto's block to see a rather valuable looking car sitting outside of his apartment complex. Naruto pointed at it and saw Sakura's face get a little angry at the sight of it, "I'll give you three guesses before we get there." He said in a laughing voice as they got closer to the car and the back window rolled down slightly, "Hey, what's up Karin? How's it go-?"

"Front passenger's seat Uzumaki-san." Only the brown eyes of the person in the backseat could be seen through the slightly cracked darkened window, and her voice didn't seem like she was very patient. The eyes quickly darted from Naruto to Sakura's glowering form and seemed to twinkle in momentary amusement, "Hello _Sakura-san_."

"_Kanzuki-san_." Sakura replied sharply. At that point Naruto swore he could see lightning fly between the two girls' eyes and decided to play rudimentary peacemaker.

Opening the unlocked passenger's door broke the tense deadlock of wills between the girls as Naruto spared Sakura one last wave, "I'll see you in school tomorrow. I don't really know how long this'll take so we can train some other time, I promise." Sakura nodded before returning to glare at Karin who was doing the same through the crack in her window. Sighing to himself, Naruto sat down in the passenger's seat and buckled himself in next to the driver; a tall skinny man with glasses and a grey suit with white gloves. Naruto knew this man decently enough as Karin's steward Shibazaki, "Hey there Shibazaki-san." The man had little patience for him and it was best not to tread on the toes of rich people of those that worked for them.

Karin was utterly loaded.

"Do not presume that just because you are heading to the Kanzuki family's manor for your job's briefing it means that my eyes aren't on you." The man said in a matter-of-factly voice, "I will be watching you closer than ever now."

Naruto held his tongue and sank into his seat. The money was great, so he'd bite his tongue for the time being, especially since his boss was right behind him in the car. Naruto tried to turn his neck around to get a look at Karin, but she hastily put a stop to that, "Eyes front Uzumaki-san."

She wasn't even looking at him as from the inflection of her voice she was still glaring at Sakura and when he looked out his own window he saw that his schoolmate was doing the same. She averted her glance to look at him and waved goodbye to him before the car pulled off.

XxX

(Just Outside of Aohura City – Kanzuki Family Estate)

Okay, he knew she was rich and that her family was absolutely affluent, but he certainly had not been expecting this. It was obviously why she only chose to see him when paying him for his work.

Rumor had it that Karin's family owned a compound that sat on 200 miles of land. Naruto didn't believe that rumor as he felt it was bullshit and no one owned that much land in one specific spot.

Well seeing the 'little' bit of land that Karin's family gave her to stay while she chose to attend high school in Aohura City, and the absurdly large mansion that sat on it, he was inclined to give those rumors a little bit more weight now.

After parking, Naruto quickly sprang out of the car to look at his current surroundings. It was huge. Running his way out of there would have made for a good workout, so whatever was about to go down had better have been on the level.

It was a comfortable temperature outside despite the fact that it was getting on to be summer and the wait was rather insufferable. Naruto honestly couldn't wait for the month-long break when it was coming up for his own personal reasons.

"Well Uzumaki-san, we don't have all day." Apparently Karin caught him staring at the property because she had to get his attention. Naruto turned towards her and began to follow after her and Shibazaki as they walked through the large driveway to get to the front doors.

Kanzuki Karin was a shorter girl than him and had blonde hair much like his own, styled into curly ringlets with a blue bow in the back. Her school uniform was completely red, skirt and all right down to her shoes, with some white trim around the collar and the ends of the short sleeves and a blue scarf tied around the front.

"So…" Naruto started as he followed them inside and tried not to stop and stare at the rather roomy and ornate digs that accentuated the mansion, "I don't want to sound like I'm in a hurry or I don't want whatever this job is, but what do you need? You never told me over the phone, and I'm pretty sure you don't want me to kill someone." If someone in that family wanted to kill someone it would be Karin's father who ran the family's corporation. He doubted that her father even knew who he was, "You usually just flat out tell me what you want, I go do it, and then you meet me to pay me."

Karin turned around to face him with her painfully pretty features and smirked at him before flipping her hair and continuing to walk. Shibazaki shot him something of a dirty look before leading him along as well and Naruto flipped him off behind his back, "Don't tell me you didn't enjoy the trip." Karin said as they walked through the mansion. He swore that just one of those rooms could hold his entire apartment three times over, "I know there's some kind of novelty when people like you see places like this for the first time."

While he didn't like the way she said that, she also had a point. The trip was kind of worth seeing all of these things, riding in that car… and possibly getting to chow down on some of the rich people food in that mansion. If she were a good host she'd feed him before he left and who would he be to turn down such a generous offer from his constant boss?

"Yeah but you usually act like even meeting to pay me is a hassle for you." Naruto pointed out, as their previous face-to-face meetings didn't necessarily scream out that she wanted to invite him to her home.

Eventually they made their way into a rather large atrium with a garden, a clear amount of sunlight whenever it was available, pillars, and within the pillars a rather large circular stone brick circle.

Suddenly Karin held out her hand behind her without turning around, directing Naruto to stop, which he did. She continued to walk forward a ways, probably twenty feet if he had to estimate and if he hadn't been known for sucking at anything involving numbers, distance, or guessing in school.

Shibazaki held up her school bag and opened it to allow her to reach inside. As she did so she continued speaking to Naruto, "Well there is a very good reason you're here I can assure you of that." She pulled out a pair of brown 4 oz. gloves and casually put them on with her back turned to her guest, "Did you know that I fought Kasugano Sakura before?" She didn't need to see him, she could feel in the air that Naruto had tilted his head to the side in a confused manner, eliciting a slight giggle out of her, "Yes, I fought her last year right before she went on her little trip without telling you or anyone. I held a tournament and everything. Where were you?"

So that's why they hated each other. A past catfight between two very cute girls, and he had missed it. Where the hell was he when all of this was happening?

Probably working out of town…

"So who won?" Naruto asked curiously as he sat cross-legged on the ground in a bored manner. He didn't even know that Karin could fight at all. That was some new and very welcome information, "Wait you had a tournament? Was there prize money?" Damn it, he could have gotten himself paid.

Dodging all questions, Karin had her own query she wanted answered, "Believe it or not but I've heard… that you Uzumaki Naruto are one of the best fighters in Japan. People don't know who Sakura is, but a lot of people know you by name. I didn't even know who you were until I was told that you _didn't_ enter my little tournament, you were that notable that your presence was missed, and then I found out that you were a local freelancer and hired you for some odd jobs."

While he didn't know, or particularly care he was slightly famous, Naruto's work and never-ending search to find a way home had him work as far out as Sapporo before. That wasn't the point of his focus though, "Seriously, you had a tournament? Damn it, I miss everything…"

Ignoring Naruto's apparent one-track mind, Karin turned around, finally revealing the fighting gloves on her delicate hands, "I've also heard that Sakura has never defeated you. That by proxy implies that you are stronger than me, and I hate mere speculation." She said with her hands on her hips as Shibazaki moved far out of the way, "So I'm prepared to give you 1.5 million yen-."

"Deal!" Naruto said, his eyes just seeing the money right then. Maybe now he could fund a wider search for someone with some answers that could help him other than just where he was landlocked to. He didn't even need to think about it. He might have even killed the appropriate person for that much money.

"-I'll give you that much money if you can defeat me cleanly in a one-on-one fight. Right here, right now."

That got the money-dreaming grin to drop off of Naruto's face, "Wait, you want to fight me right here, right now?"

"I do believe that is what I just said to you Uzumaki-san." Karin pulled her brown gloves tightly onto her hands, already knowing that she had him at the mere utterance of how much she would give him, "But if you lose to me then you tell me how to defeat Sakura."

What? Like he had advice for that? Even now that she had some of Ryu's moves copied to memory he could still kick her around pretty good. He didn't cognizantly have plans when he fought Sakura… he just fought her and adjusted on the fly. The same way he had always fought. They had never gone all out against one another either. There were just certain attacks that Naruto was never going to use against a friend.

Still, he could probably bullshit an answer that would satisfy her even if he did lose. But when Karin found out it was B.S. when she fought Sakura again she would never hire him again. But then again he wasn't going to lose, not just because he believed he'd win, but because for 1,500,000 yen he would damn sure find some way to win even if he was fighting the most famous fighter in the world.

"You're on." Naruto said, unbuttoning his uniform top and quickly relieving himself of it to reveal a sinewy muscular build when it came to his arms and torso. A tattoo of a Konoha leaf insignia sat on his upper right pectoral muscle as a reminder that he was getting back some day, "So what are the rules?"

Karin was right on top of having rules set for this little encounter, "You cannot leave the confines of the stone brick ring or else you will be disqualified-." She started with, getting a frown out of Naruto, "-You cannot attack a downed opponent, no strikes to the eyes or the groin for what it is worth, and we fight until one of us are knocked out of the ring or to the ground for a count of ten. Traditional tournament rules Uzumaki-san. I know you're a street fighter at heart but these are the terms. Take them or leave them."

Fucking rules… who fought with rules? He wasn't a prize fighter even though the notion had taken him every now and again. Rules were tailor-made to keep a good ninja down.

Apparently he was going to be abiding by them today, because he nodded in agreement as he dropped his backpack, pulled a pair of cloth hand-wraps from his back pockets and wrapped them around his hands. If he had time to change clothes he probably would have hopped into something more comfortable for this situation, but opportunity didn't knock that often for him, "Let's do this then, dattebayo!" Naruto said jumping up and down thrice excitedly before setting himself in what looked like a rudimentary stance for brawlers.

A confident look upon her features, Karin set herself into a fighting stance with her left leg and arm out forward, her right leg back, and her right hand held cocked at the ready in a knife-hand posture, "Shibazaki, you are the referee, and you _will_ be impartial won't you?" She asked, leaving an underlying tone in the air that said he had better call it right down the middle.

"Of course Kanzuki-sama." Shibazaki said with a half bow as he stood between them in a referee's position, "Are the fighters ready?" Naruto nodded with a smile, cracking his neck to the side as he loosened himself up. Karin nodded as well, still smirking in anticipation, "Very well. Fight!"

Never one to take the affirmation to fight lightly especially since he had been the one issued the challenge, Naruto went right at Karin since he couldn't even leave the ring to confuse her. This left the only other options to flat out put her down or knock her out of the ring.

He didn't expect her to duck under his first punch though.

Nor did he particularly expect her to cartwheel safely right out of the way of his spin kick that he tried when she moved to his side.

The girl was nimble. He only fought a dozen or so people that he would readily register as dangerous outside of Sakura since he turned up in Japan, but from sheer reaction alone he'd say that Karin would have to be added to that list. It must have shown on his face too, because her face simply oozed confidence when he faced off with her again, "Are you wondering what my style is?"

He actually hadn't been, but sure, why not? So Naruto just nodded.

"Kanzuki-ryuu Kakutojutsu. You can't really learn it because it's something I developed myself." Karin pointed to herself haughtily, "I'm just better. I don't like handling my own business in a physical sense with those beneath me. That is why I hire you. And you do good work, but you just cannot beat me."

"For 1,500,000 yen I'll kick Sagat right in his scrote and smile about it. Then I'll kick the shit out of him when he starts something. Don't believe me? Just watch this!" Naruto proclaimed brazenly before attempting to attack again.

"I have to admire your determination though." Karin said until Naruto placed his index and middle fingers in a cross formation, "And what exactly is that going to do? I just said you can't poke me in the eyes."

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Technique)!"

Instead of just one Naruto, Karin was now forced to fight four of them while the original Naruto sat back and watched, arms crossed and a smirk on his face. The four Narutos and Karin began engaging in a furious flurry of punches and kicks, trading back and forth. Whenever Karin would lash out at one clone it would block and she would have to contort her body and use her full range of flexibility to avoid corresponding attacks from the other three that knew how to coordinate their movements.

Naruto, or his clones, landed the first significant strike of the fight as when Karin found one of her kicks blocked by a Naruto another one blasted her in the body with one that doubled her over, the other two Narutos retaliating in kind, "Bunshin Kaiten Kakato Otoshi (Clone Spinning Heel Drop)!" The two clones somersaulted at her and landed axe kicks on her head and shoulder, knocking her right to the ground as they dispelled and revealed that the Naruto who had originally blocked her punch was the real one and he had been fighting her himself all along.

Shibazaki looked on stunned. He had been in awe of the Kanzaki Zaibatsu heiress's combat prowess, fighting evenly against four opponents at once, but Naruto had been all four of those opponents at once. That was a whole different league of freaky that he wasn't prepared to see. Naruto clearing his throat brought him back to the present and from the perturbed look on Naruto's face it was clear that he was looking for a count.

As Shibazaki actually began counting to ten, Karin stood up off of the ground and got back into her stance, "That… was rather interesting. I've never seen anything like that before." Naruto grinned at her from the compliment, but just like that, Karin tried to turn the tables and went back in on him, "It's not even close to being over yet though! Ressen Chou!" In a show of blinding speed, Karin dashed forward for a pointed elbow smash intended to crack sternums.

She had to have some lion in her because now that it was one-on-one again her pace seemed to quicken further from just that one move. Naruto blocked the attack with his forearms and could swear she almost broke one of them before he had to block one of her punches and tried to trap an arm. He yanked her in, but ate a fast trio of chops to the forehead for his trouble that shook him up. Thank goodness for the metal plate. But that was only the beginning of Karin's offensive attack.

A fanning, can-can looking double kick combo pressed two shots right under Naruto's chin and popped him up into the air, "Mujin Kyaku (Inexhaustible Leg)!" While Naruto was stuck and prone ten feet off of the ground she wasted no time in setting up her next attack, jumping directly at Naruto with her arms drawn in a double-sledgehammer motion over and behind her head, glowing somewhat, "Kanzuki-ryuu Kou'ou Ken!"

She smashed Naruto down to the ground hard and with enough authority to get a crack out of a few of the bricks and heard the air easily whoosh out of his body from the strike.

Karin stood over Naruto and flipped her curled hair over her shoulder as Shibazaki started the count on Naruto, "Looks like there's no money for you Uzumaki-san." She said, looking at the downed Naruto's face, only for her words to register his eyes to pop wide open. She let out a small shriek when Naruto pulled his legs inward toward his chest and kipped up to his feet before cracking his neck and giving her a dry look, "How in the world did you stand back up from that?"

"With my legs." Naruto quipped before seeing how close she still was to him, in shock that he got up from one of her strongest attacks. Naruto made the cross seal and in a puff of smoke Karin was surrounded by several Kage Bunshin that all moved in to kick her into the air from all sides, "U! Zu! Ma! Ki!" The original Naruto sprang off of the back of one of his clones to jump into the air over Karin where he proceeded to finish the combination and kick her to the ground, "Uzumaki Naruto Rendan (Naruto Uzumaki Combo)!"

Karin hit the ground face down and a worried attendant Shibazaki didn't even bother counting as he rushed in to check up on her while Naruto backed off and poked at his own bruises, "Kanzuki-sama!" He gasped in pleasant surprise when he saw her move, lifting her head off of the ground to look up at Naruto on her elbows, "Thank goodness you're alright!"

"Damn it Shibazaki…" Karin grunted out as she tried to stand up, eventually making it back to her feet, "I wasn't done yet. Now you've gone and gotten me disqualified." Naruto blinked when he realized that she had indeed stood back up before a count of ten seconds, and that in a fight with actual rules this would be the equivalent of someone's corner throwing the towel it, "That means I won right? Whoo! Yatta! I won! 1.5 million yen! That's like…" He started counting on his fingers trying to do some basic calculations, "…I don't know how many American dollars or Euros or whatever, but I'm sure it's more than enough!"

"…Almost 15,000 Euros and almost 20,000 U.S. dollars… and over 12,000 pounds."

Naruto stopped celebrating and did comparisons in his head, "Damn… that's a steep drop-off. Oh well. It's more than I had already!" He said before chuckling in a pleased manner to himself as he grinned and rubbed under his nose. He walked up to Karin and extended his hand, "That was a really good scrap. Too bad your butler interfered before we could really cut loose."

Shibazaki took offense to being called a butler while Karin looked at Naruto's extended hand like it was an unknown gesture for someone like him to do such a thing. Begrudgingly she reached for his hand and shook it, "So now I've lost to two people beneath my station. That's simply no good." She said with a frown adding on the scuffs and light marks of strife marring her pretty face, "Fine. I'll take you to the vault later and I'll pay you accordingly per the terms of your victory. But for now… Ishizaki!"

CLANG!

Naruto fell face-first to the ground with swirls in his eyes and a lump on the back of his head. Over him stood a quite large and burly man with grey slacks, a white short-sleeved dress shirt, and an apron. In his hands happened to be a quite dented metal platter.

Karin looked at the man and then kneeled down by Naruto's head, poking at his lump several times before looking up at the person who had just hit him, "…I merely intended for you to bring myself and my opponent some refreshments Ishizaki. I did not need nor did I wish for you to hit him."

"My apologies Kanzuki-sama." Ishizaki said as he bowed to Karin. He stood back up and hid the platter behind his back before coughing to get her attention as she held Naruto's head in her hands, lolling it back and forth as she came to conclude that he was utterly unconscious, "Do you wish for me to fetch the young man an ice pack, or perhaps he requires stitches?"

XxX

(Sometime Later – Naruto's Apartment)

Thank goodness for knowing rich girls like Karin, that was all Naruto had to say as he looked at the large jars of savings he kept in a locked secret compartment in the hardwood floor underneath his bed. Having just made his clones painstakingly count the money, Naruto concluded that over the three years he had been in Japan he had managed to save up almost 12 million yen by way of penny pinching and working his ass off every day doing loose mercenary work for most of those four years. That was enough to fund a trip around the world if that was what he really wanted to do.

Pretty soon, probably by the next year's summer, he'd have enough money to do what he wished. What he had been saving for and living day after day at the start for; to search high and low for any possible way back home. Even after three years he still had no idea what happened. One moment he and Sasuke were clashing with their respective techniques and the next he was in America. But the world was big and the internet and TV, hell even Sakura told him it was full of weird things. Who knew what he would find out there? And he could make his own money on the road if need be. Three months at the very least was how long a good trip would take.

Missing some school would come with it, but he'd fall on that grenade. Yes, what a crying shame… to skip some school. A necessary sacrifice it was.

He had no idea what he was going to do, where to look, or anything like that, but he was going to keep hope alive. And with that hope in mind, Naruto jumped out of his bed and bit his thumb well enough to draw blood as he started rolling through hand-seals, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Technique)!"

Naruto slammed his hand on the ground and in a puff of smoke he waited with bated breath for it to clear out so that he could see if this time he had done it. Maybe this time he had summoned Gamakichi! Or… Kami help him he'd even take Gamatatsu this time. Just anything… anything except.

*croak*

Naruto dropped his head as he got a sight of just what he had summoned. A regular old, run of the mill swamp toad. Not even a strange color other than what he had seen in the books. No armor… it was just big. Really big. Half his size actually.

"Yo." Naruto said to the toad that just stared at him with its throat moving in and out. It just sat there doing nothing, "Come on. Jump. Spit fire or oil. Pull out a sword or put on some armor. Do something." He poked at the toad with his foot to urge it on.

The toad then proceeded to hop right onto Naruto's bed. Swamp slime and all.

Great. Because he felt like sleeping on the couch in his living room anyway that night, "Goodnight Mr. Toad." Naruto said with a sigh as he grabbed his night clothes and headed to the bathroom, forming a half-ram seal and dismissing the toad back from whence it came.

XxX

(Later That Night)

Naruto sat in a flooded boiler room looking inside a great barred gate at the darkness inside of it. He could make out an absolutely towering figure inside, but it was either sleeping or just pretending to in order to ignore and make light of his presence.

Nonplussed by his tenant's lack of attention to him, Naruto just sat there and stared before opening his mouth to speak. As he inhaled the slightest breath to begin talking, a great set of claws slammed through the holes in the bars in an attempt to grab him, but they stopped just short of grazing the bangs on his forehead.

Staring at the razor sharp claws in front of his face, Naruto just blinked once before trying again to start a conversation, "How did we get here?" It was the same song and dance each time he came to converse with the beast for the past three years. If he knew the Kyuubi by now then the next thing it would say would be-.

"**We could tear this world asunder. Free me from this seal boy."**

"What happened at the Valley of the End?"

"**Why do you try to eke out this meager living of yours? Trying to live in harmony in this town with the people that wish to cause you harm. You fight those foolish enough to challenge you, and that is a start, but you could go so much further. Make them fear you. Give your heart to me Uzumaki Naruto, succumb to your rage, your hatred, your desire to just make this world you see as a dream disappear. I can do this for you. Let me do this for you."**

The claws pulled back inside of the cell and Naruto just continued to sit and stare. Yelling at the Kyuubi for three straight years didn't solve any problems whatsoever. He didn't even know why he came back in there anymore. Maybe just because it was the only thing he really had to remember his home by? He was sent over to Japan with no weapons, with not even the tattered orange clothes he had on his back in exchange for new ones to last him until he could find his own way. Maybe talking to the Kyuubi, despite its repetitive answers just so happened to be his way to try and keep his focus.

That he _would_ get home.

No matter how long it took.

"_Naruto wake up!"_

XxX

"Naruto wake up!"

Awaking with a start, Naruto fell out of his sleeping spot on his couch onto the floor and rubbed his head from the fall. In a white t-shirt and frog covered boxers, Naruto slogged to his front door and opened it to find Sakura dressed for school, "Yo."

"Yo yourself." She said in reply, looking him over and raising an eyebrow, "Move your butt to the bathroom and get ready to go. We're going to be late for school again waiting on you to get ready."

Naruto rubbed his sleepy eyes and turned to head back inside with a yawn as he made his way to his room to get his uniform and then to the bathroom to get prepared for the day, "You could just go without me. We're not late for another hour."

"If I don't make you go then you'd just be wasting your money by not showing up." Sakura said as she leaned against the closed door of his bathroom to wait on him, "I can't let my favorite sparring partner fail out of school now can I? Even if you are a gun-for-hire."

"Guns are for chumps." Naruto said from the bathroom as he brushed his teeth, "And you can find other sparring partners. The city is full of people that I think would probably fight you."

"Maybe…" Sakura said idly, "But they're not friends like us."

'Friends like us.' Naruto thought to himself as he finished brushing his teeth and started his shower, 'Huh…'

_(Flashback – Two Years Ago)_

"_How come you never talk about America Naruto?" Sakura asked Naruto as he was hard at work training in her family's backyard. Sakura was training too, but Naruto was working straight from scratch as he tried to learn how to create his own distance ninjutsu. She noticed Naruto stopping in his use of the ram seal to build his chakra out of his listening to her, "You look American and you act American, but you don't tell any stories, nothing. And where did you learn how to fight like a ninja in America? You don't tell anyone anything and it's been a year."_

_Naruto dropped his ram seal and stopped to look at his yearlong friend. He had met a few other cool people, but due to their proximity and the fact that she had reached out to him first, Sakura was most definitely the closest… after he got over how weird it was to know another girl named Sakura._

_Looking at the curious brown-eyed girl, Naruto didn't know what to say, "Well there's not much to say. Is that bad?"_

_Sakura just shrugged her shoulders and jumped into a stance to charge up her ki that Naruto had somehow shown her how to tap into when she had asked about it, "Okay here goes! I'm gonna get it this time! Just like Ryu! __Hadoken (Surge Fist)__!" She thrust her hands forward with the palms of her hands touching, one vertical and the other upside down. Nothing but a short fizzle of energy was slightly visible and then nothing. The dejected girl dropped to her knees and let out a desperate sigh, "Ahh… no!"_

_Naruto laughed at her a bit and held out his right hand with a big grin on his face, "Hey Sakura-chan." He said to get her attention before sticking his tongue out to focus on his jutsu and in a matter of moments formed a one-handed Rasengan. A year of on again/off again training to get it down pat and he certainly pulled it off, "Bet you think my 'stupid' __Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)__ isn't so lame now huh? At least I can actually maintain it! You can't even make your move!"_

_Sakura stared at the spinning blue orb before coming to her senses and jumping back to her feet to clinch her fists at Naruto angrily, "You think you're so cool! That's why you look like a cat!" _

_A cat? Naruto's focus on maintaining the Rasengan fell along with his jaw as he stared at Sakura in complete and utter surprise, "A… A cat? Really?" He tried to look at his own cheeks as he tugged on them, "Is it the birthmarks?"_

_A gleam came to Sakura's eye as she ran at Naruto and dove at him with a jumping uppercut, "I might not be able to do Hadoken, but I can do this!" And she wound up hitting the very distracted Naruto right on the chin knocking him into the air and flat on his butt, "How about that? _My _Shouryuken (Rising Dragon Fist)__!"_

"_It sucks!" Naruto yelled from his backside, rubbing his chin, "You got three feet off of the ground max! My vertical leap is ten feet higher than yours!" He stood back up and worked the kinks out of his jaw before smirking at her, "But if you want to fight that's cool with me!" He wasn't really going to beat her up. If he ever laid a truly unkind hand on someone like Sakura he'd never forgive himself._

_A fight seemed to be just what Sakura wanted as she let out a celebratory jump, "Finally, you're fighting me again! It's so much fun having a friend I can spar with! This is great!"_

_A friend. Well that was just alright with Naruto as far as he was concerned._

(End Flashback)

And that was when things started turning towards Naruto's direction. Life in a strange place became less strange and far more tolerable. Even fun from time to time as he met a few more people that he got to know one way or another. It definitely could have been worse. But he'd still get home no matter what. He had to find a way.

That was what Naruto thought to himself as he stared at his own post-shower reflection in the fogged up mirror. That he still had to get home. He had a life to live, people to get back to...

"Come on Naruto. We've got twenty minutes to get to class so get dressed and let's go."

But what about the life he had here? It wasn't so bad. And what about these people that he knew here? They had their quirks, but they were good people at heart even if it wasn't outwardly evident in some cases (*cough* Karin *cough*).

Would he really just let go and let the past die? Could he let it go? More importantly, did he want to deep down?

Finishing putting on his uniform and opening his bathroom door to motion to Sakura to go with a smile pasted on his face, he had to wonder to himself… and wonder he did, all the way to school, all the way through his classes and lunch, all day long.

Even if he didn't find a way home, and it was 99.9 percent possible that he would never do so, why was a part of him feeling like he'd be so comfortable if that were indeed the case?

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Naruto Uzumaki  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 15 (Birthday: October 10)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'8/154 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> B  
><span>Likes:<span> Ramen of all sorts, pranking certain people, gardening, video games, geography, helping people, American music.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Vegetables, cats, the delinquents in Aohura City that pick fights with him, the stereotypes for ninja.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Gardening, working freelance odd jobs for money to pay for school and housing, hustling playing darts against others for pocket change.  
><span>Rivals:<span> None at this time (that he considers).  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Ninjutsu/Self-Developed Taijutsu that focuses on his speed advantage over others. When faced with a rare speed disadvantage clones are used liberally to supplement.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Kunai/Shuriken, Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Technique), Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Technique), Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere), Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Technique: Toads), Uzumaki Naruto Rendan (Naruto Uzumaki Combo), Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Uzumaki Naruto Mugen Rendan (Naruto Uzumaki Infinite Combo), Odama Rasengan (Great Ball Rasengan), Chou Ikitaihou (Super Breath Cannon).  
><span>Background:<span> The jinchuuriki (power of human sacrifice/demon container) of the Kyuubi no Yoko and a genin-level shinobi of Konohagakure no Sato at last check. Under unknown circumstances he was ripped from his home and wound up in a strange place with no way back in sight. Settled in Japan in Aohura City where he became a 'ninja' or a 'mercenary for hire' despite the fact that the bulk of his jobs don't always involve fighting and center more along odd jobs quite often. Is raising money for himself to fund a trip around the world to try and locate anyone or anything that can give him the answers he desires. Has continued to painstakingly train himself and has created more than a few ninjutsu and other fighting techniques from scratch over the course of three years.

Name: Sakura Kasugano  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Female  
><span>Age:<span> 15 (Birthday: March 15)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'2/120 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> AB  
><span>Likes:<span> Track and field, White rice, baseball, Ryu.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Math, playing video games with her brother or Naruto because she never wins, when Naruto plays rap music during sparring sessions.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Practicing English, cooking, playing baseball.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Karin Kanzuki, Naruto Uzumaki (friendly, one-sided)  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Imitation of Ryu's fighting style rooted in Ansatsuken.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Hadoken (Surge Fist), Shou'oken (Rising Uppercut), Shunpukyaku (Twirling Gale Kick), Sakura Otoshi (Cherry Blossom Drop).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Midare Zakura (Tumultuous Cherry Blossom), Haru Ichiban (First Spring Storm), Shinkuu Tengyou Hadoken (Vacuum Heavenly Command Surge Fist).  
><span>Background:<span> A young Japanese high school student with an intense fascination with world famous fighter Ryu. The first friend a misplaced Naruto found in Aohura City, she began to participate loosely in street fighting after watching the World Warrior tournament two years ago. A very quick and dedicated study, she has reverse engineered many of the fighting techniques utilized by Ryu in her own fashion after only a few sightings of it, though Naruto constantly teases her due to the fact that they noticeably aren't as strong. Having actually met her idol the previous year her drive to improve is now stronger than ever.

Name: Karin Kanzuki  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Female  
><span>Age:<span> 15 (Birthday: September 15)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'3/120 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> O  
>Likes: Total victory.<br>Dislikes: Sakura (more or less), minds of commoners.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Coming up with techniques for her own self-made fighting style.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Sakura Kasugano  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Kanzuki-ryuu Kakutoujutsu.  
>Current Techniques: Guren Ken (Crimson Lotus Fist), Hou Shou (Crumbling Palm), Mujin Kyaku (Inexhaustible Leg), Ressen Chou, Ressen Ha (Violent Massacre Break), Yassha Gaeshi – JoudanGedan, Arakuma Inashi.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Kanzuki-ryuu Shinpikaibyaku, Kanzuki-ryuu Kou'ou Ken.  
><span>Background:<span> The heiress of one of the richest families in the world, running the Kanzuki Zaibatsu, Karin is in possession of exorbitant amounts of money and a motto taught to her by her father, "All you need is victory." Karin has her own interpretation of the meaning to say, "The worst we'll ever be is the best." With her resources, drive, and interest in martial arts, Karin created her own fighting style and is fancied as a rather talented fighter. The rival of Kasugano Sakura, she strives to avenge a humiliating public tournament loss to the girl and prove her superiority. She originally found amusement in hiring Sakura's close friend Uzumaki Naruto for what she believed to be menial work to mess with both her and him, but when Naruto simply took this as normal work instead of as a slight she continued to legitimately hire him, finding use in him. A proud and somewhat snooty girl due to her upbringing, she is rarely seen without her protective attendant Shibazaki or her kinder butler Ishizaki.

* * *

><p><strong>Now for those that are aware of the reference, this is one year after the events in Street Fighter Alpha 2, which is one year before the events of Street Alpha 3, which I'd say is roughly a year or so before the events of Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Don't ask me how I know that or how I came to that conclusion.<strong>

**So yeah. I'm going to give this story the old college try once I wrap up some previous business that supersedes new projects. Hopefully it goes well. Here's one for trying yeah? Capcom fighting games bridge into each other too so I'm going to try and touch that a bit.**

**Later. Kenchi out.**


	2. Local Legends

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter… and Capcom has the best studio made background music in the video game business in my opinion, especially for Street Fighter. Even Megaman boss theme remixes rule. It's just all good shit and most of the remixes one can find on Youtube are good. I mean… Guile's theme goes with everything.

Everything.

Enjoy the chapter.

**Chapter 2: Local Legends**

* * *

><p>The month long summer vacation had ended and school was back in session, much to the chagrin of the vast majority of students in Aohura City.<p>

A loud yawn came from Naruto as he and Sakura sat outside under a tree for the duration of their lunch. Well… Sakura was sitting under the tree. Naruto was sitting _in_ the tree, out of sight of anyone that didn't already know he was there. This more or less only meant Sakura knew he was there, and anyone that wanted to find him would have to come to her first. She'd pretend that she didn't know he was there and would give him whatever message anyone had for him later, all the while Naruto was up in the tree or somewhere high and out of view depending on where they ate listening to every word only known to her.

Huh… so maybe he was a ninja after all.

A smile came to the aspiring female fighter's face when she saw another girl walking up to her spot under the tree. In between a sip of her juice, Sakura waved at her friend, "You took a while getting out here Kei-chan. Lunch only has ten minutes left."

Chitose Kei was a girl Sakura and Naruto's age that wore the same uniform Sakura did. She had long brown hair and a yellow band in it. Unlike Sakura she had absolutely no tomboy traits whatsoever. Naruto honestly didn't know how the two were such good friends since Kei was the exact opposite of Sakura; she detested fighting, and unlike Sakura seemed to take in things like boys and clothes. Sakura liked clothes, but the only boy she was interested in much to Naruto's never-ending annoyance due to having to deal with it was Ryu.

Kei smiled and sat down under the tree, pulling out a bento box in a hurry so that she had time to eat something before time ran out, "I just heard a super-weird rumor…" She looked around while breaking apart a pair of chopsticks, "Speaking of which, do you know where Naruto is? It kind of involves him." She knew he was around there close by somewhere and she could have just said it and he'd hear it, but it seemed too much like talking about someone behind their back, and doing something like that about a friend wasn't cool.

Sakura's eyes drifted upwards momentarily and the leaves rustled as an upside down Naruto stuck his head and upper torso out of the leaves, suddenly scaring the rather normal girl when she saw him calmly sipping on a juice box, "Yo."

"Yo yourself." Kei said, getting her heart rate back to normal after Naruto's appearance raised it. Man he was the weirdest American she had ever seen, and it wasn't just the ninja thing either, "Why are you in the tree?"

Naruto stopped drinking and looked around at the two girls below him, "…Because it's more fun than being on the ground." Kei threw a wrapper at him that bounced off his forehead in response.

A small laugh came from Sakura before she turned her attention back to the main topic at hand, "So back to whatever you were talking about Kei-chan. What's the rumor involving Naruto? Is it another high school's punks coming to call him out again?"

"It doesn't matter if it is." Naruto said, narrowing his eyes at Sakura, "You never help me when they do."

"You never need help."

"…Not really the point."

Sakura rolled her eyes while Kei shook her head in the negative and continued, "It's not a gang this time thank goodness. It's just one guy really. And he's not demanding that you face him and he's not out looking for you like everyone else always does. He's in the town plaza breaking bricks, doing demonstrations, and calling you out. He wears a gi and everything. He even threw a Hadoken (Surge Fist) as a demonstration."

"A fighter with a Hadoken?" Sakura got her hopes up immediately upon hearing that, "Does that mean that he came back? How long is that person supposed to be in the plaza? Please tell me he's not leaving anytime soon!" Ryu was a wanderer for certain and he wasn't going to hang around anywhere for too long if he didn't have to. It was what made finding him so hard the previous year for the schoolgirl.

Kei gave Sakura an amused smile, knowing full well of her noted interest in Ryu while Naruto made a gagging gesture with his hands. A swat to the shoulder stopped that though, "You're in luck then. I heard that the guy said he wasn't leaving a public area until Uzumaki Naruto stopped hiding in the shadows and came out to face him like a man instead of waiting to attack him from behind like a mouse."

"Hiding in the shadows?" Naruto hated people calling him out and saying that he was ducking them. He most certainly did not, he'd fight anyone face-to-face… even if he knew he was shirking his ninja responsibilities to win without having to resort to head-on fighting. But he hadn't fought any other ninja so far so it was cool, "…I'm in school. Doesn't this guy know that?"

And just like that, Sakura's expression dropped, "Haah… It's not Ryu. First of all even if he was looking for Naruto he'd never do anything that brazen to get him to come out, and he definitely wouldn't insult Naruto's fighting style. He'd just look for him. Demonstrations aren't really his thing either."

"More important things to worry about here." Naruto said, his attention raptly on Kei at this point and not dealing with Sakura's Ryu deprivation issues, "This isn't good. If that guy keeps talking for too long he's gonna screw with my business." He needed that money. He almost had what he needed to get started and every little bit helped. He got dry looks from the pair of girls and felt the need to defend himself, "Hey, just because you guys are too cheap to hire me for stuff doesn't mean people in this town don't do it either."

Kei gave Naruto a deadpan look in between taking bites of her food, "Just how many people in Aohura City need a professional ninja?"

Naruto grinned and pointed to himself, "I'm more than just a pair of fists you know. I do gardening and landscaping, household repair, a little construction here or there, animal care-."

A smirk came to Kei's face at that point, "So you're basically saying that you cut grass, you're a cheap source of manpower, you dig ditches, and you walk dogs. Am I wrong about any of that?"

Naruto turned his back and sat in a gloomy manner, poking his finger into the dirt, "D-rank missions pay the bills too… I can't always kick ass." At that point his cell phone went off, getting him to turn back around to the girls as he fished it out of his pocket and flipped it open, "Batsu? What do you want? Aren't _you_ in school right now?"

Ichimonji Batsu. Another one of Naruto's friends and he was something of a street punk, but that was only by proxy of what he got mixed up in. He had a brawling style, even less polished than Naruto's, but his use of ki to back up his fighting made him one of the most dangerous people Naruto knew. Apparently he had taken instructions from an online ninjutsu combat instruction page to learn his fighting style, and this was eventually how the two of them met.

Because Batsu was very interested in anything involving a ninja, and Naruto was hiring himself out as a ninja. When they met, Batsu was very underwhelmed by Naruto's presence and the hotheaded young man apparently let Naruto verbally have it on how he wasn't a ninja and how it was false advertising. Naturally, Naruto took exception to this, and then they fought.

And then they wound up friends despite attending different schools.

He proceeded to put the phone on speaker so the girls could hear the conversation.

"_It's called lunch retard. But whatever. You hear about the guy downtown talking about you?"_

"Yeah." Naruto said with a touch of confusion, "You know about it too?"

"_How can anyone not know about it? Everyone has to go through that place to go across town and it's not like the guy's quiet. You should hear some of this stuff. Someone's spoiling for a fight with you."_

"Kami, I'm in high school!" Naruto yelled loudly to no one in particular, "If someone's going to talk shit they should at least give me time to get out of class first before they keep saying more!" Naruto growled when he heard Batsu chuckle over the line, "Stop laughing. If it was you, you'd be all grumpy and pissed too."

"_A friend of mine is coming with me to check this out afterschool. You're probably going to be there with bells on aren't you?"_

"You'll be seeing me there for sure, dattebayo." Naruto said full of intent at this point. He didn't even want to hear anymore about what this guy was saying. Looking at his two friends he punched his palm, "Man I can't wait for school to let out…"

XxX

(Later That Day – Downtown – Aohura City Town Plaza)

"Why are you here?" Naruto said in a disenfranchised voice as he, Sakura, and Kei headed within the park where the plaza was located at the center of. Someone had met up with them on the street just as they crossed the street to get into the park itself.

The reason for Naruto's, and to an even higher extent Sakura's, feelings on the matter was the fact that it was Karin that had found them and met up with them. Flipping her hair over her shoulder, the blonde heiress responded, "Well naturally, you work for me. And if there's some fool out there slighting your good name he's slighting my own as well. I'm just here to make sure you defend both your honor and my own."

"You have honor?" Sakura quipped with a smirk at the jab on her rival.

"More than you copycat." Karin retorted without missing a beat. The copycat jab got a bewildered look from Sakura before she growled at Karin who continued to goad her, "Keep mimicking a real fighter and maybe one of these days someone will believe you actually are one."

As fun as a catfight between the two would be, this was neither the time nor the place for one, "If you two henhouse hens are finished clucking, could you help me look for Batsu so I can go kick some ass?" the two girls continued to glare at each other, but they were silent. Naruto turned towards Kei, "Did these two really go at it that hard last year?"

"You should have been here Naruto." Kei said, remembering that she hadn't really taken Sakura serious as a fighter until she had gone up against Karin in her tournament.

"Sakura-chan!"

Sakura heard someone call out to her and broke her glare with Karin to see a girl with a princess-style haircut, colored brown with a white headband on. She had, orange wristbands, a blue school uniform skirt and a blue sleeveless vest with a pink bow on over a white short-sleeved shirt and she was waving at Sakura excitedly, something that Sakura found infectious, "Hinata-chan!"

One more time Naruto felt a stab at the memory portion of his brain due to the name, but once again the name did not fit the person he had originally placed it with.

Wakaba Hinata was nothing like the Hinata from Naruto's time in Konoha in more than just appearance. As one of Sakura's best friends that went to another school, Naruto knew her fairly well. This girl liked fighting and was very energetic. How she was trained, Naruto had no idea and Sakura's explanations were very vague. Naruto was starting to think that too many people knew how to fight for his own good and it was his fault for living there.

Hinata ran over to Sakura and the two squealed and hugged, annoying Karin at the display of affection before Hinata turned around and motioned back to where she had run from, "Come on Batsu! You're so slow! I found Naruto-san, and look! Sakura-chan and Kei-chan are here with him!" She spared a look at Karin and stared for a moment before blinking her big brown eyes, "…I don't know you!" She said brightly, getting Karin to cross her arms and roll her eyes.

From the wall of people that had formed a crowd ahead of them, out walked Batsu with his hands in his light blue school uniform's pockets smirking at Naruto with his short, spiky dark hair and dark eyes, "Well look what the cat dragged in. You finally came 'out of hiding' Naruto?" He said with a chuckle, "You've seriously got to get a load of this guy." He saw Naruto's face and chuckled again, "You're mad now, but you really won't be when you see him, I guarantee it."

He motioned for Naruto to follow him while Sakura, Kei, and Hinata chattered. With no one really she wished to be around out of the girls to talk to, Karin went to follow Naruto and Batsu through the crowd, though doing such irked her to push her way through the commoners.

At the front of the thick wall of people by an ornate fountain, Naruto and Batsu stopped, one smirking and the other just gawking at what they were seeing. Karin was quick to catch up and even she placed a hand by her mouth to laugh a bit when she saw what the other two did.

Being observed by the crowd was a man with long brown hair tied into a ponytail and sideburns, a traditional karate gi and 4 oz. gloves on wearing a black undershirt underneath his gi. The thing about the gi and the gloves was the fact that they were bright pink.

After breaking a stack of bricks to the applause of the crowd, the man began picking up photos of himself from a stack that he had and started quickly signing them and handing them out to everyone at the front of the crowd, "Yes, and now you can see the strength of Saikyou-ryuu (The Strongest Style)! I can see how many of you are interested in learning my self-made devastating art! You love it! I can see it in your eyes! And since you all do, I'll give all of you here a 50% discount at my dojo! Just 3395 yen a month! Apply now and you'll get a free Hibiki Dan imitation gi t-shirt!"

Naruto and Karin's eyes twitched at the man's display and the people applauding him, "He only broke like four bricks." Naruto said in disbelief at how popular the man seemed to be as people seemed to be cheering him on.

"Strongest style…" Karin said to herself, thinking along the same lines as Naruto, "What a gaudy name." She watched him do the same again with overdramatic effect added, "This is not a demonstration, it is just a promotional spot for this degrading fighting style." She turned to Naruto and spoke directly to him, "He just wants to fight you to get his fighting style popular around here."

"See what I mean?" Batsu said, elbowing Naruto in the side, "You aren't even mad anymore are you? I was about to go out and nip this clown in the bud after all of the stuff I'd been hearing from a girl in school about you all day, but I saw this guy and figured you'd want to do it yourself." He then gave Naruto a pat on the back, hard enough to knock him from the crowd, "Go get em teme!"

Naruto stumbled out and turned back to glare slightly at Batsu before shrugging. There wasn't any reason to be mad, he was going to do it soon enough anyway.

The man caught sight of Naruto stumbling out from the crowd and a gleam came to his eye as he walked over to Naruto and threw an arm around his shoulder, "So you're brave enough to approach me yourself to declare yourself my disciple are you? Well never fear! I never turn away a student… as long as their checks clear!" He turned and displayed Naruto to the whole crowd, "And you too can be a powerful and respected fighter the way this young man will after training in my Saikyou-ryuu style! Just wait until Uzumaki Naruto gets here! He'll bow to the combat prowess of my skills firsthand!"

And there was his opening. Naruto smirked and slipped out of the man's grasp, "But I am Uzumaki Naruto." He said, watching the sheer confidence on the man's face turn to confusion and then to skepticism, "Oi… what's with that face?"

"No way you're Uzumaki Naruto." The pink-clad fighter said, pointing at Naruto in an overly accusing manner, "My sweet little cousin Ran told me that Uzumaki Naruto was the number one consensus most dangerous man in Aohura City and the whole Chugoku region! People know that name from here all the way to Chiba! There's no way in hell that the most dangerous in the west half of Japan is a kid."

Ran… Batsu knew that name, "You mean Hibiki Ran? Freshman? Always has a camera with her? Nosy as hell?" He asked the man as he stayed in the crowd with Karin. If it was the same Ran then he went to school with that girl. He could see the resemblance in more than one way because they acted alike too.

"Yes!" The man said before bursting into dramatic tears cascading down his face, "That's my baby cousin! Such a dear girl, she gave me this scoop on Uzumaki Naruto, and even took all of these pictures of me for my soon-to-be dojo's publicity!"

Batsu blocked a laugh with a snort and pointed out at Naruto who was standing, tapping his foot impatiently, "Well I hate to break it to you, but Ran's never seen Naruto before. That's really Uzumaki Naruto. Right there." The crowd, those of which had seen Naruto in the past began speaking up as well about how that was indeed Naruto.

Rolling his eyes at the gobsmacked look on his would-be opponent's face, Naruto began unbuttoning his uniform top, taking it off in favor of the white t-shirt he had on underneath it as he tied the uniform top around his waist, "So I heard you've been looking for me. Who are you anyway?"

That seemed to set the man off, putting a tick mark on his head, "You haven't heard of me? What, have you been living under a rock or something kid? I'm Hibiki Dan! World renowned fighter extraordinaire!"

"Who?" Naruto said, squinting his eyes at Dan and scratching his head.

Dan stomped his bare foot on the ground repeatedly in something of a little tantrum, "How don't you know who I am? I just beat Sagat last year! You can't tell me you didn't hear about that!"

Naruto, Karin, and Batsu all face faulted on the ground before standing up and shouting at the same time, "_You_ beat Sagat?"

The last man perceived as the very best fighter in the world, Sagat was called "The God of Muay Thai" and went unbeaten for over twenty years since winning his title as a teenager. He lost in the final battle of the World Warrior tournament to Ryu, but that was Ryu… and Naruto had seen him fight. Both of them. Sagat was a monster of a man and the most talented hand-to-hand fighter he had ever seen. Ryu somehow beat him and Naruto didn't even want to feel like he was taking this Dan guy seriously.

"That is absurd!" Karin exclaimed in complete disbelief, shaking her head and her blonde, curly locks around only for everyone in the crowd besides them to nod, "Really? This man defeated Sagat? _The_ Sagat?"

Batsu had his phone out and was checking on the internet at that very moment before his beady black eyes went wide, "Uh… I'm checking the site where they track fighters and their recorded streetfighting wins and losses… and it's true. This guy has a win recorded over Sagat." He held up his phone to actually show the list of recorded fights Dan had. Honestly if one were to overlook the win he had over Sagat it would be kind of pathetic. It was the only name win that he really had, "…And this site is noted for being the most factual out of them all, no rumor-centered stories, only hard evidence."

"And now I'm travelling around showing the world how great my technique is!" Dan asserted proudly pointing to himself with his thumb, "The technique that was good enough to get me a victory over the God of Muay Thai! And you're next Uzumaki. A legend like myself can't overlook the up-and-comers either."

"Yeah dude…" Batsu interjected again in order to address Naruto, tapping away on his phone to do a bit more research, "You're ranked. In Japan you're ranked as the number 74 best fighter of the country out of top 100."

That utterly confused Naruto, "Wait, I'm ranked? I don't prizefight. I'm a street fighter at best."

A shrug came from Batsu, "What do you want me to say? You're ranked. They even have your recorded win-losses against other people in here. Apparently more than a few people that you beat up had some kind of notoriety somewhere. They even have your wins over this girl right here, me, Sakura, and others from around here. You've fought almost everyone worth a damn in Aohura City by now for one reason or another."

"How in the hell did they get any of those things?" Naruto shouted, feeling that his privacy had been quite invaded. He never told anyone that he had beaten anyone other than those that were his friends, and that was only whenever the topic came up.

"Everybody's got a phone with a video camera, a regular camera, or at least internet access these days dumbass." Batsu said, having no patience for the fact that Naruto was a technological invalid for the most part, "It's not that much of a stretch that not only someone knows you beat somebody, but four out of five times if you did it in public there's probably a video of it somewhere. Have you ever Googled you? Maybe we should try it later."

Karin tapped her chin in thought over the ranking after first disputing with herself why herself or Sakura hadn't been in the top 100 despite winning her own share of street fights and getting to the finals of her tournament last year, "That actually does make sense though. You _do_ go everywhere in Japan." And with Naruto's luck he probably beat up more than his share of people as well even when he didn't have jobs that involved it. Naruto's luck usually revolved around violence of some sort.

But no matter who this person had beaten, he had still called Naruto out, and Naruto was ready and raring to go, bouncing on his toes to limber up and prepare. Dan likewise set himself into a fighting stance that looked like Ryu's only looser, "I hope you're ready for a beating kid!"

"*chuckle* You're gonna need an extra six-pack of courage to step up to me, dattebayo!" Naruto said in reply as he set himself into a fighting stance to prepare for Dan, "You called me out, so you can tell me when to start."

"Fight!" Dan said before running right at Naruto, screeching with an obnoxious battle cry.

It threw Naruto off guard for a moment before he realized that they never made rules… which obviously meant that there were no rules. Around Naruto's left wrist was a small sleeve-like band that held shuriken on the wide sides of his wrist. It was usually concealed by his jacket, but not today. He quickly grabbed a shuriken from the pouch in it and threw it right at Dan, expecting him to dodge it and preparing to go with however Dan moved to evade.

Dan did not evade.

The shuriken hit Dan right in the upper right chest and stopped his attack run right in his tracks as he grabbed at the metal throwing star and started instantly whining, "Gah! Did you just throw a ninja star at me! Ow! Who does that?"

"A ninja." Both Karin and Batsu deadpanned.

Dan poked at the shuriken several times, flinching in pain and choosing not to pull it out himself before looking back over at Naruto, "Hey! Who told you that you could use weapons?"

Naruto looked around vacantly before shrugging, "Who told me that I _couldn't_ use weapons? Now stop whining and fight me already!"

"That's it kid!" Dan said, flexing and trying to be threatening to Naruto and failing miserably, "You're asking for the thunder? Well Dan is bringing it right to you! Dankukyaku (Severing Air Leg)!" Dan rushed at Naruto and jumped at him, delivering a knee strike that was blocked, followed by a long kick with the opposite leg that was also stopped and a final kick that sent Naruto stumbling back despite the fact that it registered no injury on Naruto's person due to the guard of the young blonde. After Dan landed he turned and posed to the crowd, "Yeah! Feel the power! How'd you like that ki-?"

He turned around to face Naruto again only to get socked right in the face hard enough to spin back towards the fountain like a top, being stopped by the stone rim of said fountain keeping him from falling into the water.

Dan cracked his jaw and spit some blood out of his mouth, "Hey! I had my back turned!"

Naruto stomped his foot tantrum style, "I don't care! You beat Sagat didn't you? Take me seriously and fight me like you fought him or I'm going to kick your teeth down your throat! Don't underestimate me! I might be a kid, but that doesn't mean anything!"

Standing back up off of the fountain, Dan narrowed his eyes at Naruto and started channeling visible ki to his right hand, "Alright junior. You asked for it and you're right. If I don't go all out how else will anyone know that my style is the best? It works two ways for me to fight you properly, so you win. You get the Hibiki Dan signature move! Get ready to feel it kid! Gadoken (Self-Taught Fist)!"

Dan threw his attack at Naruto with one hand and it looked just like a perfect Hadoken, unlike Sakura's which had more marked differences from the real deal. It actually alarmed Naruto and how good it looked.

…For the five feet that it flew before dissipating.

Karin probably would have laughed if it hadn't been so pathetic, "…Performance anxiety I presume." She commented to Batsu who could only nod dumbly.

Naruto just stood and stared before turning towards his two friends at the front of the crowd, noticing that the person he was looking for was not amongst the pair, "Oi! Sakura-chan! Are you watching this at all?" He yelled, trying to get the girl's attention wherever she was in the crowd.

"I can't see Naruto! Nobody's moving! What's happening?"

A grin came to Naruto's face as he cupped his hands over his mouth to project his shout better, "You don't have the worst Hadoken I've ever seen before anymore!" Dan animatedly fell to the ground upon that declaration from Naruto.

Hearing Naruto start to laugh at him and his fighting skills, Dan got angry and pointed at Naruto, "At least I have my own attacks! What can you do except crawl around and hide like a roach under the fridge? Tell me what you can do."

Naruto stopped laughing, a chuckle coming out every now and then as he responded, "Well I can't do a Hadoken either, so I guess picking on you isn't fair. But I can do this though." He formed the ram hand-seal and then formed three more, stopping on the dragon seal and inhaling sharply before exhaling and spitting, "Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!"

From Naruto's mouth flew a blue wispy ball of blue energy that managed to fly straight towards Dan who was smart enough to jump away and dodge it, showing that he was actually well conditioned from the height of his jump. The attack from Naruto flew and exploded off of the head of the human figure at the center of the fountain, knocking the head of the statue clean off

"Whoops." Naruto said, looking mortified at the public property damage of his jutsu, "My bad, I'll fix that later for fr-." Before he could finish, Dan fell from the sky and landed with a punch that snapped Naruto's head to the side and sent him stumbling, the crowd gasping at the clear impact of the landed strike.

"Hah! How do you like that?" Dan verbally taunted before slightly backing off and cocking his arm back with a hand full of ki, "Gadoken (Self-Taught Fist)!" This time he was well within the range of the attack and the ball of energy slammed clean off of Naruto's open torso, sending him flying back through the crowd of people that he bumped into with force, "Yeah! Looks like another victory for Hibiki Dan!" He posed to the crowd before he felt movement from Naruto, "Come on, that was full force. Who pops right back up from that?"

Naruto coughed and thumped his chest with his fist before getting back up from the ground, "That was it?" He asked, looking over himself and not even seeing any damage done to his clothes, "Sakura-chan's Hadoken at least burns me a little bit when it hits. That was like a punch with ki. It didn't even hurt any worse."

The crowd scattered away to get a better view once Dan ran towards Naruto and the two began to exchange actual strikes. Starting with a stiff straight punch, Dan missed Naruto who retaliated with a side kick to the body to knock him off balance. Naruto went to make his hand-seal for some Kage Bunshin help, but Dan didn't let him begin a special technique, punching Naruto in the face and breaking his focus.

Trying to form clones several more times didn't bear any fruit, except for when Naruto used the Kage Bunshin hand-seal to block a kick from Dan, 'So maybe he doesn't suck.' Naruto switched from trying to use a jutsu to simply fighting hand-to-hand again before he screwed around and got his teeth knocked out by this guy. Slipping away from a side kick, Naruto grabbed the kick with one hand and pulled himself towards Dan to strike him hard in the face with a backfist that had momentum behind it.

Blood flew from Dan's nose and he huffed out of it to clear his sinuses of the red, spraying it all over, including on his and Naruto's clothes and face. Naruto jumped back from the exchange and wiped Dan's blood from his own face in a bit of disgust before finally making the cross hand-seal, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Technique)!"

Dan's jaw dropped when twenty Narutos stood between him and the original and rushed him. He soon recovered though and began taking them in the order that they reached him, blocking their strikes and forcing them to come to him, refusing to let himself get surrounded by the group as he cut into their numbers. A punch to one's stomach and a kick to one's head that dispelled two clones and Dan jumped right out of the soon to ensue pileup before he was stuck.

Three clones jumped into the air after Dan only to be met with a Gadoken that hit one clone and knocked it into the other two, dispelling all three. The crowd began to cheer as Dan landed and started fighting off Naruto's clones again until they all dispelled en masse, creating a large smokescreen.

"Rah!" Naruto dove right through the smoke and delivered a skull-shaking shot to Dan's face that shook him and forced him to recoil right down to his foundations. His knees shook and nearly buckled Naruto struck him so hard. In Naruto's other hand he formed a Rasengan to put the fight to bed right then and there, Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

"Gadoken (Self-Taught Fist)!"

The two attacks met and exploded in a blast, knocking both combatants away from each other. Naruto flew into the fountain and slammed off of the statue, landing in the water face down, submerging and then resurfacing, staying there momentarily before pulling his head up and gagging on the water. Dan, despite being thrown away much harder, had an easier landing with a crowd of slow-moving spectators to break his fall. Naruto popped up, pissed off that he was thoroughly soaked and ran a hand through his wet hair, "Okay. I'm definitely awake now. Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!"

Dan jumped out of the way of the attack and the crowd scattered and hit the deck, finally giving Sakura and the other girls a chance to see the fight clearly with Karin and Batsu.

"Come on Naruto!" Batsu yelled at Naruto as he saw his friend jump out of the fountain to attack Dan again up close, "Stop screwing around and knock this motherfucker out!" The wild haired boy was fidgeting impatiently, "He fought me harder than this. Why's he just dicking around here?"

Sakura wondered the same thing as well until she saw people getting closer to the fight once again to watch Naruto and Dan go back and forth, missing their strikes, "That's it." She said as if she found out a realization, "There are too many people around here."

"What does that have to do with anything Sakura-chan?" Hinata asked curiously, "Naruto doesn't seem like a shy guy that plays things close to the vest like that." From a few past meetings where Naruto would routinely use his abilities for even the most rudimentary things like getting up to get himself a drink it was clear that discretion was not the better part of valor for Naruto.

Kei had to nod in agreement, "Naruto's a total showoff kind of person. He loves stuff like this; fights in public where people can see him. He'd almost be as obnoxious about his fighting as this Dan guy is if it weren't for the fact that Naruto can totally back it up."

Naruto stuck to walls regularly, walked upside down on ceilings in the hallway at school just because he was bored, and he tried to skip school before by leaving a clone in his seat. He would have gotten away with the last one too if his clone hadn't been just like him in every way, attention span included, and fell asleep in class. When the teacher smacked him with her ruler 'Naruto' vanished in a puff of smoke.

"No it's not that." Sakura disputed, pointing out how much closer people were moving still, "Look." They just wanted to get a better view, but it was messing with Naruto whenever he tried to back off to begin a jutsu or thought of using weapons, "It doesn't bother Dan because when he throws his Gadoken, it's never going to go out of control. Naruto's spitfire and all of his bigger attacks are dangerous."

Frowning at the thought of Naruto holding back so that he didn't hurt anyone, Karin spoke up, "Uzumaki is a total bleeding heart. If someone gets in his way, they should have just been faster. It's their own faults for standing too close to a fight if he hurts someone."

"You know Naruto's not like that." Sakura said, narrowing her eyes at Karin, "If these people don't get out of his way he's not going to use his big moves." She looked back at the battle with Naruto trying to knock Dan around, but every time he was about to deliver a punishing blow or wished to smash him into sweet unconsciousness, his setups would steer Dan back enough to get him close to the people. The circle seemed to be getting tighter and tighter.

"He has 'big' moves?" Karin asked with a raised eyebrow and an interested look. And he wouldn't use said big attacks as long as there were people around? Well she was curious, and Naruto's propensity to think of others was not going to keep her from sating it. That could be remedied very quickly. Karin cleared her throat and held up her wallet from her schoolbag, "Everyone that stands back away from the fight and gives them a properly wide berth of at least forty feet all around, I will pay them 5000 yen each!"

Eyes panned away from the fight and even Naruto (and the three clones he had helping him) as well as Dan stopped to look at Karin in shock. Skepticism appeared on many people's faces until she rolled her eyes and reached into her wallet to pull out a large wad of banknotes.

Hinata blinked at the sight of everyone stepping back like obedient dogs and looked at Karin who had a pleased and victorious look on her face, "Wow… you _do _know that this is like at least seventy people, right? That's 350,000 yen."

Karin looked at the amount of money she still had in her hand and looked into her wallet before frowning, "Shibazaki, could you go to the bank for me and withdraw enough money for upwards of seventy people?" Almost seeming to appear out of thin air, Shibazaki appeared, scaring the hell out of the other four spectator friends of Naruto. He bowed and took her bank card before making off to head to the nearest place to withdraw from, "There we go." She said in a pleased voice, "Now you'd better stop holding back Uzumaki-san. I won't hire weak people to represent me." She said in something of a sing-song voice.

"Fine." Naruto said with a grin, "I've got space to cut loose now. No holding back! Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Technique)!"

The large space between the crowd was filled by nothing but copies of Naruto, completely surrounding Dan on all sides, "W-What the hell is this? It's mirrors! It has to be mirrors! People can't do this kind of thing!"

"Man it's been a while since I tried to use a lot of clones like this at once." Naruto said as all of his clones seemed to be smirking, cracking their knuckles, and looking at Dan with squinted eyes, "Let's see your 'Strongest Style' block this!"

The clones started to rush Dan and grab a hold of him. He managed to take out several, but compared to the dozens in the plaza it was no good and eventually his arms and legs were bound by the Kage Bunshin. They then threw him into the air and like a swarm of bugs taking off from an apple the others started launching into the air after Dan who was flipping head over heels. The first clones to reach him kicked him down to the others that punched him higher back into the air, letting other clones boost up off of their shoulders when they were dropping to the ground to get a higher jump over Dan where they kicked him down again, and this just went on and on and on until it was clear he could no longer continue.

Naruto dispelled his clones and let the quite thoroughly beaten up Dan fall to the ground, unconscious and covered in bumps and bruises to say the very least, "Uzumaki Naruto Mugen Rendan (Naruto Uzumaki Infinite Combo). Remember, I'm Uzumaki Naruto… and to you and everyone else, the greatest ninja alive." Naruto said with a smile before turning to the crowd with a displeased look on his face, "The next time you see people winging balls of concussive ki or chakra around, get the fuck away from them you idiots!"

A Hadoken that could sustain itself at a distance would have been tagging fools left and right if Dan's could have lasted longer than five feet. And those idiots just kept moving closer and closer despite the fact that over a dozen people had been injured during the fight. So he felt that he was in the right when profanely shrieking angrily at them, shooing them all away from the scene to get away from the crazy blonde teenager.

After properly scolding the present populace to his heart's content, Naruto put his grin back on and turned to Karin, "Thanks for the open space by the way. His special moves really sucked, but his basics were pretty solid." Training with Sakura cleaned up his hand-to-hand fighting in close with no maneuverability, but he'd always be partial to the hit and run moves that comprised his main strategy.

Still stunned as she had never seen the full scope of Naruto's Kage Bunshin creation capabilities, Karin had to take a moment to snap out of it and put her normal façade back on, "O-Oh. Do not mention it Uzumaki-san." As they spoke and she got her swagger back, Shibazaki was in the background paying everyone, "You had to save your job after all. Good work by the way." She walked out and poked at Dan with her foot, getting a groan from him, "_This_ person defeated Sagat? I do not believe it."

Naruto gave her a deadpan look as the others walked out to join them, "I don't know if I should take that as you calling me weak or what." He then found himself in a headlock from Batsu, "Hey! Get off of me jackass!"

"Heh…" Batsu said, sneering at Naruto while giving his friend a noogie, "You see what happens when you hold back? You make a fight harder than it should be. You should have been winging shuriken and using spitfires until you ran out of weapons and energy."

"There. Were. People!" Naruto said, lifting Batsu off of the ground and throwing him off of his shoulders. Naruto clicked his teeth in annoyance when Batsu just rolled through it and landed on his feet, "I don't want to kill anybody." He spared a look down at the Dan, "Even this guy. My bigger moves… that one was the nicest one. They get worse."

Sakura's eyes went wide, "Your attacks get stronger? But that combination had to have been more than a thousand hits. That was amazing." He said he hadn't made that many clones at once in years, and he had never even thought to go that far to fight against her. She didn't know how to feel. Happy that he cared enough to make sure she stayed alright, or upset because he didn't ever find enough of a reason to fight like that against her.

"That wasn't even close to my worst Sakura-chan." Naruto said with a pronounced grimace, "The last time I actually went all out…" The last time he had been forced to go all out it had been a fight that was more or less to the death that had dumped him in this world, away from his home, "…Well, I just… nevermind."

"Well…" Hinata started before laughing spiritedly, "That was awesome! You punched and kicked that guy so many times I lost count! He's out cold!" The petite girl's bright mood broke Naruto's funk just like that.

Naruto smiled before his brain seemed to take a moment to buffer and he spoke half-robotically, answering her question, "I hit him 817 times." He then noticed the others looking at him in shock, "What?"

"I didn't even know you could count that high." Batsu jibed, getting a small giggle out of Kei before the older boy took an elbow to the belly from Hinata for being mean to the victor of the day.

Karin had a blonde eyebrow arched in interest at learning more and more about Naruto and his strange abilities while Sakura just came out with it and asked the question that was eating at her and her rival, "Naruto how do you know that? Nobody was counting those."

"One or two of my clones counted. I think they got between 830 and 750. 817 sounds good though, right?"

"They didn't say anything to you before they dispelled."

"Yeah, I know." Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly as they all began to leave the plaza, "It's weird. When my clones go away I think I get their experiences back, like a flash of déjà vu. It's creepy if it's something that I wasn't there for… like when Kaede-sensei hit my clone in class."

They all kept talking amongst themselves while Dan lay there on the ground, finally waking back up and groaning in pain, twitching every now and again, "Ugh…I… gurk. I'm still the man… I'm still the man. I'm… blacking out again." He said before going limp, "…3395 a month… free gi replica shirt…"

XxX

(Later That Afternoon)

After the trouble in the plaza downtown, the lot of kids went to a small burger place to get something to eat (Karin had sent Ishizaki to go get her something more suitable to her refined palate.). There, Naruto had gotten a good eyeful of this website that ranked fighters around the world; .

Looking at Kei's laptop with a dropped jaw, Naruto sat between Karin and Batsu while Sakura, Kei, and Hinata sat on the other side of the booth. He didn't know quite how to feel about what he was seeing, "I'm famous?" He was well-known to an extent, the way he had always wanted to be when he was younger and still did pretty much. The funny thing was that it didn't seem like it at all, but if people were calling him out that had to count for something, "I don't feel famous."

"You are not famous moron." Karin said, bursting his bubble before either his head started to swell or he zoned out to daydream about his 'fame' at the table. She took a bite of her fancy looking food brought to her by her butler, "You are well-known in certain circles, but you are not famous. No one outside of this town that does not actively train knows who you are, and even if you went to the mainland I doubt that five people would know your name."

"His name's kind of cool and sticks with you though." Kei lamely added, getting a shake of the head from Karin, "Hey Naruto are you done yet? You've seen your little profile already."

Naruto waved her off as he was barely listening at that point though, instead checking to see how complete this whole thing happened to be as he read his results aloud, "…212 recorded one-on-one fights, no proven losses." He then frowned, "No notable victories."

Batsu barked out a laugh at hearing that and dodged a french fry thrown at his head from Naruto, "So basically, they're saying that your record is padded. You have a lot of fights against nobodies, but you've never been seen losing so they had to give you some kind of credit. Look."

He pointed out Naruto's list of past opponents and the vast majority of them didn't have a name, just being noted as 'random opponent 1' all the way to the end of the number of Naruto's mot recent fight against an unnamed opponent. There were well over 150 of these. Batsu then held back a snicker as Naruto scrolled lower and read the comments left on his profile page by site contributors in chronological order from the latest one written.

_-How many stupid fuckers voted Uzumaki Naruto high consistently enough to get him in the top 100 in Japan? He's never even fought a tournament match._

_-#74 my ass. He should stop kicking around nobodies if he actually wants someone to rank him for real._

_-Uzumaki is just a violent delinquent kid with ki abilities. He's more of a sociopath than a fighter to look out for. If he stepped up and fought someone with some name notoriety then maybe he'd deserve it, but 200+ fights against nameless tomato cans isn't helping his case. He might as well beat up a punching bag on camera for all most of his wins are worth._

_-I'd love to see any of you win 200 fights straight against 'nameless tomato cans'. I'd love to see any of you win a single fight period. There's a reason you're all here posting on this website talking about guys like him instead of having us talk about you. I think Uzumaki could take some of the top 20 if he ever had the shot. He _is _like 15 after all. Just how well traveled do you expect him to be?_

_-Exactly. He's greener than a blade of fucking grass. If he wanted to be a real fighter he should have just forgone high school to train. He's wasting his own time and effort now with school if he's trying to do both at once. It's just stupid._

_-How is he green? He's been on the radar for three years. Eventually he had to break through to the top 100. All fighters under the rank of 20 are pretty much future prospects, washed up old contenders, and journeymen. I'd say Uzumaki's a prospect._

_-The second he takes on a real fighter he'll get slaughtered. I heard Hibiki Dan was looking for him. I can't wait until the results from that surface up. Being unbeaten is all he has. The first time he loses there's no reason to keep him in the top 100. Boot his bogus ninja-wannabe ass out!_

Naruto shut Kei's laptop much to Batsu's chagrin as he was still reading the comments. They were the best part of the page in his opinion, "Aw, come on. Some of those were kind of funny. At least let me read the archives from last month." He turned to the others and the table when Naruto handed Kei's laptop back to her, "Some people have enough time to argue over some guy they'll never meet in person I guess."

Sakura noticed that Naruto was uncharacteristically silent and reached out a hand to grab his forearm and get his attention, "Naruto are you alright? What are you thinking?"

He looked at his brown-haired best friend and audibly clicked his teeth irritably before answering, "I was just thinking that I could probably find all of these people and kick their asses for talking shit about me."

"That's pretty much what the internet is for Naruto…" Kei said, placing her laptop back into her back for safekeeping, "…Slandering others anonymously. Finding these people and beating them up isn't going to change that. It would probably make it worse."

"I can just imagine the reaction comments now." The thought of Naruto beating up some web contributors and then reading what they'd post about him next thoroughly amused Hinata. And then thinking of his possible reaction to that had her giggling in fits, "You'd be better off just not going back to that site again. It'll only make you madder."

"At least he's ranked…" Batsu added, even though he didn't mention the fact that he himself was ranked #99 in Japan. He was rather proud of that fact and he wasn't stupid enough to read the comments on him like Naruto.

Sakura then gave Naruto a soothing smile to try and make him feel better, "You don't really even care about being ranked or not at all anyway. Being the best isn't why you fight right? You told me you do it to protect the people you care about."

"From what?" Karin interjected, holding her cheek in her hand in a bored manner as she looked at Sakura, "What exactly is there to protect any of you from? There is no real crime in Aohura City. Yakuza don't stray seriously over here, and no one is stupid enough to try and attack me. So there's no danger."

"…You obviously don't hang out around Aohura City enough then…" Hinata remarked as she took a sip of her drink, thinking back to just how much trouble she got into with Batsu not too long ago. His hiring of Naruto to help them actually got him acquainted a bit better with her. Naruto actually travelled around so there was no telling what he could eventually or had already stepped into at some point.

Danger never exactly occurred in Karin's presence, but that didn't mean it didn't happen at all, "Why do you hire me for bodyguard work all the time then?" Naruto asked the well-to-do heiress, "You must really like my company then. But that's impossible, because you kind of hate me don't you?"

Karin's cheeks turned red, but one couldn't see it due to one being in her hand and the other facing away from anyone in the booth's sight. It was a good thing, or else the others might have gotten the wrong idea, "I do not hate you per se Uzumaki-san. I just dislike you with great intensity. Hate is a word I would reserve for Sakura-san here." In return Sakura stuck her tongue out at her, getting Karin to smirk haughtily right back at her, "It is better to be safe than sorry in any case. This is why I ask you to accompany me to so many places."

That, and it rightly ticked off Sakura when she requested Naruto's presence for work when she knew that they were either in school, on the way to school, or on the way home. It was something of an art form in her mind to call him at just the right time, so that Naruto wouldn't be upset but Sakura would be. Almost like she could feel Sakura's ire for her bothering them through the phone like she was there in person.

"No, you do not do your job just to protect others." Karin ventured to guess, getting a good look at Naruto as if she was trying to see something underneath the surface, "If you did then you would probably be some goofy vigilante super-hero type. You seem like that kind of person." She then remembered the way Naruto's eyes lit up when she told him that he was fighting her for 1.5 million yen, "I would say that you do it for the money. But judging by the way you live it is not for yourself. However you do not have any family living with you, or any that anyone knows of. Shibazaki started checking into your background when we first started corresponding and he found no record of you until three years ago. So what do you need money for?"

"Naruto lives by all by himself with no support and pays his own way through school." Sakura interjected in Naruto's defense, "He works all the time around town and even further out than that trying to make money to keep himself going. Sometimes he doesn't even ask people to pay him if they really need his help or if they can barely afford him." Her friend was a good person. There wasn't anything greedy about Naruto except when he had a smidge of ramen within his grasp. Then he was a glutton, "If he ever gets hurt in a fight and can't do his jobs anymore then he'd fall into the red. That's probably why he works so hard."

Karin ignored her though, keeping her full attention to Naruto as she stared right into his emotive blue eyes. She'd find an answer there. Naruto's eyes gave him away more often than not no matter what the issue at hand was. And he seemed to be just daring her to truly look for what he was thinking, "So tell me what it is that you truly want." She said to him intently, "Whatever it is, I can more than likely get it for you… if I feel like it."

'I want to find a way home.'

He wanted to say that out loud, but he had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from whispering it out. No one here could help him with that. And no one there would believe him either or understand in the slightest.

"Yah… what's with the heavy atmosphere?" Batsu said, brazenly stealing Naruto's fries and breaking the stand-off stare between the two blondes at the table, "I don't know if you two are going to fight or kiss." Drawing his attention away from Karin, Naruto took his fries back from Batsu and held them out of his reach when he tried to scramble for them. It would have ended in a scuffle more than likely if every girl on the other side of the booth didn't proceed to kick them hard in their shins to stop them from being stupid, "Alright! Damn… but seriously. Are you going to do anything about that crap people are talking about you? The only thing you can do to fix it is look for tough fighters and beat them."

"I don't want to look for tough fighters and beat them." Naruto replied, chewing on fries once he figured it was safe to do so, "That isn't going to get me any money and I don't care about my ranking… even if a bunch of nerds like to talk smack on a message board." He didn't use the internet anyway unless he needed to… and he never really needed to unless he and Sakura had a project for school… as a matter of fact even then she was the one that always did the research when they worked together.

"Still going ahead with that excuse about the money is it?" With a smirk on her lovely features, Karin's predatory tone got everyone's attention and suspicion, "Okay. How about this then? You are interesting. So I will fund whatever your endeavor just so happens to be for which you need so much money. Just so long as you do something for me."

Naruto stared at her suspiciously before sighing in resignation, "I think I know what you want… and I guess it's okay." Karin had a victorious look on her face at this point until he spoke again, "As long as you're paying I guess I can take you with me." Karin's elbow slipped off of the table in surprise and her chin crashed onto the hard surface out of surprise, "That's what you wanted right?"

"No!" Karin exclaimed, rubbing her chin as she started pointing, poking Naruto right in the chest repeatedly, "I _want_ you to actually make an attempt to advance in the rankings. I _want_ you to make an attempt at becoming world-class, not just known throughout the country, but the entire world. That is what I _want_ from you! Because if you are seen as one of the best in the world… then what would that make me when I beat you?"

Well now Sakura definitely smelled a rat, and she didn't like it, "So let me get this straight. You want Naruto to go around and actually try to get higher up the ladder? And you'll pay him for it? Just because you want to fight him and beat him? Why don't you just keep training to try and beat him now? Or travel around to win your own fights?"

Batsu had to agree, he liked the idea himself if he thought that he could really stack up when it came to high-profile conflicts like that. But he would rather stay in Aohura City with his mother than do such a thing even if he was able to, "Why would you give him money for this?"

"Because if I lost our fight, I want to know that I lost to the very best there is." Karin then flipped her curly hair back over her shoulder and stood proudly, "And when I eventually do beat him after he becomes elite I will give him anything he wants." Karin calmly confirmed in return, "_Anything_ at all. Because by then I will have improved enough to defeat him in return, and prove that much like the Kanzuki family in all other things I am world-class myself. And I cannot put a price on that."

Batsu just stared her down like she was insane, "…You are one rich, bored little brat. You know that right?" He asked, not getting any retort from Karin who simply didn't care about his opinion one way or the other. Hey, she had just met him that very day, "You're going to pay him for this?"

The reasoning was eventually broken down by Kei who had sat in abject silence to soak it all in, "So you want Naruto to go around fighting and winning against good fighters until he becomes known as good himself just so that you can fight him later and beat him… and take his spot or a high spot around him." Karin nodded, seemingly having no shame in admitting such, "How high do you want him to go exactly?"

"Until he reaches the world rankings I will not freely fund him, being ranked high in Japan means absolutely nothing to me. I will simply give him what he needs to get around and challenge other fighters wherever he desires to travel, and only if I know who he is seeking beforehand. I will not have my generosity taken advantage of." Having Naruto raise his own stock before just challenging him after he did so was the simplest way imaginable to get herself a notable win.

Hinata blinked her big brown eyes and then took a sip from her drink that was nearing the bottom, "Why Naruto and not Sakura-chan then? Isn't she your actual rival? You two really don't seem to like each other so wouldn't you want to beat her instead and get something out of it that way?"

A scoff came from Karin, "I can beat her anytime I wish, and she is not interested in fighting for anything other than to get the recognition of Ryu. She will never be relevant enough for me to get much notoriety from defeating her, even if I sponsored another entire tournament."

"I feel like you just insulted me seven different ways just now." Sakura deadpanned. She wondered how Karin would like another super-charged Hadoken to snack on instead of her fancy food.

"That is because I did."

"…I don't have a response to that Kanzuki-san, but when I do…"

"I'm in." Naruto interrupted before the two could actually get into it. Eventually he wasn't going to be around to stop it and those two were going to beat the hell out of each other… and probably tear up a good chunk of property in the process. But that was neither here nor there, "I'll do it. How much will you give me for each fight?" Paid travel was a great start in his venture to search around for what he was looking for. And a little fight every now and again never hurt anyone.

Making a 'hmm' noise as if she were actually thinking, Karin tapped her chin before giving Naruto a sugary sweet smile, "It depends on how impressive your performances are. I would never short-change you, I assure you of that."

Naruto apparently didn't even realize what he had gotten himself into, but Sakura could and hoped that Naruto was prepared for some serious repercussions, "You just made a deal with the devil Naruto, I hope you realize that." Such a disarming smile from her blonde rival as Naruto shook her hand, "You should have just signed your soul over to the Shinigami. It probably would have just cut out the middleman."

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Sakura's First Hadoken<span>

(Two Years Prior to Current Storyline – Early Evening – Aohura City – Sakura's Backyard)

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" 13 year old Sakura's hands shot out with one vertical palm touching the other one that was placed upside down, although from her hands erupted no concentrated blast of ki despite her putting her all into the movement, "Haah…" Sakura moaned as she slid to the ground onto her knees and put her face into her red combat gloved hands, "Why? I know I can do this. So why is this so impossible?"

"Yo Sakura-chan." Naruto said, popping out from the leaves of a nearby tree in her yard upside down, scaring the life out of Sakura. Unlike Sakura who still wore her school uniform afterschool, Naruto rushed home and changed out of that stuff as quickly as he could into a green t-shirt and a pair of olive cargo shorts with white shoes, "Want to play some video games?"

"I'm not really in the mood right now Naruto… sorry." Sakura said miserably, shifting to sitting on the ground with her knees pulled to her chest. She felt him land on the ground and walk up to her, getting her to look up at his rather concerned face, "I think Tsukushi's inside if you want to play him. He's better than me and he wants a rematch with you anyway." She said, trying to convince him to let her be for the time being.

Not that it worked though, as Naruto stooped down to her level to get a face-to-face view with her, "What's the matter? You were fine at school and when I left you to go home, so tell me what's up." He then grinned wryly, mostly to himself, "Seriously. Who am I gonna tell if it's something bad?" Well it wasn't anything that was really embarrassing, but it was still something she didn't like admitting, so she mumbled it out under her breath, "Huh? I didn't hear you Sakura-chan. Speak up."

"I can't use ki!" She shouted with a slightly red face at admitting such. An alarmed Naruto fell right onto his backside before getting himself back together and sitting cross-legged in front of her, "There. I said it. I've been trying to use it for years, but I just don't know what I'm looking for. No dojo in Aohura City actually knows how to do it because they can't and I guess I really can't either."

That was it? Naruto smiled at her and gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder, "Well of course you can use ki Sakura-chan! If I can use chakra, you can use ki by now. It's the same process to feel it and you've been working out and training your focus ever since I've known you."

"But… but I've never done it. I can't feel it."

"Well… do you even know what it feels like?"

Sakura blinked upon realizing that she had never felt ki before. But wait a minute… there was something wrong with that, "Wait. Doesn't ki come from inside of me? My own energy right? So how could I know what it felt like?"

Naruto held out his hands for her to take, much to her confusion until he explained, "My sensei did this for me when I was a kid to show me what chakra felt like. Now come on. Give me your hands."

"You still are a kid." Sakura remarked, looking at Naruto's hands in a suspect manner. But then again, what was there to be suspect about? Naruto used ki, or chakra since that was what he called it and wouldn't ever be swayed to call it what everyone else did (Americans were weird), and it was obvious that he knew what he was doing with it. At least he knew more about it than she did if nothing else, "Okay…" She said tentatively, placing her hands on Naruto's and letting him grab a hold of them.

Upon grabbing Sakura's hands, both kids closed their eyes. Naruto began breathing slowly and focusing his chakra through his body. Sakura was also trying to focus, thus she felt Naruto's chakra flow off of him and into her to feel. A quiet gasp left her lips as she was overwhelmed by the feeling, "That's ki? But it's so strong! There's no way I've ever felt that before!"

A sheepish Naruto laughed nervously. He forgot that he was supposed to have more energy than almost any living being, "Ah, that's my fault. Sorry. I wasn't really trying to control it." Intentionally ebbing his chakra to lessen the intensity, Naruto fixed that problem, "There. How about now?"

It was like comparing a raging river to a gentle stream for Sakura when Naruto cut back on his chakra output, "It feels comfortable." She said with a smile, "It's really warm. It feels like a coat or something." She was then abruptly cut off from the feeling, getting her to snap her eyes open, "Hey, why'd you stop?"

"So you can try it now." Naruto said in reply, "If you don't get it or forget what you're supposed to be looking for, I'll still hold on to help you out okay?"

Sakura nodded and closed her eyes again with determination, looking for that feeling inside of herself that she had just felt from Naruto. It took a while, but eventually she found it centered around her heart and felt her body flush with the rich inner energy, "I did it." She said, laughing to herself a bit, "I feel it! Did I do it right? Is this it?"

Understanding her delight at accessing her own power, Naruto couldn't help but laugh right along with her as he could feel the ki going through her, "Yeah! You did it Sakura-chan! That's it!" The two just kept laughing, Sakura in pure excitement of finding her ki and Naruto because he was just as happy as she was over the matter.

"Well what do we have here? What are you two doing?"

Both Naruto and Sakura stopped laughing only to find Sakura's mother leaning against the open backdoor frame of the house. She had long brown hair and a kitchen apron on over her normal clothes along with a sly smile on her face, "You two look mighty comfortable with each other. Sakura honey, I didn't know that you and Naruto were that close. Then again, he is the only boy that ever comes around here so it makes sense."

Wondering what Sakura's mother was talking about, both Naruto and Sakura looked at each other before looking down at their hands that were still joined. An self-conscious blush sprang to the cheeks of both children before they hastily separated hands, "Mom, Naruto was just showing me how to feel ki!" Sakura hastily defended.

"Is that what kids are calling it today? I just call it holding hands." Sakura's mother teased, getting a good laugh out of the embarrassed look on her daughter's face and the mortified one on Naruto's, "Well if that's the case then go ahead and show each other all the ki you want." She turned around, shaking her head and planning to leave with one last remark, "I wonder if Naruto's birthmarks are hereditary…"

"Mom!" Sakura cried out loudly, trying to vigorously get her attention before she shut the door and left it at that. There was no way she was going to get teased over her choice of best friend after such a breakthrough, "Naruto really showed me how to feel ki! Seriously, just watch! Hadoken (Surge Fist)!"

Sakura hastily fired a blast while in the form needed to do so, only in her rush to get her mom's attention to alleviate the humiliating situation she didn't notice that she aimed in the direction of the still seated Naruto who despite only being three feet from Sakura was mentally miles away at the moment with a flushed red face.

A flushed red face that was then hit with a blue and purple flashing version of Sakura's Hadoken, knocking Naruto flat on his back and out cold to boot.

Sakura let out a helpless squeak and ran to Naruto, grabbing his head and checking over his singed face, "Ahh! Naruto! I'm so sorry, that was an accident! Please wake up!" By then her mother had made it back outside to see her daughter holding onto Naruto's shoulders, shaking him for all she was worth to try and revive him, "Don't be dead!"

"Sakura, he'll be fine." Her mother insisted, though her eye twitched when Sakura stopped shaking him and his head tilted back limply, "You might kill him if you keep shaking him though."

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Batsu Ichimonji  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 16 (Birthday: January 1)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'7/141 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> O  
><span>Likes:<span> Ninjas, his mother, justice.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Dogs, unfairness.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Eating fast, working part time jobs selling milk and newspapers to help his family.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Naruto Uzumaki, Kyosuke Kagami.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Derived from Imawano style Ninjutsu of combat  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Kiaidan (Energy Compression Blast/Guts Bullet), Mikazukikero (Crescent Moon Kick), Ryuuseikero (Falling Star Kick), Suiseikero (Comet Kick).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Nekketsu Zenkai Kiaidan (Hot Blooded Hyper Energy Compression Blast/Burning Super Guts Bullet), Imawano-ryuu Mozu Otoshi (Imawano Style Flowing Drop).  
><span>Background:<span> Rather foul-mouthed, belligerent, and impulsive, Batsu is still a rather kind person despite a rough exterior. Having a strong sense of justice, Batsu finds himself in trouble more often than not for one reason or another, getting him the brand of something of a delinquent. Usually centered in his own mischief and trouble, his issues eventually overlapped with Naruto's leading to them meeting and becoming friends, with Batsu sometimes employing Naruto (for a discount) to assist him. Batsu has a decent arsenal of moves that he makes good use of despite a lack of formal training, though he has a propensity to spam the distance attack he has given the pet name of "Guts Bullet" from time to time whenever he is angered in combat or particularly distressed by an enemy.

Name: Hinata Wakaba  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Female  
><span>Age:<span> 15 (Birthday: April 12)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'1/90 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> O  
><span>Likes:<span> Rare things, hand-to-hand combat, cakes.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Dirty things, insects.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Singing and dancing, various afterschool clubs, origami.  
><span>Rivals:<span> None  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Undeterminable  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Kikou Shoutei (Energy Cultivating Palm's End), Shouyouken (Sunrise Punch), Enbukyaku (Blazing Dance Kick), Renkyakudan (Consecutive Leg Blast).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Hisshou Rengekken (Assured Victory Constant Punching), Rasen Enbukyaku (Spiral Blazing Dance Kick).  
><span>Background:<span> A smart girl who excels in most sports. A childhood friend of Sakura Kasugano and a schoolmate of Batsu Ichimonji, Hinata is proficient in martial arts on par with national level fighters. It is a mystery even to her closest friends just how she received her training as she is quite tight-lipped with any explanation others try to pull from her. Quite energetic and at times a bit of a smart-aleck, she's a cheerful person that despite her combat skills rather enjoys her regular life as a schoolgirl, not looking for too much more outside of that. Fights a speedy, pestering, counter-centric style, chaining combination attacks into heavy specialty moves. Noted friendly sparring partner of Sakura for years.

Name: Dan Hibiki  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 25 (Birthday: November 25)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'9/163 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> O  
><span>Likes:<span> His father, taunting.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Seaweed, small-time crooks, Sagat.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Tile breaking, singing karaoke.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Sagat (one-sided), Naruto Uzumaki (one-sided).  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Saikyou-ryuu (The Strongest Style)  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Various taunts, Gadoken (Self-Taught Fist), Dankukyaku (Severing Air Leg), Koryuuken, Saikyou Ryuubougo (Strongest Current Protection).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Hisshou Buraiken (Certain Victory Villainy Fist), Shinkuu Gadoken (Shaking Sky Self-Taught Fist), Haoh Gadoken (Supreme King Self-Taught Fist), Koryuu Rekka (Dazzling Dragon Raging Fire).  
><span>Background:<span> Began training as a fighter for revenge against Sagat, as in retaliation for a fight in the past where Dan's father gouged Sagat's eye out Sagat proceeded to kill Dan's father. Trained under the same master that taught Ryu, the past winner of the World Warrior tournament, but was expelled before completing his training when his motives for training became clear. Dan developed his own fighting style based on his teachings and from Muay Thai. Eventually finding Sagat, the two fought, with Dan coming out victorious. Dan does not know however that Sagat took pity on him due to his drive for vengeance and let him win. Most fighters do not take Dan seriously due to his demeanor and weak looking (and weakly impacting) attacks or they find him amusing. This has led to a few upset victories over competition that Dan was far overmatched against.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter complete for all who care.<strong>

**Dan suuucks! He sucks so much he's awesome. **

**Okay so check it out, roughly a year sits between now and the start of the Street Fighter Alpha 3 storyline when Naruto's travelling will really begin full-tilt and until then it'll be Naruto's adventures around Japan and especially in Aohura City, and for the hell of it and because that game is also badass from my youth I'm using some Rival School characters as you can see (for those that have played that really underrated game) until I can bring in more Street Fighter characters to play with. **

**So… that's all I've got. Later.**


	3. Ninja House Party

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. There's more than likely a good reason for this, but I just can't place it at the moment.

**Chapter 3: Ninja House Party**

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><p>It had been a little over a week since Naruto's 'Deal with the Devil' as Sakura had so aptly anointed it. In that amount of time, Karin had not called Naruto about any work, nor had she even summoned him to her mansion to go over his game plan for how he would be trying to rise through the rankings. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he took advantage of the free time available to him and merely trained, spent time with his friends, and worked, splitting his time between the three things evenly for the most part.<p>

And at the moment on that Sunday since he had the day off from school and had decided to give himself a day off from taking jobs he was heading to Sakura's house in a pair of orange athletic shorts, a black t-shirt with a satellite image of a hurricane in dark colors, and a pair of black sandals. The good kind, the kind that had support like the ones he wore back in Konoha. Chances were, he was more than likely about to do the former two things that he had spent the entire week doing (hanging out with a friend/training), only this time with her.

CRASH!

Hearing a very loud smashing noise, Naruto ran in the direction of it since it was coming from the direction of Sakura's home. Rounding the corner and reaching the street that had the side of her home, he stopped when he came upon the tall wooden fence that closed off backyards in that neighborhood.

There was a jagged hole punched right through it twice the size of his head. Looking through the hole with a grin on his face he saw a human-sized dummy right by the fence strung up from a tree branch near the fence that was pretty much untouched, and Sakura standing twenty feet away, her hands still extended from what Naruto presumed was a Hadoken, a mortified red blush on her face at being seen after such an attempt. Well things would still be alright for her as long as he didn't say anything.

"You missed a Hadoken didn't you?"

Damn it.

Naruto shoved his entire top half of his body through the hole and wriggled himself through for shits and giggles just to pick on Sakura a bit, "What happened?" He really wanted to know just in case the explanation was even funnier in reality than his imagination made it. Sakura crossed her arms over her chest and turned away from him getting Naruto to roll his eyes, "I already know, I just want to hear you say it."

Sakura was wearing a red windbreaker jacket with a white stripe going down the sleeves and a pair of black leggings that stopped at her thighs for her casual clothes, "You know how the more power I put into my Hadoken the less distance they get?" Naruto nodded knowing that when decently charged up, Sakura's Hadoken barely went further than Dan's variation of the attack, but he sure as hell wouldn't want to be hit by one, "Well when I just fire it I get better distance. I just can't aim it when I do it that fast."

"Oh don't worry, I can tell." Naruto quipped before Sakura fired a Hadoken and hit the dummy Naruto was standing next to, "Hey, you got it that time."

"I was aiming at you."

"That's not nice Sakura-chan."

Shaking her head with a playful scowl on her face at his pout, Sakura walked over to Naruto and popped him in the shoulder lightly for him messing with her. Reaching up, she messed up his hair further until he moved her hand away. She let out a laugh before looking at the massive hole in the fence, "Um Naruto… could you fix that for me really quick?"

"Really quick?" Naruto repeated in a skeptical voice before whining outright, "Sakura-chaaan it's my day off. I don't want to fix your wall right now… for free." He added in the end, getting her jaw to go quite slack.

"You're charging me!"

"This isn't the first time you did this." Naruto said, not budging on the matter as he crossed his arms over his chest stoutly, "I fixed your stupid fence five times already since you started using ki… for free. And now I'm just supposed to fix it because I was here for it? No way."

"You've got clones." Sakura tried to stress, pointing out Naruto's free work force, "We could just hang out while they fix it."

"I am not your one-stop shop for cheap labor. Not today, dattebayo." Naruto then felt Sakura latch onto his legs tightly, getting him to squint his eyes at her, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Naruto please fix the fence!" Sakura more or less begged him, not letting go of his legs, "If mom sees this when she gets home she'll ground me for weeks for doing this again. Come on." A puff of smoke engulfed Naruto and Sakura then found herself hugging the training dummy, "How do you keep doing that?" She asked as she stood back up and let the dummy fall to the ground.

"You left my hands free when you hugged me." Naruto responded from his crouched perch up in her tree by the fence where he had gotten the dummy for his Kawarimi.

And now he was just a hop away from getting himself out of Sakura's yard and far away from the house if she chased him away. She couldn't fix that fence herself, and she didn't get enough money to actually pay Naruto to fix it. Naruto was kind of expensive. She could probably only barely afford to buy the wood if she needed to.

"I'll fight you for it!" Sakura abruptly blurted out, getting Naruto to tilt his head in confusion, "I'll fight you and if I win you have to fix the hole for free. Come on. Bring it on."

Well he hadn't actually gone up against Sakura in a while. The last time he fought her they kind of tore up the grass in the backyard and took out more than a few of the tiles on the roof of her house. He could still hear Sakura's mother yelling at them after it was over, "No. What do I get out of it?"

"You can have the knowledge that you beat me." She ventured with a smile.

Naruto returned the smile wryly as he seemed to sit in the tree like a cat, "I always beat you. You've got to do better than that if you want me to fix the stupid fence Sakura-chan. I don't want to fight today, it's my day off."

"I'll take you to the ramen bar you like and buy you whatever you want."

"Deal!"

Sakura palmed her face, but still pointed to the shed in the far corner of the backyard where the wood was kept. She might as well help him… because if her little brother Tsukushi got home and saw the hole in the fence he would still snitch on her and she'd still get in trouble.

XxX

(Hours Later – Downtown Aohura City)

Naruto could be seen through the curtains of a ramen bar eating happily and sitting next to a distraught looking Sakura as she tried to convince Naruto to stop at five bowls before he bankrupted her.

The person watching him from a safe distance atop another building nearby took note of Naruto's rather gluttonous appetite and disengaging attitude, "So this is the ninja from Aohura City?" The figure said stoically with a frown on their face, "This guy… I wonder how legit he is."

The frown that was on the person's face deepened when he saw Naruto and Sakura walk outside and try to cross the street, ending with Naruto getting chased by a motorcycle rider all the way down the long road and around the corner at the end of it with Sakura trying to follow him, "Wow. Well he's fast like a ninja. *laughs* I guess I'll find out later."

XxX

(Evening – Naruto's Apartment)

On the way home after the rather chaotic series of events that followed Sakura treating Naruto to lunch/dinner, Sakura exhaled in an audible huff of sorts, "Boy that escalated quickly." A somewhat scuffed up Sakura said as she and a dirty and smudged Naruto walked up to his apartment building, "I mean, that really got out of hand fast!"

"It jumped up a notch." Naruto uttered, scratching the dried blood from a head wound suffered during the previous fight off of his face.

"It did didn't it?" Sakura thought in amazement. Having never been there in person for most of them she sure hoped that wasn't how all of Naruto's gang fights went. Pure insanity. Aohura City's police force absolutely sucked if he got away with all of that on a regular basis.

"Yeah…" Naruto admitted with something of an impressed tone, "I thought Batsu was going to kill that one guy." Today was not normal. It actually brought a special brand of crazy… and it was supposed to be his day off. Even his actual fights against gang weren't that tough… today was not one of those days because his opponents were all trained and rather skilled from his experience of dealing with them before. If not for some timely intervention it would have been four-on-one and he'd be on a strict ramen broth diet for the forseeable future.

"I saw that! Batsu put that guy with the eraser hair and the knives in the hospital, I swear he had to have. Did he throw a motorcycle?" Sakura said with wide eyes at recalling watching Batsu pick up an entire 500 lbs. racing bike over his head to chuck it at some of their opponents to help Naruto and her in the fight. Even one of her other friends got involved to help out.

Naruto's eyes brightened in memory of just how ridiculous everything got in under three minutes, "Yeah, there was fire and explosions, Batsu threw a motorcycle, and I'm pretty sure I accidentally copped a feel or something. By the way, where'd you get a grenade?"

"That wasn't a grenade, that was a full-power Hadoken." Sakura said, remembering how impressed she was by herself. The damn thing didn't go far at all, but it was bigger than her entire body when she threw it. Her brain then glossed over something Naruto may or may not have said, "Wait, what was the last thing you said?" Naruto instantly averted his face away from Sakura's so she wouldn't see his expression, "Seriously, what happened after I lost you when you ran? That whole thing was like the perfect storm."

A red blush sprang to Naruto's face, remembering the chain of events that led to the massive clusterfuck of a fight in town as they made it to the opening by the stairs that led to Naruto's floor of the complex, "There was a lot of stuff you guys weren't there for Sakura-chan. Thanks for getting Batsu and your friend Natsu though. I really needed the help." It really was a long chain of events starting with him running from that motorcycle outside of the ramen stand.

"No problem. Anytime." Sakura replied, focusing more on her rather utterly ruined outfit from the events of the afternoon. She didn't know if she had been better off hedging her bets with the hole in the gate, or going home with those totally messed up clothes, but there was no way she was taking her clothes off in Naruto's house and walking home in his baggy crap. Besides, her mother would remember what she was wearing earlier that day and she'd never keep the secret for long, "I'll see you in school tomorrow Naruto. Bye."

Naruto waved goodbye as Sakura started off of the property and stopped to stare for a moment when he saw a bloody handprint going down her back and stopping on her backside, "Whose blood is that?" He asked belligerently, getting her attention once again.

Sakura looked onto her back as best she could and frowned before shrugging, "Not mine." With that she just continued on to her house and Naruto went up to his floor.

Opening the door to his place, Naruto kicked off his shoes, walked in, and shut the door behind himself before quickly shrugging off his quite beaten up clothes, leaving him in yellow boxers with green frogs on them. He needed a shower to get the blood and dirt and whatnot off of his body after the free-for-all he and his friends had wound up in downtown, "…How was I supposed to know? " He muttered to himself, remembering what exactly lit the powder keg earlier as he stepped into his shower with the water running, "…Crazy bitch tried to run _me_ down."

After he had sufficiently cleaned himself of the remnants of battle, he stepped out of the shower and threw on his pajamas as he left to his room to attend to his much neglected homework. He could slack off later in the year, but not right then. He needed some goodwill with his teacher at the moment.

Leaving to the living room area to grab his backpack that he hadn't touched since he had dropped it there the day before on Saturday, Naruto stopped cold once he reached the room. The reason being because he saw someone in the connecting kitchen raiding his fridge, though their body was out of his view due to the door of the refrigerator and the table in the kitchen in his line of sight. At that moment Naruto did some mental deductions.

Sakura? No. She had just left. If she was going to come in she would have come in right then. Even though she had a key she never used it unless she was certain he wasn't there. Good girl to not abuse the responsibility of the key.

Batsu? No, not him either. If it was Batsu then he would have been way louder and Naruto would have known even in his shower despite the fact that his apartment complex had some thick walls. Besides… Batsu lived all the way on the other side of Aohura City, and after the scrum they had gotten into that day it was more than likely the first thing he did was go home to get a shower, some muscle rub, and some rest, same as Naruto and Sakura.

Karin? Pfft, yeah right. Karin didn't have a key, but that probably wouldn't have stopped her from somehow getting in anyway. She probably would have ordered his landlord to open the door for her… rich girl. But she definitely wouldn't be in his fridge if she even had been there. She didn't eat 'commoner' food and she'd verbally tear into anyone that tried to make her, if not physically tear into them.

So he didn't know this person. Great. That meant that he didn't have to feel sorry for what he was about to do with the lamp he picked up off of the table nearby.

At least he wouldn't have felt sorry for it, if not for the little tanuki that dashed out from underneath his couch and latched firmly onto his groin with its teeth.

In hindsight, Naruto liked to believe that the yell he let out at that point wasn't as high-pitched as it seemed to him immediately upon leaving his throat, it had to have been a bit more masculine than it sounded. Men didn't sound like that.

Alarmed by Naruto's yell, the figure at the refrigerator looked up from behind the door with an onigiri sticking out of her mouth. From that point she simply chewed on the rice ball and watched Naruto freak out and roll around all over the apartment trying to get the tanuki off of his privates. When Naruto finally realized that he still had the lamp in his hand and raised it to strike at the bastard tanuki, the female in the kitchen made a sharp whistle that called the animal off.

However as the tanuki jumped off of him, Naruto had already swung the lamp at it and wound up hitting himself in the testicles with the lamp for his troubles. This was just not his day at all.

The tanuki ran into the kitchen and hopped up on the person's shoulder as she made fond kissing noises to it, "You're such a good boy Don. Protecting me when my back is turned." Hearing the feminine voice over the sounds of his own rampant cursing and shouting, Naruto blinked the tears of pain out of his eyes to get a good look at just who was in his house.

From the legs up, he got his view. Cloth bandages wrapped around the back part of the person's feet, their shins, and their ankles. From that point up they wore brown baggy pants tight where the bandages started, but loose everywhere else. Around the waist, the pants exposed the outside of her thighs and some of the insides almost all the way up to the hips where the belt of the pants were tied. Tucked into the baggy pants she (yes, most definitely a she by now, he was certain of it) wore sleeveless upper garment and from the v-neck of the garment she had a facemask that was pulled down at the moment, probably so she could eat, and had brown arm guards. She had black hair with three sharp bangs sticking out of the front of her brown bandanna on her head and two long ponytails sticking out of the upper back of the bandanna.

She wasn't attacking him though. There must have been no need to add injury to injury (…to injury) in this case. He hadn't even dressed his wounds from the street fight earlier, "Could you grab me an ice pack from the freezer?" Naruto asked, and thus received when the girl threw one to him. She was a ninja, or at least dressed the part, but at the moment he felt cold relief on his nether region, and that wasn't a bad thing, "Why are you in my house?"

The girl sat up on the counter in Naruto's kitchen and crossed her legs as she fed the rest of her rice ball to the tanuki on her shoulder, "I heard that there was a clan-less ninja in this part of Japan and I figured that I'd just pop in to say hello… so hello!"

"A ninja breaking into my house? To say hello?" Naruto said as he dragged himself into a sitting position in his living room couch, "Really? What do you want?" He narrowed his eyes at her, "If it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get."

The ninja girl hopped off of his counter and waved her arms in front of herself defensively, "No, no, I'm not here to kill you or even to fight. I really did just want to meet you."

"Why?"

"I want to hire you."

Hire _him_? That was kind of weird wasn't it? She was a ninja… so why would she need another ninja? It didn't make any sense, "What can I do that you can't? Wait, I don't even know who you are. I definitely don't work for someone I don't know."

"My name's Ibuki." The girl said cheerfully as she pointed to the tanuki still eating on her shoulder, "This is Don. Sorry about the whole biting your junk thing. He's my pet. You walk quietly, I didn't even know you were there even when you didn't know I was here." She walked over to where Naruto was sitting and grabbed a chair from the kitchen to sit down in once she figured he probably didn't want her that close. From the way he was moving his hand towards the edge of the couch cushion he probably had a weapon under the cushion, "So let's talk business Uzumaki Naruto."

Used to people he never met knowing who he was by now, Naruto still didn't move his hand away from a position where he could quickly use his kunai, "What does a ninja want with a ninja anyway? And why can't you just ask your own clan to do this?"

Ibuki laughed sheepishly and rubbed the back of her neck in an almost Naruto-like fashion, "I kind of ran away from my village."

"You're a missing-nin?"

"A what?" Ibuki replied in confusion before continuing to explain, "I didn't leave for good. Just for a while to have a bit of fun. It's so boring there. All I've ever done since I was little was just train, and train, and train. I just wanted a bit of a break. Maybe I could meet some cute boys outside of my village or something."

Naruto made a noise of skeptical understanding as he looked at her with squinted eyes, "Uh-huh… and why do you want to hire me?"

"I'm being chased and I need backup." Ibuki admitted, her face turning from the pretty easy-going, sweet look from before to one that was serious. Yeah, he hadn't even seen her fight or even move outside of walking to a chair, but that was a ninja's reaction to being pursued by someone dangerous, "So I want to hire you for protection… or assistance when they attack me. I'm not getting scared back home just because of some loser Geki ninja punks. So watch my back would you?"

After Ibuki finished talking, Naruto simply sat there and stared at her for a bit before getting up, grabbing her by the hand and escorting (pushing) her to the front door, "It's late, I'm all beat up, and it's my day off. I even put it on my answering machine that I was taking a break today. So try again tomorrow afternoon after school. Good luck with the whole ninja assassins coming after you thing."

He managed to get Ibuki to the door before she realized that he was kicking her out and she managed to stop herself once he opened his door by pushing back against the doorframe to try and resist, "Wait! You're kicking me out? Can't you help a girl in need? Don't you have some kind of nindou that goes against this or something?"

Naruto strained against the young kunoichi in an effort to shove her out as he wanted no part of this today, "My nindou is that I never run away and I never give up or go back on my word. Well I'm not giving up on kicking you out, and I'm not going back on my word when I say I'm going to kick you out." She was pretty strong though, and had the leverage… and her tanuki was scratching his face up, "You never told me why you broke in either instead of just knocking on the door or calling the business number."

"About that." Ibuki said, still struggling to stay inside the apartment, "When I said I was being chased… I meant on the way here too."

After about fifteen seconds of continued pushing back and forth, Naruto's brain kicked into gear and registered what Ibuki had just said to him. That statement got Naruto to stop trying to show her the door. Naruto simply walked past her outside and looked over the ledge of his floor of the apartment complex to see about fifteen shadowy figures on the rooftops across the street from the building.

Naruto calmly took a deep breath despite the running commentary going on inside of his head, 'AAAHHHHH!' He turned and walked back to his apartment where he moved Ibuki out of the way and shut the door, locking it and making sure the blinds and curtains to his windows were all shut. Once that was done, Naruto turned to Ibuki and started crying animatedly, "Why did you bring them to my house? Now they think I'm with you."

Ibuki moved back towards Naruto's couch and plopped down on it where he had been sitting before, "Sorry. There wasn't anywhere else to go. They caught up to me outside of Aohura City, I couldn't lose them with all of the lights downtown so I ran to the safest place I could think of; another ninja's house." She idly reached under the couch cushion and pulled out a fuuma shuriken, unfolding all four sides and marveling momentarily at it, "Overcompensating for something cutie?" Her response was Naruto's pajama shirt being thrown over her head while he walked back into his room, "Hey!"

"This can't be happening." Naruto said to himself as he shut the door to his room and started changing into his actual fighting gear; an orange one-piece jumpsuit with a hood he kept down that was loose in the pants with a blue belt that held his equipment and bandages around his ankles. He pulled on a pair of blue 4 oz. gloves that Sakura had bought him for his birthday so that he'd stop messing up his hands all the time and walked back out, pointing at her accusingly, "You. You put this evil on me. How do I make them go away?"

"Kill them?" Ibuki said, shrugging in confusion, "I don't know. I've never fought this many Geki clan ninja at once before. My sensei told us that our clan is derived from a Geki ninja that left them, so they hate us and want us destroyed. They probably think you're with my clan or something since I came here. We can't stay here, we won't make it until sunrise, I can promise you that." At that point the power was cut out, "See?" Ibuki chirped 'helpfully'.

"Damn it!" Okay, that certainly wasn't good, "What is with this day? Is it 'National Let's-Screw-Naruto-Over Day'?" It had to be a bad moon or something because this was ridiculous. Naruto walked into his kitchen with Ibuki following him and she watched him go under his sink in the cabinet to pull out a false wall that led to a small, dark crawlspace, "Come on. I guess I can't let you get killed by those guys out there."

"Really?" Ibuki said as her tanuki Don ran through the space to wherever the exit on the other side was.

"Yes damn you." Naruto replied, gesturing for her to go as he went to grab his good sandals from by the door, "Just do it already." He couldn't even charge her for the service because they'd have tried to kill him too. And with that he followed her in and shut the doors to the cabinet as he was the last to go through.

XxX

"You're a really nice guy you know that?" Ibuki said as she and Naruto ran along the moon bathed rooftops with her tanuki Don hanging on to her shoulder tightly, "I was expecting someone all gloomy and serious like most of the ninja in my village, but you're kind of cool."

"Why are you not taking this seriously!" Naruto snapped at her, looking back over his shoulder to see that the black-clad Geki ninja were beginning to give chase in earnest, all with claws on their right hands, "Shit, should we just stop and fight?"

Ibuki pulled her facemask up over her mouth and raised her eyebrow at Naruto, "Why are you asking me? Aren't you supposed to be the famous one here?"

'Not for real reasons!' Naruto thought to himself, actually thinking better than to say that out loud, "We can't just run away all night, and I left my damn phone in the apartment."

"Smooth."

"Oh shut up lady, this is your fault anyway." Naruto said with a twitching eye, "So between the three of us we've got the baddest ninja on the face of the planet in myself, a… whatever you are, and a gigantic rat to fight fifteen of these guys."

Don hissed at Naruto for being called a giant rat while Ibuki addressed her own rundown from Naruto, "I'm a kunoichi-in-training by the way."

"What!" Naruto shouted as they kept running, "But in my village I graduated way before this. How are you still in-training? You don't seem to suck at this."

Ibuki took offense to that as a tick mark appeared on her forehead, "Hey, we all can't be geniuses like you. Your village must think you're pretty hot stuff to give you free reign to do what you want. I'm a freshman in my high school back home. They don't really let us skip grades in ninja school no matter how good we can fight so we can learn about the outside world. People get killed like that... even though the education sucks."

'High school?' Okay, just when Naruto thought he had a decent enough handle on this world it just kept getting weirder and weirder, 'Ninja high school? Sure, why not?'

"Duck!" Ibuki tackled Naruto to the rooftop to avoid a large shuriken thrown at his head, "Man that was close." She stood back up and stood in a fighting stance as the first of the fifteen caught up to them, "You jerks have been chasing me for days, so show me what you've got! I've got someone to watch my back now!"

Naruto jumped back up to his feet and stood back to back with Ibuki when he saw Geki ninja coming from his own side of things, "Right! It's just fifteen guys! We can kick their asses easy, right?"

"Absolutely! Now let's do this!" Ibuki and Naruto both threw a barrage of shuriken all over to scatter the Geki ninja and began actually fighting once they had them good and separated. The first move Ibuki made had her show absurd short-range speed when she afterimaged right at someone in a sliding move, rolling through into a handspring and seeming like she kicked off of air to grab a hold of her first opponent's neck from behind. Two more Geki ninja tried to react, not caring that their comrade was a hostage, but Ibuki used him like a human shield and put the two others down with kunai that hit them in the head and neck respectively, "Kubi-ki (Neckbreaker)." With a sharp crack, Ibuki dropped the lifeless ninja and moved on.

The next one got close enough to start a close-range fight with her that had Ibuki dodging claw strikes until she felt comfortable to counter, and counter she did with a fist charged blue and full of ki, "Raida (Lightning Strike)!" The punch landed low, right in the opponent's ribs, but after the point of impact, the ki jolted outward like a bolt of lightning into the opponent and out through the other side, blasting him away from her.

Four more ninja appeared on all cardinal sides of Ibuki out of nowhere, bringing their claws from four sides in a pincer swing, but she simply shot up into the sky and let loose her next move, "Kasumi Suzaku (Mist Vermillion Sparrow)!" She let loose a lightning quick barrage of deadly metal projectiles, riddling them full of weaponry like training dummies… except they bled.

Naruto on the other hand got himself surrounded rather quickly due to his desire to fight in close, "Damn it! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Naruto formed a ring of clones around himself that drew kunai and defended him from the claws while the original jumped into the air in the center of the ring and made a trio of hand-seals, "Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!" He fired one shot that nailed an opponent in the head, breaking his neck from the force of the chakra projectile.

Three other Geki ninja that had been fighting with Naruto's protective clones and had beaten them jumped into the air to murder him with their claws only for that Naruto to disappear in a puff of smoke, leaving an opened fuuma shuriken in his place with a wire attached to it. With a sharp tug of the wire it began to spin at a deadly velocity and cut the ninja down out of the sky.

The original Naruto then yanked hard on the wire and pulled it back towards himself while three more Geki ninja advanced on him. He jumped over the deadly spinning blade and let it cut down two of the enemies while the third one got through. Maybe a half-assed, half-suicidal version of a move he saw Sasuke do, but he didn't have Sharingan damn it, and he'd take what he could get.

The last Geki ninja attacking Naruto swung a claw at him in a rapid, deadly wall of violence. Lifting a kunai to block that barrage would have resulted in the loss of an arm so Naruto just backstepped for all he was worth, holding his right hand behind his back and out of sight until it was too late for the enemy to react to Naruto's move as he dug in his feet and drove his right hand forward with a nasty little surprise.

"Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!" Naruto's Rasengan smacked the claw and shattered it. The strike broke the Geki ninja's balance in addition to the claw and Naruto spun through with his move to bring it back again, this time grabbing the ninja's collar to drag him into the devastating jutsu for much more damage, "Go to sleep!"

And go to sleep he did, as the angry red spiral mark that tore through his clothing and left an impression on his chest belied the internal injuries that the Rasengan dealt him, sending his lifeless body flying into two more Geki ninja approaching to try and reinforce. All of them fell brutally from the rooftop and would not be getting back up from the angle they landed at.

"What kind of moves were those?" Ibuki wondered, making her way over to Naruto after the rooftop seemed completely cleared, "Half of those moves were totally in-." She stopped talking once both of them sensed another presence and put one last ambushing Geki ninja down with a pair of kunai, one from Naruto in the chest, one from Ibuki in the head, "There. Are we done now?"

"Duck!"

This time it was Naruto that tackled Ibuki to the rooftop to avoid a claw attack from one more waiting in the shadows to finish them in case of failure. The claw slashed him across his back but he was able to get her down safely, with the tiles giving way and the two ninja sliding off of the roof to land in a bush below, Ibuki on top of Naruto, "That was close! Thanks for the save by the way. I owe you one." She said, winking at him before noticing him grimace, "What's the matter?"

"We landed in a thorn bush…" Naruto whispered out in absurd amounts of pain at this point, "Ow…"

Ibuki quickly hopped up to give Naruto some relief from his place in the thorn bush and looked back where the enemy had been only to find the man dead on the rooftop where they left him. Smiling at figuring that Naruto put him down while in the process of saving her, she turned her attention back to Naruto, "Does your back hurt?"

"Yes." Naruto whispered without hesitation before he felt Ibuki grab onto his wrist and forearm and a look of fear came to his eye, "What are you about to do?"

An apologetic look graced her face as she held on tightly to Naruto's arm, "I know this is probably going to sting a bit, but I need to get you out of there before you get infected or something okay? On three. One. Two-."

XxX

(Sakura's House)

"OWWW! MOTHERFUCKER! WHY DON'T YOU JUST THROW ME BACK IN FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH!"

Sakura sat up in her bed with a start as that loud noise from outside split the air. The sleepy girl got up out of bed and walked over to her window, lifting it up to get a good look at the seemingly still night, "That sounded like Naruto…" She kept looking around for a moment before shaking her head and shutting the window.

She was going back to bed. If he didn't call then there wasn't a problem.

And even if there was that yell meant he was alive and well enough to bitch and complain about it. She'd figure out exactly what was up tomorrow morning.

XxX

(Later – Naruto's Apartment)

Laying face down on his bed with the top of his fighting outfit pulled down. Naruto's face was stuck in a pillow to muffle his indignant yelling while he slammed a fist on the bed. Ibuki sat on the edge of the bed with a pair of tweezers picking the remainder of the dozens of thorns Naruto had out of the back of his neck, torso, arms, and legs.

"Stop whining you big baby. For a famous fighter and ninja you really act like a kid." Ibuki said, finishing picking thorns out of Naruto's back and grabbing a bottle of rubbing alcohol for disinfectant, "If you didn't like that then you really aren't going to like this." And with that she poured the alcohol on his back, more specifically on his large claw slash wound. The splash damage managed to get his thorn holes too, but that was not the important thing.

"I think I hate you…" Naruto whined into his pillow as Ibuki dressed his wound, "I've never said that to anyone before, and I just met you tonight, but I think I might hate you." As she finished placing the bandage on his back and gently pat it down, Naruto let out a sigh of relief since that meant his pain was all over, "Thank you…"

"No, thank you." Ibuki said, standing up and bowing to Naruto who turned his head to the side to look at her, "You really helped me out tonight."

Naruto nodded in response, "No problem." Yes. Yes problem. This crap compounded with everything else that had happened that day wasn't going to heal by morning. Sunrise was three hours away. What a day off, "You needed the help. And I told you, I'm the greatest ninja alive." He finished with a grin/wince. He certainly didn't feel like the greatest ninja alive, but if he said it enough it would eventually be true, right?

"Really, you've been super-helpful." Ibuki continued, getting to her knees and bowing again once more, her head rising with a sweet smile, "So I was wondering if you could do one more thing to help me for a while. I kind of need a place to stay for a bit."

Why did no one ever tell him girls could be so absurdly dangerous… and troublesome…? Wait. Shikamaru had been telling him that all along. He really should have taken the guy with the 200+ IQ's word for it.

"I do not think that is possible anymore young lady."

Ibuki's smile twisted into one of slight horror and Naruto just lifted his eyes to the doorway of the room where he saw a tall muscular man wearing a red gi, tan pants, glasses on his face, and a red bandanna on his head, "Damn it, how many of you guys are going to break into my house tonight?" If he wasn't a ninja he'd have gotten sick of the whole thing by now, "Are you here to kill me too? Or _get_ me killed too? Those are the only two options I've gotten all night long." Naruto mouthed off despite looking rather vulnerable at the moment.

Laughing sheepishly, Ibuki turned around to sit down, rubbing the back of her head nervously, "Ha ha ha… hi Sanjou-sensei… what brings you to Aohura City?"

"You." The man Sanjou said sternly before sighing, "You snuck out of the village Ibuki. Not only is this forbidden but you've just seen how dangerous it is to do so by yourself. It's time to come back home with me. You're given enough liberties at your request because you are a splendid student. Are you really this set on flaunting the rules we've set?"

"Sensei…" Ibuki said looking quite pitiful, "It's just… I want to see a bit of the world. Even if it's not that far, even if it's just for a little bit. This… this was actually really great."

"No it wasn't great!" Naruto snapped from his place on the bed while Don curled up to sleep right by his head, "I got clawed in the back, dattebayo!"

"Right." Ibuki said while pointing at Naruto, "It was _mostly_ great, except for having to fight the Geki ninja, but even that had its points to it. Aohura City is such a nice place. It's so interesting here. I even met a ninja that doesn't have to stay in his village and he's my age. And he's so good. You should have seen the fight sensei. I think he could have beaten them all by himself."

"I did indeed see." Sanjou said, "You almost got him killed at the very end. You need more seasoning Ibuki."

"That's why I want to go out more often." Ibuki continued, not relenting on her own stance even against her sensei. The fight got her blood boiling and she hadn't fully settled down yet, "I appreciate everything you guys have done for me, really I do, and I'm loyal… but I just want a little more… I don't know, free will? Can I at least go to a regular school?"

Sanjou didn't seem to budge much during the conversation except for a slight softening of his face, "This is something to be taken up with Master Enjou. But you must return with me now. This is your first offense and like I said you are one of the brightest young ninja we have. You should not be reprimanded too severely." He then gestured towards Naruto, "You cannot impress upon this young man anymore than you already have."

"I think I'm allergic to tanukis." Naruto said with a sniffle.

Ibuki looked from the very wounded Naruto to her sensei and let out a sigh as she stood up and grabbed Don from Naruto's bed, "Alright. I'll go." She said in a defeated voice before turning to Naruto himself, "Thank you for everything you've done tonight Naruto. I really appreciate it. You're a really good friend, and you're my first friend on the outside."

"Take care of yourself Ibuki." Naruto said, still laying down with a smile on his face, "And don't take your village for granted. This guy here; I don't know him, but he seems to care a lot." Sanjou nodded and spared Naruto a ghost of a smile.

Sanjou gestured for Ibuki to follow him out of Naruto's house and she did so, stopping at the doorway of Naruto's room and waving at him with a sad smile before leaving with her master. The door to the apartment clicked shut and Naruto felt that he was left alone.

Well… that was the most hellacious day he had in quite some time. He didn't know exactly how much of this to tell his friends, possibly thinking about omitting the part where he fought over a dozen trained assassins and took a claw to the back.

And now he was never going to get any sleep. It was less than three hours to sunrise and he was all jazzed up from the chase and the fight, plus his back felt like someone was holding him over an open flame, and the fact that now that she was gone he came to the realization that Ibuki was hot.

Yeah he was never getting to sleep now that-.

"Zzzzzz."

Nevermind.

XxX

(Four Days Later – Tamagawa Minami High School)

"It's the truth Sakura-chan." Naruto said as he walked through the halls after lunch with Sakura and Kei. He wished Batsu was there. Not only would that kid totally believe him, he'd probably be upset that Naruto didn't call him with all of the ninja running around the place, "I don't know what you two are laughing about. You saw the scratch on my back from the claw. I've been telling you the same story for days."

"We also fought one hell of a street fight on Sunday." Sakura said, calming down her laughing long enough to speak, "So what seems more believable? That you got really hurt during that fight and didn't notice it until later when you got home, or that you coincidentally met a ninja running from a platoon of ninja assassins and got hurt fighting them in an old-school full moon rooftop showdown?"

Kei put a hand on Naruto's shoulder and chuckled gently, "Yeah Naruto. You told Sakura-chan and me the story every day since Monday morning and I've got to say, nobody can be that unlucky. That's running a gauntlet from hell."

"Uzumaki!"

Naruto cringed and turned around to find himself looking at the rather burly, bald, mustachioed principal of their school that didn't really like Naruto, figuring him more of a delinquent that just didn't do much in school to be openly labeled as one. Still, the kid didn't fail exams… even short answer tests. It was like he was looking at the answers right in front of him from the books or getting them told to him somehow, but that was impossible as he was watched like a hawk.

"Yes?" Naruto responded, not wanting to do something to cause the man to burst a blood vessel, "Did I do something?" He seemed to ask too innocently for his or anyone else's good.

"_Did_ you do something?"

"If you can't prove it then no I didn't."

The man palmed his face with an audible smack, moving his hand to show the print left on his face, "I don't care right now… we have a new student and you're the one that's going to show them around. To the main office with you."

"What? Why me?"

"Fine, you can just go back to class and sit for the rest of school then instead of giving a tour for the rest of the time."

Naruto was already at the end of the hallway by the time that sentence was finished, "Later Kei! Bye Sakura-chan! I'll catch up to you guys when the final bell rings!" He then rounded the corner and headed to the main office, "Whoo! Free permission to skip. This week is looking up."

With a big closed eye grin and a spring in his step, it didn't take long before Naruto rounded the corner to the main office to pick up who he was supposed to be giving a tour to, deciding to make a first impression to the new student with some oomph behind it, "Yo! I'm looking for the new kid here! I'm Uzumaki Naruto and I'll be giving the tour today to show you where stuff is. What's up?" He said in a friendly, yet very boisterous manner until he opened his eyes and saw who was sitting outside in the lobby. He then promptly paled and pointed in shock, "No way! Why are you here?"

Sitting on the bench dressed in the school's uniform and no bandanna or any ninja wear at all this time was Ibuki, who looked herself over before answering Naruto, "Well can't you see from the uniform? I go here now." She stood up and walked over to him, circling him thrice before patting him on the back, "That healed up really good if it still doesn't hurt."

Naruto whirled around and faced her with an accusatory stare, "Don't change the subject! I thought you had a school back in your village! You're not supposed to leave, right?"

Upon hearing that breakdown of her situation, Ibuki smiled brightly, "Master Enjou is allowing me to go to a normal school as long as I get up early every morning to train, and I figured out which school you went to so…" She trailed off in the end.

"Goddamn it, it is too easy to find me." Naruto muttered to himself miserably and Ibuki couldn't help but nod in agreement, "Why here? Why my school?"

"Well, you're the first person I've met outside of my village that I didn't have to fight." Ibuki seemed to fidget while trying to find the words to express what she was trying to say to him, "You had my back. You're a trustworthy person. I'm not sure I'd feel this comfortable if I didn't have a friend with me."

How mad could someone really get because someone wanted to go to a school? Not very all things considered, even if the someone wound up directly or indirectly throwing him into the night from hell. And Ibuki was a nice person. In the end, Naruto simply didn't have it in him to alienate someone who _wanted_ to be his friend. Hell, he never figured he'd even have that option. It just went to show how different this world was from his own.

"Alright, let's go then." Naruto said, getting Ibuki's face to brighten up, something that got his own to do the same, "But you're a ninja, so we're doing this the ninja way. I hope you're good at making traps because that's what we're doing today all over the school. Non-lethal." He added for clarification purposes.

However Ibuki already knew what he was hinting at before he even added the last part. She gasped and hit him lightly on his shoulder, "You're bad." But she did a lot of the same when she was in her village. Maybe now more of her prank traps would work on people that weren't ninja themselves? As long as they didn't get caught of course, "…I like that."

Yes, shadow clones were nice for making mischief around school in Naruto's opinion. They were obedient, and since they had your mindset they went about the tasks with just as much vigor as you would have yourself. But there wasn't anything like having a partner in crime. Kei wasn't really capable of being sneaky, Sakura was too much of a good girl to help Naruto out, and none of Naruto's other friends went to his school. But Ibuki seemed to be just his speed in that department.

Maybe she'd be fun without the dozens of attackers chasing her?

Oh who was he kidding? She'd probably be fun with a hundred attackers chasing her.

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Escapades in Aohura City<span>

(A Few Hours After Naruto Fixed Sakura's Fence – Downtown Aohura City)

Sakura held up her wallet, breathing out a sigh of relief that she was able to stop Naruto at just six bowls. She had expected at least twice that and now she had some money left over… and her fence was fixed. An appropriate sacrifice to the demon that more than likely dwelled within Naruto's belly, as that was the only way she could reason as to his appetite for even his favorite food, "Are you full?" She asked him upon seeing him stride out of the stand with a content hand on his stomach. Naruto nodded happily, "Thank goodness. So now what do we do? Remember before you answer that half of my money was just spent on your gut."

Naruto, who was walking around with the chopsticks from the meal sticking idly out of his mouth as he chewed on them, just fell into step beside Sakura with his arms behind his head as they started walking down the street, "I don't know what to do now. Arcade? I haven't kicked your butt at something in a while."

"Pass." Sakura thought aloud contemptuously. Naruto had to be cheating at all forms of video games whenever they played. A normal person's fingers should never be able to move that fast without being accused of button mashing. Damn him and those hand-seals. And he said that he wasn't even that good at them, "Movie? I don't know what's playing these days though."

"Nothing you'll like." Naruto replied right back, "Hey, why don't we go mess with Karin? I know where she lives now and we can prank the hell out of her." He offered up with a saucy grin with chopsticks stuck in between, "Her house is so big we can trap a place and she probably won't get hit with it for days."

That almost got Sakura to stop and think about doing it before remembering that Karin lived outside of town. Even if they caught a train in time they'd have to walk forever to get there after disembarking. And then getting in and out of the property in one piece was another thing. She wasn't a ninja like Naruto and she didn't think even he was logically considering his own chances of success in that venture. He was going to get himself fired or call down her wrath if he was really willing to try that, "Well we'll think of something to-, *gasp* I know! We can go shopping!"

"Fuck no! You should have called Kei or Hinata if that's what you wanted!" Naruto barked out louder than he had meant to, getting the attention of everyone around him, "Um… I mean, no." Sakura proceeded to pout before the sound of an engine revving caught their attention and the two turned around to face the sound of the rather indicative noise.

Turning around, both of them saw someone on a black racing motorcycle, wearing an entire leather bike outfit with spiked skulls on the shoulders of the jacket and a skull design on the front of the all-encompassing helmet. Upon being sighted by the two, the rider revved the engine again twice.

"Naruto did you make a biker gang mad at you?"

"Aohura City doesn't have real bikers does it?"

"Well we're looking at one right now."

The two friends locked eyes and nodded before taking two very large steps away from each other to figure out if Naruto was indeed the point of interest. From the wheelie that was then popped in his direction it was quite evident that it was indeed the case.

"Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!" Naruto repeated over and over as he turned around on his heel and took off down the street before the bike's front tire hit the ground again and it took off after him.

"Naruto!" Sakura yelled after him with a bit of worry. He was fast, but he couldn't outrun a motor vehicle on an open road. Still, she did her best in chasing after the two on the sidewalk but at a markedly slower pace.

"Sakura is that you? Where are you running to?"

Hearing her name called out by a familiar voice, Sakura stopped and looked for the source, her eyes brightening when she saw exactly who it was, "I need your help really quick! Come with me please!"

XxX

Wracking his brain to try and figure out who he might have upset that rode bikes gave Naruto no answer as to why this was happening, but survival instincts kicked in as he eventually rounded the corner.

He was lucky that the streets were too crowded further down the line for the biker to stay on the road and properly keep up with him, but that then meant that they just hopped the motorcycle onto the sidewalk to chase after while Naruto ran on top of the backed up cars in the street. Naruto turned his head when they got side to side and paled when he saw the biker take a chain from their belt and prepare to swing it at him.

"What did I do to you?" Naruto shouted before diving directly right, slamming his body into the bike and knocking his assailant off of the vehicle, ending with all of them catastrophically crashing into tables and chairs outside of an ice cream parlor. Fortunately no one was harmed with the exception of the two involved.

Picking himself up from underneath a patio table and chairs, Naruto held his head and looked for the nearby biker who had gotten up first due to their padding to check on their bike. The biker looked at Naruto and the two simultaneously dropped into fighting stances, "Seriously, I don't know you. What the hell do you want?"

"You beat up my brother." Was the deep sounding reply, though it sounded like a totally fake voice intentionally trying to sound male. Naruto did not pick up on this and figured it was just some guy trying to get him back for a previous street fight.

"I beat up a lot of people's brothers, but if I beat up yours then he was the one that picked the fight with me." Naruto said in cheeky fashion before frowning, "Now take off that helmet so I can kick your ass the right way."

Before the two could start fighting, Naruto had to dodge a small army knife that was thrown at him. Turning to face the person who threw it he couldn't help but palm his face, "Kami… what do you guys want?"

The boy with his hand still outstretched from throwing the knife had his tongue stuck out slightly askew and wore a baggy purple school uniform with the jacket open to show a purple turtleneck underneath. On his head was a purple sweatband and he had his blonde hair styled up in a tall series of spikes that looked kind of like an eraser. Yamada Eiji, or 'Edge'. The dirtiest fighter Naruto had ever gone up against in Aohura City… and that was saying something since he was a ninja!

The next was an extremely burly and hulking young man with spiky brown hair and a white headband. He wore a green uniform with one sleeve missing and with a belt made of rope over bamboo slides that seemed to look a little like rudimentary armor for one's torso. Isurugi Gan. No high school student should have been that big. He stood almost a foot taller than Naruto and was definitely more than twice the width.

The last of them was the most normal looking in comparison, but from Naruto's past experiences he was the most dangerous of the three. Slicked back spiky black hair sat upon his head with a scar going horizontally down and across his left eye. He wore a blue school uniform with no modifications or perks added to it, but he was just as tall as Gan and muscular in his own right. More so than Naruto anyway. Kazama Daigo.

Naruto was 'acquainted' with all three of these young men because they were in and ranked highly in the only high school gang in the city that was actually well organized and adequate as a unit. Daigo happened to be the 'Boss of Gedo High' where all of these boys were from, and they had run across Naruto once every so often, first during Batsu's multi-school spanning trouble that he found himself in and then sporadically after that point forward. The gang picked fights with Naruto due to who he was and when he beat up the lower-tier members Daigo would take offense and then they would fight. It was like an ebb and flow kind of situation.

Fighting just one of those guys when they were on point held its own slew of troubles for Naruto, he really didn't wish to fight all three of them at the same time. Clones would not be enough to keep the heat off of him since they were actually good.

Aohura City had _way_ too many people that were good at fighting for it to be one of the smaller cities in Japan. It was kind of like Konoha with all of the tough people walking around that you could bump into around any given corner, only it was the wild wild west between the different factions within the city limits. No real camaraderie in important times like back home because there were rarely any times that important.

"Uzumaki?" Edge said upon seeing him, "What the hell's going on out here?"

Naruto growled at the eraser-headed boy and shook a fist at him, "You threw a knife at me and you don't even know what this is about? You've got problems!"

Edge grabbed his collar and adjusted his uniform, smirking at Naruto with his tongue hanging out to the side manically, "I owed you anyway…"

"Whatever." Naruto said before pointing at the helmeted biker, "This asshole started chasing me down on that stupid thing. I don't want to fight you guys, so just let me deal with Kamen Rider over here since he won't let me leave. I'll be out of your face in a minute."

"You talk too much. Shut up." The biker said, still standing in a trained fighting stance and faking a man's voice (not to Naruto's knowledge), "Or better yet, keep on talking. I'll shut you up myself."

Daigo looked between Naruto and the biker before stopping on the biker, "Akira. What are you doing picking a fight with Uzumaki? I've told you about going around with your own little vendettas because of me. I can handle myself."

"But Daigo-nii." The biker Akira tried to argue back, "He keeps on messing up your gang and hurting you guys. Edge and Gan are my friends too. What about them?"

"Alright, listen up!" An impatient Naruto barked, walking up to Akira directly to face the helmet and pointing in its face, "I don't start these fights, so if you really want a piece of me you can-." Naruto poked Akira in the chest indignantly, but upon doing so felt it to be squishier than he expected a man's chest to be. He repeated the action several more times in confusion before putting his hands directly on Akira's chest, "Hmm. This doesn't feel right."

"Uzumaki get your hands off of my little sister!" Daigo bellowed at Naruto. Edge and Gan stepped back as this was quite uncharacteristic of him. He was usually very calm, the calmest amongst them. Apparently Akira was his limit.

"Sister?" Naruto repeated questioningly, "No way. If it looks like a guy, talks like a guy, fights like a guy-."

"-Feels like a guy?" Edge cut in, trying to hold back some laughter.

Not getting the joke, Naruto shook his head while looking at the three gang members, "No… he doesn't feel like a guy, but then again it could be because the biker jacket is super-soft. It's good, maybe I should get one. Where'd you-?" Naruto was about to ask Akira where 'he' got the jacket but looked to see that Akira had taken 'his' helmet off.

And Akira indeed was not a he, Akira was a she with shoulder length brown hair and a gentle looking face that was twisted in pure embarrassment right at that moment, "You pervert!" Akira then smashed a totally unprepared Naruto in the head with her helmet, sending him flying into another set of tables and chairs.

Naruto picked himself out of the pile of patio furniture with a nasty cut bleeding down from his hairline, "Ow…"

Daigo kicked one of the knocked askew chairs out of the way and started walking towards Naruto with Gan following and Edge doing the same only with more satisfaction, "I can't let this stand Uzumaki. You cannot violate my little sister like that." Even Akira started walking towards him. Even though she was now more silent and reserved without the helmet she still had a burning aura of anger around her, "Unforgivable kid."

And then Akira's motorcycle flew through the air in projectile-style and hit Gan and Edge, knocking them for quite a loop to say the very least.

Daigo and Akira's jaws dropped while Naruto just looked on in complete amazement, "Holy crap! Who threw a motorcycle?" And with that he found himself hoisted up to his feet from behind by Sakura and another girl with shoulder length black hair that he didn't know, but she was wearing a red warmup jacket and red warmup pants for the volleyball team of her school which wasn't Gedo High, nor was it Naruto and Sakura's school, "Thanks. Who are you by the way?"

"My name's Natsu." The new girl that stood taller than Naruto said as she glared up at the offending Gedo High kids, "I'm Sakura's friend. Never met you, but I've heard about you… and from more than just her too. So I figured I'd try to help. This seems just as good a reason as any to fight."

At that point, Batsu strode into view, dusting his hands off and wiping oil onto his pants, "You can't stay out of trouble can you?" He said to Naruto, working his arm around in a stretch, "Fuck, I think I tore a muscle throwing that stupid thing."

"Ichimonji." Daigo said as Gan popped right back up from being hit by a motorcycle and pulled Edge to his feet as he was still disoriented and stumbling about, "So you're with Uzumaki today? And the two women to boot." He looked over at Naruto who was dabbing at the blood going down his face, "You've got some friends kid."

Naruto looked around between Sakura who was fussing over how beaten up he looked already, Batsu who had made it to their side and was placing some fingerless orange gloves onto his hands in preparation, and Natsu who even smiled amusedly at him and shook her head as she produced a volleyball(?) from seemingly nowhere, "Yeah, they're pretty damn good." He admitted.

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Ibuki  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Female  
><span>Age:<span> 15 (Birthday: December 6)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'4/101 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> A  
><span>Likes:<span> Boys, her pet tanuki (Don), J-Pop, sneaking up on others.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Exams, Guy's nindou, the lack of technology she has access to in the mountains.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Too busy training to have one.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Guy  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Ninjutsu  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Kunai/Shuriken, Kubi-ki (Neckbreaker), Raida (Lightning Strike), Kasumi Gake (The Haze), Kazegiri (Wind Gili), Tsumuji, Hien (Flying Swallow).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Kazumi Suzaku (Mist Vermillion Sparrow), Yoroitoshi (Armor Piercer), Yami Shigure (Dark Drizzle), Hashinshou.  
><span>Background:<span> Ibuki is a beautiful young girl trained in the combat arts of her clan and raised since childhood in a village entirely composed of ninjas. She eventually grew bored of the same monotonous lifestyle and attending a school filled only with ninja like herself and wished to try living like a normal schoolgirl. She rather resents her lot in life of not having full control of her own destiny and finds her ninja clothing ugly, much rather preferring the normal clothes that civilians wear. Her constant companion is a pet tanuki named Don. Ibuki's fighting style is centered around speed and misdirection that makes good use of her slim athletic build to work herself into positions that opponents aren't readily equipped to deal with.

Name: Akira Kazama  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Female  
><span>Age:<span> 15 (Birthday: March 3)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'3/Unknown  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> AB  
><span>Likes:<span> Motorcycles, her big brother Daigo, her Gedo High School friends (other members of Daigo's gang), cats.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Chatter, noisy people, water and swimming.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Cooking, mechanics  
><span>Rivals:<span> None  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Taikyoku-ken, Tai-chi-chuan  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Senshuubu (Cyclone Dance), Houbu (Releasing Dance), Gairimon (Elbow Gate), Ha no Renbu (Destructive Barrage).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Kikou Kai (Spirit Cultivation Cluster), Ten no Renbu (Heaven's Consecutive Dance), Haten Mueishuu (Destructive Heaven's Shadowless Kick).  
><span>Background:<span> Akira is the younger sister of the "Boss of Gedo High School" Daigo Kazama. A silent girl that rarely speaks her thoughts aloud, she is rather docile and gentle… without her biker outfit. When wearing the outfit she finds it fit to disguise her true gender, allowing her to act more tough and commanding. She has developed high levels of skill in Chinese martial arts and even uses her biker outfit (helmet and all) as a weapon in of itself when in combat.

Name: Daigo Kazama  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 18  
><span>HeightWeight: 6'6/196 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> AB  
><span>Likes:<span> Enka music, hero movies, being a leader.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Caterpillars, dishonor.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> N/A  
><span>Rivals:<span> Naruto Uzumaki, anyone that threatens his gang.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Undeterminable  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Musou Zuki (Unique Thrust), Musou Riken (Unique Reverse Fist), Kikou Kai (Spirit Cultivation Cluster), Musou Gen (Unique Kick), Daichi Zuki (Earth Stab).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Shin Musou Seiken Zuki (True Unique Superior Fist Thrust), Shin Kan no Senaka (True Massive Back), Kou Kikou Kai (Hard Spirit Cultivation Cluster).  
><span>Background:<span> He is the older brother of Akira Kazama, a student, and the leader of Gedo High School's roving gang. He has firm control over his underlings, even the wilder ones like Edge, due to his strong personality, magnetic charisma, and superior fighting ability with free use of ki based techniques. Daigo is a very honorable young man that excels in his studies despite his 'extracurricular activities', and he takes that honor to the battleground more often than not, never fighting unfairly.

Name: Eiji "Edge" Yamada  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 15  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'8/132 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> AB  
><span>Likes:<span> Army knives, fighting video games.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> His real name, putting in effort, ghosts.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Checking his clothes over.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Naruto Uzumaki, Batsu Ichimonji  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Dirty gangster tactics  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Uragiri (Backstab), Batou (Abuse), Hakai (Destruction).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Souzetsu na Uragiri (Grand Backstab), Chimatsuri (Bloodbath).  
><span>Background:<span> "Edge" is a student at Gedo High School and a member of the school's gang under Daigo Kazama. Most easily distinguished by his high, towering hair style and his colorful purple school uniform he is quite eccentric and somewhat vain. In combat he is very irresponsible, bordering on full sociopathic when it comes to battling an enemy. Never a part of a fair fight, Edge will use his absurd number of army knives that he keeps on his person against anyone. An easy way to distract him is to mess with his clothes, such as wrinkling them or disheveling them significantly. Both Naruto and Batsu routinely take advantage of this trait during fights to easily subdue him in one-on-one combat, thus his ranging hostility for them.

Name: Gan Isurugi  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 17  
><span>HeightWeight: 6'6/253 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> O  
><span>Likes:<span> Rice balls, eating in general.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Studying  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Eating at a fast pace, one-day-jobs such as road construction or moving  
><span>Rivals:<span> Naruto Uzumaki  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Based on sumo wrestling.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Teppou Zuki (Gun Stabbing), Kashiwade Yaburi (Clapping Smash), Ooran (Raging Storm), Oosenpuu (Giant Cyclone), Ganseki Kudaki (Rock Breaker), Aranami Shiko (Destructive Wave Stomping), Buchikamashi (Face Strike).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Midare Teppou Zuki (Unruly Gun Stabbing), Funkazan (Volcanic Eruption), Setsuhou Otoshi (Avalanche Smash).  
><span>Background:<span> Gan is a student of Gedo High School and a member of the school's gang like many of the male students. A very large and fun-loving young man with absolutely immense physical strength, something he takes great pride in. He is incredibly simple-minded and holds no real tactical skills, a dunce far beyond any other person that could be deemed 'simple-minded', simply making him a charging brick house in battle. Gan's fighting style makes use of his large size and lack of overall intelligence with his use of sumo wrestling skills to repel and viciously counter any weaker opponent's attack. Can take an ungodly amount of physical punishment from his present-day foes and must usually be outsmarted to be defeated.

Name: Natsu Ayuhara  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Female  
><span>Age:<span> 16  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'11/Unknown  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> B  
><span>Likes:<span> Cake, effortful people.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Liars, people that bully the weak, little bugs.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Volleyball, fighting with Batsu, cooking.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Sakura Kasugano (friendly), Batsu Ichimonji (friendly), Shoma Sawamura (friendly)  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Volleyball  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Jikkon Serve (Soulful Serve), Suberi Jushin (Sliding Receive), Kaiten Jushin (Rolling Receive), Kanzen Fusagu (Perfect Block), Tokkun Spike (Intense Spike).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Makyuu Tenjou Serve (Magical Ball Ceiling Serve), Hiyakudatsu (Fire Serve).  
><span>Background:<span> A student of Gorin High School and a childhood friend of Sakura Kasugano, Natsu is something of a tomboy, acting more like a boy in many cases than a girl. Added on to her sharp personality and imposing height for a girl and many boys find her rather intimidating though her actual personality is more of a sisterly figure than anything else. A fighting buddy of both Batsu and Sakura, Natsu is rudimentarily trained in hand-to-hand combat and is knowledgeable in the use of ki, though she uses these things with her own twist. Natsu's fighting style is mostly dependant on her volleyball skills, with her using an actual ball as a medium for many of her attacks.

* * *

><p><strong>Ah, exam week is upon me at long, long last. I will be all G2G by next Wednesday at the latest and then I'll be kicking story updates into a higher gear. Until then I do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. And to anyone that has a problem with that I have a message; my right hand is now fully healed.<strong>

**So I can write you one hell of an angry letter!**

**I'm just kidding! I'd never do that… I'd just kick some ass instead.**

**Alright, whatever. You don't care one way or the other except when it comes to your own entertainment dollar (which I have yet to see a cent of from any of you!), so I guess I'll just go finish writing my last paper of the university semester… I've procrastinated enough for… six hours.**

**Later. Kenchi out.**


	4. Money is No Object

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. If I did then Chuck Norris would have been downloadable content in Super Street Fighter 4.

**Chapter 4: Money is no Object**

* * *

><p>"Why are you here?" Seemed to be the only thing that Naruto could say at the moment, as he had repeated himself well over twelve times already. Each time sounded more desperate than the last, "For the love of Kami why are you here?"<p>

He had been sitting in class and then suddenly found himself called out to the front of the school to be checked out immediately. Now who on earth could check him out of school? He didn't have any guardians or anything of the sort.

And then he saw three people standing outside of the front gate right by a limousine and this brings us to the current situation.

"Why are you here? Why the _hell_ are you here?" Naruto kept stressing repeatedly as he stood in front of Karin and her entourage Shibazaki and Ishizaki, "I have school-. Man, I never thought I'd use that as an excuse for anything before." It made him feel dirty to try and do so.

"Excuse me Uzumaki-san." Karin said, though she didn't sound apologetic in the least, "But I pay you handsomely, thus I own you. You do remember the terms of our arrangement don't you? You fight and climb the rankings and I will make sure that you are very well compensated." She smirked and laughed with her hand covering her mouth, "I more or less own you if you remember correctly."

"First of all nobody owns Uzumaki Naruto." Naruto replied, crossing his arms stubbornly and squinting his eyes at her, "…They rent him. At best they lease him. But definitely nobody owns him. Second of all, don't _you_ have school?"

"I am tired of my school." Karin stated dismissively, "I've had Shibazaki look into moving me to a different one, a transfer. Perhaps this one." She ignored the look of pure horror on Naruto's face and turned to walk back towards her limousine, "Well come on then. We are wasting precious time." With a snap of her fingers, Ishizaki's hulking form picked a catatonic Naruto up and carried him to the back of the limo before getting in the front with Shibazaki.

XxX

"What wonderful weather for a day trip." Karin stated brightly as she and Naruto rode in the back of a chopper with Shibazaki and Ishizaki in the front. Naruto was sitting next to her in his fighting equipment, marveling at the sight of Japan from the air, "Don't you just love taking your days off to travel?"

"…It's Thursday." Naruto replied glibly, only souring his mood for a second before childlike interest took over once again at the view. He was ignoring the fact that Ishizaki had made Karin tea while they were in the chopper and wondered how she was drinking it so evenly and gracefully, but he just chalked it up to some whole rich girl home training kind of thing and let it lie.

For Karin though, it was so interesting watching how commoners like Naruto took to the things that someone like became used to years ago. Flying in a helicopter was really no different to her than catching a train was for Naruto. But the time for that was over as it was time to make sure her little vanity investment began to pay itself (or himself) off.

"Let us get down to business shall we?" Karin said, crossing one leg gracefully over the other, getting Naruto's attention away from looking outside to look upon her instead, "I have given you ample time to get your affairs all in order and get used to the idea. Now I want to begin seeing some results. You will begin fighting within the top 20 Japanese fighters listed on that site immediately. Are we clear?"

"Really?" Well she did kind of have a point as far as Naruto was concerned. It had been over a month since August when they had struck the deal. September was in full swing and it was almost October. If he was her he would have wanted something done by winter as well, "Well, where are we going boss lady?"

Boss lady… how boorishly delightful. At least he was aware of who was signing the checks here.

Taking a sip of her tea and sighing in contentment at its taste and the fact that Naruto seemed to be onboard with the whole thing, Karin only then began to explain, "To Tokyo of course. Many of the greater fighters Japan are hard to locate. But I found one that should stop the speculation of if you are deserving of being ranked or not. This is where we are headed now."

"And you had to pull me out of school for this?"

"Would you rather I used your one day off on Sunday?"

"Touché."

The two sat in silence with Karin continuing to drink her tea and Naruto making sure he had his phone with him in case someone called him. He held back a laugh as by now he had gotten several worried text messages from his friends wondering if he got abducted or something since they knew he was a ninja and a mercenary to boot.

Eventually after responding to his friends and scrolling through his contact list to look at Karin's number, he shrugged to himself and raised his phone to take a picture of her in between her refined looking sips. He smiled when he saw that it was actually a good picture and captured who she more or less was.

Satisfied with his phone picture, Naruto placed it as the picture that would come up whenever Karin called him and looked up at said girl who was giving him an amused look of interest. Feeling like he had been caught doing something he shouldn't have, he went to explain, "Heh… I kind of have a picture of all of my friends by their numbers in my phone. I didn't have yours."

"So we are friends to you?" The smirk on Karin's face never fell as she asked her question, "And you believe that I would freely associate with a commoner to that extent?"

He wasn't sure if that was a trick question or not, so he just answered it earnestly, "Yes? You're not just my boss, and I've had way worse friends than you." It was true, he had worse friends before. Karin had never even really done anything to hurt him outside of fighting him the one time, which was more fun than dangerous. And this wouldn't be the first time that Naruto found a friend in a client of his either. Even Batsu was technically one of those, "So tell me why you're a fighter anyway. There's got to be a reason right?"

"You really wish to know the answer to that question?" Karin said, holding out her empty teacup as Ishizaki turned around in his front seat and gave her a refill without spilling a drop in the moving chopper. Naruto nodded rather eagerly with a grin on his face, "Very well. I guess we have time before landing." She said as she could begin to see the very large city's outskirts in the distance, "Well…as you probably know already, I am the heir to the Kanzuki fortune. You also probably believe that this led to a rather easy upbringing, correct?" When she saw Naruto hesitantly nod she smirked, "You would be sorely mistaken on that front then Uzumaki-san."

"You can call me Naruto if you want to." Naruto said before raising an eyebrow in confusion, "How was it hard though?"

Calmly taking a sip of her tea as if the answer didn't matter, Karin addressed it, "Oh, well simply put; my father wanted a boy to inherit everything and wound up with me. I would like to say that he was not completely displeased by my gender but I would probably be lying to you if I said as much."

Sexism against his daughter? That wasn't cool with Naruto. Sexism in general wasn't cool, as he knew more than a dozen women that could knock his teeth out on any given day, Karin included, "That's messed up Karin. But that doesn't really tell me much."

"I was not done Naruto-san. You are quite the impatient one even when I am volunteering to tell you this story." Karin said, chiding Naruto in a way before continuing, "Father has put up multiple tests in my path to deem me 'worthy' of receiving my inheritance. When I was nine years old I was left in a forest miles away from any property that we owned with a mere pittance of food and water. I was told that if I did not return safely I would be disowned. I did this in four days when it took my father two weeks."

"That's some Forest of Death crap… only without the giant deadly animals and plants…"

"What was that?"

"Nothing… err, keep going."

Karin looked at Naruto suspiciously, but did as instructed, making sure to note this 'Forest of Death' place, 'Perhaps it is where he received his training?' Shoving that to the back of her mind to look up in a world atlas later, Karin did continue on with her tale, "The next one was simply a display of my superior charm and beauty. I was to charm a minimum of 5000 of the world's gentlemen or I could never receive the inheritance."

Wow… that was also very messed up. And it just had to beg the question… Naruto just couldn't help himself, "And you really got that many? You know that you're like fifteen years old right? Even if you got one a day that would take like… a lot of years." Math was not really Naruto's strong suit.

"That is what galas and multiple other social gatherings are for Naruto-san." Karin said with a babying smile, patting Naruto on the cheek, "At this point I am at 329…6? Is that correct Shibazaki?" She asked her steward who was flying the chopper.

"Uzumaki-san makes 3297 Kanzuki-sama."

Naruto frowned at the pilot/steward/man-of-many-talents, "She didn't charm me."

"I've charmed you into my service." Karin reasoned nonchalantly with a confident smirk, "So yes, I have indeed charmed you Uzumaki Naruto, number 3297… even if it is not what you would consider charmed. Still, there is plenty of time for that as well. Eventually you will fall for my beauty as well." She flipped her hair back once haughtily, "Commoners often want what they cannot obtain."

"Right…" Naruto said skeptically before shooting a glance at the city of Tokyo. He had seen it from above a few times before due to other times he worked in Tokyo for Karin, but he wondered how it looked at night instead of in the daytime like it currently was, "Your story?"

"Yes, where was I?" Willing to leave the topic of charm where it was in order to continue talking about herself, Karin carried on, "Oh yes, and the latest test was just last year as a matter of fact. I had to stop a stampede of fifty bulls all by myself."

Bulls? Naruto remembered his own run-in with bulls right before the final round of the chunin exams. Clones barely helped him out of that mess, "How did you do that?"

"I'm certain it is on the internet somewhere if you look hard enough." Assured Karin, smiling the entire time, "It took place during the running with the bulls in Spain so I'm certain someone somewhere has footage of it." And he would definitely be looking for it later the moment he was free.

Once again… all of this was very messed up.

And it still confused Naruto about why he was doing this for Karin, "So why exactly do you want me to do this again? I'm confused. You're strong, and from what you just told me you're stronger than you showed me when we fought."

"To defeat the best fighter in the entire world of course." She then pointed expressively at Naruto for added emphasis, "Which will be _you_ I might add. It is the entire reason I am your manager."

"Yeah I kind of get that." Naruto said with a confused expression on his whisker-marked face, "But why don't you just fight your way up through the rankings yourself? I'm sure you could do it."

A laugh came from Karin as she shook her head, seemingly at Naruto's naivety, "Why does it matter how the job is accomplished as long as the proper results are achieved. If by defeating you after you have defeated all other obstacles in my way I can attain the same thing that I otherwise would have had to struggle endlessly for then why would I not take that course of action? All you need is victory Naruto-san. It doesn't matter how you obtain it."

Sitting back in his chair, Naruto started tying his Konoha headband around his head tightly to prepare for the eventual disembarkment from the helicopter and remembered his own thoughts on becoming Hokage in Konoha one day, "I don't agree with that Karin. The journey to get to what you want is important too. If I actually do end up being the best fighter in the world it'll be because I was prepared for it, because I grew into it. But you're the boss. You don't really care what I think do you?"

'*gasp* _You_ think?' In a feigned surprised manner was the first response that came to Karin's mind, but she thought better of it while she was drinking. It wouldn't do to have him upset at her at the moment. There was still travel that needed to be done and then they'd have to fly back to Aohura City later, thus changing her response, "The ideals of the middle class mean very little to me." Apparently having no shame in openly admitting such, Karin continued to drink her tea as they flew towards a helipad situated on the top of a skyscraper, "I hope that you are ready to take your first step up the ladder Naruto-san."

XxX

(Afternoon – Aohura City – Sakura's House)

In Sakura's living room she sat on a couch next to Kei and Ibuki who wound up being friends with the two of them by way of Naruto over the past two weeks that she had been a student in their school. At the moment, Sakura was in a very good mood due to the fact that she was playing video games with another person and happened to be winning for once, "You are the second ninja I've ever had in my house, and you're by far the worst of the two at video games."

"I've never played before. Give me a break." Ibuki complained in vain as Sakura had already stomped her several times straight in a fighting game that she had retired from playing since she herself found herself repeatedly being decimated by her little brother and by Naruto and his well-trained hands, "Oh damn it!" She said as Sakura knocked her out once more.

Kei shook her head in amusement before addressing the kunoichi in the group of girls, "So how do you like going to school at Tamagawa Minami High? You're adjusting way better to school here than Naruto did. We thought it was just something that he wasn't used to since he was a ninja… but now after seeing you pretty much fit right in we know it was just more of him being weird."

"I'm not a ninja like Naruto." Ibuki said, remembering watching Naruto fight. They used the same weapons, but other than that there wasn't much they had in common other than the speed and general philosophy, "But I love going to school here. No random ambushes from teachers trying to make sure we stay attentive… and there are so many cute boys in this town. I'm just upset that I have to leave and get back to my village before the sun sets."

A satisfied Sakura set her controller down, content with the victories she finally got over some kind of living person, "I wonder what happened to Naruto today. None of our friends have heard anything from him. He isn't around town causing any trouble anywhere. He's not at his house either, and he's not answering his phone."

Kei held up her phone and waved it in Sakura's face, "He sent that text two hours ago while we were still in class saying he was fine." At that point her phone vibrated with the signal of another message and Kei opened her phone before letting out a yell of alarm at what she saw, "Aah-! Oh wait, he has those stupid clones to do things like that for him… bad joke."

"What?" Ibuki asked curiously only for Kei to hold up her phone and show the ninja girl the same picture that Sakura was currently looking at on her own phone; Naruto swan-diving off of the top of a skyscraper with no support, "Hah, that's so cool. Where is he?"

"'Greetings from Tokyo.'" Sakura said, reading out the actual message that came with the picture, "'I'm fine. Not dead yet for all of you babies out there. I'm working for Karin right now. Wish me luck.'" Sakura sighed heavily after finishing reading, "Karin… of course. Who else has the power to pull Naruto out of school?"

Kei laughed and put her phone back up in her bag, "I'm sure he loved that."

"You mean Kanzuki Karin?" Ibuki asked with a bit of whimsy, well aware of the daughter of the richest family in the Pacific and possibly the world, "He works for her? Wow. I wonder what she makes him do… or how much she pays." She then noticed Sakura and Kei's phones and sighed, "I want a cell phone so bad… but comm. technology isn't allowed in my village."

"So?" Kei replied with a shrug, "You're a ninja. So sneak it in. You can do that, right? It's not like they check you whenever you go home." Ibuki's eyes lit up and she looked at Kei thankfully for the idea, "You're just now considering this an option? You've been coming back and forth for two weeks."

"I don't like the idea of helping Ibuki-chan break her village's rules Kei-chan." Sakura said, but relented a bit when she saw Ibuki's shining eyes begging her to agree that it was a good idea or at least okay for her to try, "Mmm… but I guess it's her choice in the end. Fine. I guess we can take her to the mall to get a phone before she has to go home." The fun-spirited female ninja jumped up in celebration and grabbed both girls to drag them on out of the house in a hurry.

XxX

(With Naruto – Tokyo, Japan)

From the helicopter right to a limo, that was how Naruto, Karin, and her entourage traveled to wherever Karin was supposed to be taking him, "Your family lives in Tokyo right? Are we going to stop by their place for a bit?"

"We are not going there today." Karin said, her cheek in her palm as she looked out the window, "We are unable to get there by car anyway. Do you know how large my family's property is? You need a chartered plane to land at our airstrip just to get access. We have our own rivers, mountains, and even our own climate. You do not 'stop by' the Kanzuki compound."

"Oh that is such bullshit." Naruto spouted freely, not caring that Shibazaki was glaring at him for the use of such language around Karin, "I'm not that stupid Karin. That's totally impossible. Nobody owns that much property in Tokyo."

"Nothing is impossible. Not if you have enough money to afford it. I can assure you that we most certainly do." As she spoke, her eyes lit up slightly, getting the Kanzuki heiress to perk up noticeably, "Ah, we have arrived at last." The limo slowly rolled to a stop and the two up front got out to open her door as she gave Naruto some instruction, "Your opponent is more than likely inside. He owns this bathhouse. If he is not there then at least we can learn where to find him within."

Before he could ask for more information, Karin's door was opened and she gracefully stepped out. Of course, no one opened Naruto's door, so he did it himself and got out to quickly catch up Karin and her servants, "Karin who am I fighting anyway? You never told me." He didn't really care, but it was good to have some kind of background.

They walked into the bathhouse to find that it was quite populated.

Populated with sumo wrestlers of all people.

The four visitors walked through the place with Karin not caring any less about the very large and underdressed men walking around them even though Ishizaki kept trying to shield her eyes until she elbowed him in the stomach to get him to stop.

"Karin…" Naruto said again, this time with more trepidation, "…Who am I supposed to be fighting?" He asked her again.

She didn't say anything at first, she just smirked shrewdly at him before clearing her voice and speaking up quite loudly, "Edmond Honda!" Upon hearing that man's name called out not only did Naruto freeze in place, the routine chatter of the place quieted down, even with the men in baths stopping what they were doing to see two kids and a pair of servants fully dressed, "This is the bathhouse owned by Edmond Honda is it not? I'm requesting his presence if he is here!"

Edmond Honda? Yeah, Naruto knew who that was. If you lived in Japan and kept up with athletics you knew who that man was, and he was none too happy with it, 'Oh you bitch… oh you stone-cold bitch. I am going to get you back _so_ bad for this, dattebayo!'

A heavy series of footsteps started coming their way, getting Naruto to turn and see a man that was a few inches taller than him but was exceedingly larger as he was a sumo wrestler like most of the others in the building. He had his black hair up in a traditional chonmage hairstyle, wore red kabuki makeup on his face around his eyes, and wore a short blue yukata over his massive frame.

Eventually he reached the visiting party and looked down at Karin and a wide-eyed Naruto. Looking between them, the man spoke up in a rather authoritative voice, "I'm Edmond Honda. What reason are a pair of kids like you looking for me?" He spared another look at Naruto, "I don't think I can train him. He's too puny."

'Puny? Fuck you.' Naruto thought to himself.

Before he could even respond to the man, Karin pointed at Naruto and spoke with full self-assurance and complete feeling of security, "He's here to fight you. Good luck Naruto-san." She said as she and her entourage moved out of the way and got out of the vicinity.

"I'm here to what him? Good luck?" Naruto looked down at the floor and noticed something that had been concealed by the steam of the bathhouse. Blue tiles all over the floor with the exception of a large circle made of yellow tile and two yellow bars on the ground where he and E. Honda happened to be standing. A ring. That was just bad luck all around, "Uh, yo… what's up?" Naruto said, forcing a grin on his face and extending his hand to the large sumo, "I'm Uzumaki Naruto. Nice to meet'cha."

E. Honda gave an amicable smile and shook Naruto's hand heartily, "Ah, same." He said before continuing with something that Naruto wished he hadn't heard as the grip tightened, "I've heard of you."

Fuck.

"Challenge accepted!"

In one move, E. Honda held onto Naruto's hand and swung him around overhead before throwing him away. Naruto screamed for dear life as his body sailed through the air and hit the wall with a mural of a sunrise, a mountain, and a man before he fell into a tub full of water.

Everyone in the bathhouse let out a collective 'ooh' when Naruto hit the wall, but started laughing once he fell into the water, "Can't you do better than that?" The elite sumo said with his hands proudly on his hips as the entire place seemed to get a kick out of the one-hit finish.

Karin was not pleased by Naruto's performance thus far, "Come on Naruto-san. You had better not let me down right out of the gate."

Amid the laughter, Naruto pulled himself up from underneath the water leaning against the side of the tub as he spat water out onto the floor and smoothed his soaked blonde hair back to keep it out of his eyes, "That was funny to you guys huh?" The laughter continued, even from E. Honda as he still stood in the ring. While he was laughing he pulled the top half of his yukata down off of his shoulders, showing that he was almost purely muscle. This did not intimidate Naruto any further than the prospect of fighting a sumo head on though, "Well here's _my_ punchline."

The water in the tub Naruto was in began to churn before a clone shot out of the water like a torpedo at E. Honda. The big man narrowly turned to the side to avoid the clone punching right into his belly as it rocketed past and hit the far wall, dispelling. The same thing happened again, and again, and again, at a faster and faster rate as clones just kept blasting out of the water, bombarding E. Honda who simply couldn't dodge anymore.

The joke was officially over as far as the sumo was concerned as he ground his feet down tightly and took up a sumo stance before rocketing off repeated hand-thrusts in front of himself so fast that the eye couldn't see the movements, "Hyaku no te Binta (Hundred Hand Slap)!" The shots started hitting the clones so that he wouldn't be harmed, with popping noises going off repeatedly and smoke bursting in his face from the repeated demises of the Kage Bunshin.

'What talent. He's blocking back one of Naruto-san's strongest techniques with just brute force and his hands.' Karin thought to herself as she saw E. Honda force back Naruto's clone barrage. His hands were moving so fast that she couldn't even see them move. Now it might have been the humidity of the bathhouse finally getting to her a bit, or it might have been the fact that she might have been stressing over the fight just a smidge, but a bead of sweat could be seen forming on the girl's head as her eyes raptly paid attention to the combat at hand, "Come on Naruto-san." Karin said under her breath as raucous cheering from the other sumo wrestlers went up in the bathhouse, "You can do it. I'm certain of it."

And just like that, the clones stopped flying out of the large tub with no original Naruto left in sight in the water, confusing the hell out of E. Honda, "I didn't knock the real one out during that pile up did I? I didn't notice if I did or not."

"Bunshin Kaiten Kakato Otoshi (Clone Spinning Heel Drop)!"

Naruto and five clones fell from the steam-concealed ceiling of the bathhouse and smashed E. Honda with ax kicks that slammed down on his head and shoulders. While his Uzumaki Naruto Mugen Rendan (Naruto Uzumaki Infinite Combo) didn't bear him any fruit, Naruto didn't miss a beat in return as the original that struck E. Honda in the head with a kick landed first and lunged at the huge sumo without fear, striking him in the face several times, being forced to leave his feet each time to deliver a significant blow to the most vulnerable place on his body in Naruto's opinion, the head, instead of his large stomach. But each shot smacked audibly off of the large man's head and put a concerned hush over the bathhouse.

Moving in towards E. Honda as he had him on his heels now, Naruto was stopped cold from continuing his barrage by a slap to the side of the head from a massive hand that he swore busted his eardrum and knocked him to the ground on the slick tile floor.

Seeming to get angry at their creator's being stricken, the clones attacked again with a vengeance, but E. Honda's defenses were back up and the best they got out of the exchange were a few punches and kicks to the body, which might as well have been them hitting sandbags he was so thick. With a few sweeping-arm swings, the clones met their demise, but in the end they brought Naruto enough time to stand back up and even to freely stumble around to regain his equilibrium as he bled from his ear to signify his busted eardrum.

"Why is one so young seeking out a battle against me?" E. Honda figured to ask as he charged a wounded-looking Naruto down only to be surprised by Naruto's raw speed and ability to adapt to his injury, not knowing that Naruto had a demon within him that had already restored the portion of his inner ear that kept his brain balanced (even if he still couldn't hear out of that ear).

"Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!" Naruto slammed the spinning blue orb into E. Honda, though he got his very large arms up to block a lot of the blow. Still, he was propelled away from Naruto like he was hit by a truck and smashed into the tile wall of the bathhouse, "Because my boss lady told me I had to." Naruto responded belatedly with the blood at this point mixing with his sweat to make the injury to his ear look far worse than it actually was.

However, Karin was not concerned with Naruto's well being if he was still able to fight on that level, 'I do not even know if he realized that he just utilized a brilliant strategy.' She thought to herself, a thoughtful finger placed under her chin as she continued to observe, 'He could have cancelled his Rasengan attack, but he continued with it and instead of trying to hit Honda's body he settled for the arms… but that could be just as important a move to make.'

If Naruto broke, cracked, fractured, did something to E. Honda's arms in the last exchange he had either significantly lessened the effect of, or had taken out a powerful weapon of the sumo completely. It was up for speculation if Naruto even realized what he had just done. He had opened a window for himself to win that fight if he realized what he had started and how to take advantage of it.

But Karin wouldn't say a word about it aloud. No she would not. If Naruto couldn't win this fight without someone barking orders to him or anyone advising him through it then it was better to find out now than later when there were times she would not be around like she was right then.

The outsides of E. Honda's forearms had angry dark purple spiral bruises on. Telltale marks of what could have occurred if he hadn't blocked Naruto's attack. He pulled himself off of the broken pieces of tile wall as they fell to the floor and stared Naruto down before letting out a chuckle, "Strong… you're very skilled." He spared glance to Karin and raised an eyebrow before returning his attention to Naruto, "And you've chosen quite a lovely young lady to undertake such an endeavor for. It is incredibly honorable of you to challenge me in order to win her heart."

Naruto's jaw dropped in astonishment while Karin just smirked to show her amusement to the sumo's statement, "What? Are you out of your mind? I should finish beating you up just out of principle! She's my boss and she hates me!"

"I do not hate you Naruto-san. I just dislike you with great intensity."

"You heard the lady!" Naruto shouted at E. Honda as he formed three more Kage Bunshin to go up against E. Honda and made three hand-seals to start another jutsu to hedge all of his bets, "Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!"

When Naruto cocked his head back to spit his chakra projectile at E. Honda smirked and went spread-eagle as he seemed to gracefully and quickly float into the air headfirst directly over Naruto like a kite who due to the angle of his head got a good view of just how high into the air a 300 plus pound man could get. On his way up he smashed his way through Naruto's clones with his head and defeated them. It was admittedly very impressive if it wasn't about to get so utterly terrifying.

For a moment, Naruto swore that he had Sharingan, because he saw the next few moments in slow motion. In his mind absolutely everything slowed down as E. Honda flipped through the air over top of him to transfer into a direct butt drop.

"Sumo no Shibuki (Sumo Splash)!"

E. Honda landed backside first on the ground only to hear a crack. Thinking that it was probably Naruto' ribs and/or sternum, he stood up and looked down only to gasp when he saw a broken bucket full of purifying salt underneath him instead of a thoroughly smashed blonde teen boy.

Why was this kid so damn tricky?

At that moment a tray sailed through the air like a shuriken and bounced off of the back of E. Honda's head, knocking him to the ground with the force of the unexpected throw.

Standing next to Karin was Naruto, with a manic grin on his face and his arm still extended from the throw of the pan, "Why did you throw Ishizaki's serving tray?" Karin asked him, crossing her arms over her chest and sounding slightly miffed at the wanton disregard for her servant's things. Especially a thing that was used to carry her refreshments.

"Because I don't have anything that won't kill him on me, and I know that the stupid thing is totally solid." Naruto replied, quite pleased with himself before he saw the reprimanding look on her face, "Hey, he can have it back." Both kids looked over at E. Honda, seeing him standing back up with the tray in his hands, bending it angrily, "…Nevermind."

"…That is coming out of your payment… and if you lose this fight you will still pay for that."

Did that mean she wouldn't pay him if he lost? He didn't have the time to think of that, instead choosing to attack again against the sumo that was progressively growing angrier. E. Honda didn't know what to make of Naruto. One moment he fought directly with honor, going right at the man, and the next he was getting hits from the blind spot, tactically retreating and hitting him with random objects like the tray.

He was still twice Naruto's size though. And Naruto was directly charging him again.

But it wasn't as direct as Naruto wanted him to think it was. Right before getting within E. Honda's effective range of reach, Naruto quickly formed his cross hand-seal, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Technique)!" Three shadow clones popped into existence and the first Naruto dove at E. Honda. The sumo caught the first boy as a reflex and simply threw him backwards over his head. The second Naruto had done the same thing as the first, half a second after the first one, shoving both feet into Honda's fully exposed stomach due to his throwing the first clone over his head and doubling him over. The third Naruto jumped up and delivered a hard punt kick to Honda's head that snapped his head up and back, sending blood flying into the air.

With a flourish, the last and the original Naruto finished with a jumping punch that slammed right into the mammoth man's face, and down he went like a tree, falling backwards onto the ground with Naruto collapsing to the ground along with him due to the angle of the attack.

"Good heavens." Shibazaki said in amazement at the utter brutality and simplistic misdirection of Naruto's previous attack. Naruto had to hit E. Honda with upwards of five punches in order to register the same damage that Honda could deal with one. He spared a glance towards his mistress Karin who was watching the fight intently at this point, not speaking or making any comments, "Children should not fight like this."

Naruto pulled himself up off of the floor, dripping sweat and a little bit of blood as the humidity inside of the bathhouse was smothering while engaging in such a physical activity. When he felt Honda's hand wrap around his shin and looked down to find a very angry sumo holding onto his leg with blood running down his face above his brow, Naruto felt like he was in some kind of monster movie.

With surprising agility and scary strength, E. Honda sprang up to his feet and slammed Naruto to the ground in one move, depositing him face-first onto the tile floor. Before Naruto could even let out a groan of pain, a palm strike was delivered to his back from above that cracked the tile beneath him, "GAAAH!"

"Oicho Nageru (Oicho Throw)…" E. Honda muttered as he pulled his hand off of Naruto and grabbed him by the back of the collar to lift him off of the ground, "That wasn't bad at all. You've done very well for yourself. Go home. Heal up. Fight again another day little one." He heard Naruto mumble and slur something under his breath that he couldn't hear, "What was that?"

The slurring was just a feint to get Honda to put his head closer to Naruto's mouth in order to hear him better, "…Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!" The blast radius exploded off of the side of Honda's head and in Naruto's own face, but the sumo dropped Naruto to the ground where he landed on his feet with pops and cracks of his back that showed how unhealthy he happened to be at that moment and that it wasn't all just acting.

A sneak attack from Naruto's move left scorching injuries on the entire right side of E. Honda's face, knocking his hairstyle out of place and forcing him to stumble back, both of his eyes bloodshot red from the concussive damage of the chakra shot bouncing and exploding off of his head.

Naruto formed one Kage Bunshin that was crouching, its back in just as bad shape as his, but it was able to do its job as Naruto held his right hand to the clone and both of them formed a denser, considerably bigger Rasengan between them.

E. Honda was not willing to try and block again, with the two clones holding the dangerous looking orb, he set himself in an intense sumo stance preparing for Naruto to make his move. Naruto stood up and he and his clone ran forward to charge E. Honda down who responded by shooting his hands out at Naruto in a blur, preparing to overwhelm him.

"Hyaku no te Binta (Hundred Hand Slap)!"

"Odama Rasengan (Great Ball Rasengan)!"

The large ball of chakra hit against E. Honda's rapidly thrusting hands with the sound of a belt sander. Even though he stood upright, E. Honda's entire body started sliding back as if he was a sled on an icy slope. With a mighty final yell, Naruto drove E. Honda into the wall with an explosion erupting from that spot and debris from the tile flying everywhere.

Karin couldn't help but smile as she heard a pained grunt come from the place where Naruto and E. Honda had hit the wall and she saw that E Honda was sitting against a crater in the wall, his arms visibly broken with the top layer of skin from his hands to the elbow mangled like tissue paper.

Breathing heavily, Naruto looked down at E. Honda, "You're strong… But don't ever… underestimate me." He said before turning and walking out of the bathhouse, holding his back and hoping that it would only take an hour or so for to slip his vertebrae back where it was meant to be from its slightly askew state. He stopped when he heard Karin clapping from where she had been standing with her entourage and took a moment to point at her, "Don't ever… ever… _ever_ do that again."

With a huff, Karin watched as Naruto walked out, silently whining about his back, swearing he slipped a disk or two as he went outside into the early evening air, "And just what is he so upset about?" She asked Shibazaki and Ishizaki who was cradling his bent up serving platter like something precious, "He won didn't he?"

XxX

(Two Days Later – Aohura City – Arcade)

"Are you still mad at her teme?" Batsu asked Naruto as he was seated and turning the wheel of a racing game. The two had met up after Batsu's school let out to do something random, mostly because Batsu had not heard the story of Naruto going to Tokyo to fight one of the most famous sumo wrestlers in the entire world in its entirety, "I don't get it. You won. That Kanzuki Karin definitely isn't the nicest girl I've ever met for sure, but I don't get why you're still pissed off at her."

"When she said she wanted me to start winning fights I didn't think the first person she'd make me go up against would be that famous. I actually knew who this guy was without being told first." Naruto said, leaning against the racing chair of Batsu as his friend fell into 4th place, "I can still feel the guy cracking my ribs."

Batsu was listening, but he didn't seem to be caring too much or seeing the problem, "Yeah, I don't see what the problem here is. You just got a win inside of the top 10 of that site's last listing. Be happy, have a coke and a smile, and shut the fuck up."

"Okay…" Naruto said, with his eye twitching, wishing that he could kick the chair hard enough to dislodge Batsu without breaking the damn thing, "Would you fight E. Honda right now?"

"What am I fighting him for?"

"Nothing." Naruto replied, "You're not fighting him for anything. He didn't do anything to you, you're fighting him just because. And he's coming to take your head out by the way."

A scoff came from Batsu at the rather obvious answer. A street punk? The argument could be made that Batsu was one, but crazy enough to fight the number 7 ranked street fighter in Japan for nothing? Absolutely not, "Hell no I wouldn't fight him for no reason. I like not going to the hospital for stupid reasons thank you."

"That's the point." Naruto stated with a slight kick to Batsu's racing chair as he made his way to another machine and put in his coins to begin playing a side-scrolling beat-'em-up game, "I don't like surprises like that. If that's how it's going to go every time then I might as well tell Karin that I'm going back on the deal right now."

"I was not aware that ninja quit their missions."

Batsu's head snapped around and he crashed his game car once he heard the female voice, seeing Karin standing there with her two attendants. Naruto on the other hand hadn't turned around at all, but he did have a bit of a scowl on his face, "How'd you know I was here?" Naruto asked without turning around.

Deadpanning a look at Naruto, Batsu responded instead of Karin, "You stick out like a sore thumb and you hang out in specific places. You're not as hard to find as you think you are teme."

"You have been skipping school ever since your last victory and you haven't picked up your business phone once." Karin stated walking over to the arcade game that Naruto was playing, her eyes drifting towards his hands and wondering what he saw in such a thing, "Are you still upset with me? I paid you immediately upon our return to my-."

"It's not the money Karin!" Naruto snapped suddenly, not caring about the game any longer and walking away from the machine altogether, "You threw me into a fight with one of the most dangerous guys in the world, and you didn't even tell me. I went in cold. What am I? Are we actually friends like I thought we could be or am I just some asset?" He saw her open her mouth and cut her off, "If you give me that 'I'm a commoner' crap I swear we will be fighting right here."

Batsu wasn't expecting Naruto to just take off and was prepared to follow after his buddy, "Naruto, where are you-?" He stopped trying to go after him when he saw Naruto turn his head towards him and shake it, "*sigh* Alright. I'll call you later then."

For once when dealing with Naruto's hotheaded personality, Karin wasn't smirking in good humor out of intentionally trying to push buttons. It was easy to get Naruto to overreact, but he never legitimately flipped out before, "I was simply separating business and personal affairs. You are a ninja, why can't you?"

"Because I can't do that with friends. I won't." Naruto's gait slowed when he felt Karin was following him, but he started walking when he felt Shibazaki and Ishizaki following her like always.

She thought she would catch up to him and they could hash out something that was two days overdue, but when he started walking away again she realized that her entourage was to blame, 'He's giving me a choice… to make this professional or personal.' She narrowed her eyes at his back once she saw him make his way outside the arcade and turned to address her two attendants, "You two, remain here while I have a conversation with Naruto-san."

"But Kanzuki-sama, you saw how angry he was. If he attacks you-." Shibazaki started to say until a sharp glare from Karin cut him off.

"If he attacks me you would only be good for a human shield in that situation." Karin said, turning to head outside after Naruto, "Naruto-san would rip you apart like stationery in three seconds or less." With that said, she walked outside to see Naruto attracting a measure of attention by sitting atop a streetlight. She was not about to climb a streetlight to have a conversation and she was not about to yell it up to him so she stomped her foot on the ground, the reverberation of her footstep actually getting his attention. She pointed to the limo on the curb with a measure of authority, "Get in the car Naruto-san."

Naruto looked down at her before looking back off in the distance, "No."

"Get in the car right now."

"I'm not going on a mission for you right now… I don't feel like it."

And then instead of his patience this time it was _hers _that ran out, "Get in the damn car! I am trying to have a private and personal conversation with you, and I cannot do that with you perched on the streetlight like a crow! Now get down or I will make you!"

That was a completely new experience. Naruto had never seen Karin lose her cool for a single moment before. Not once. She was always in control of… well, everything, especially her own emotions. She was composed and confident. And he could still see the confidence, but none of the composure, "You're gonna _make_ me? How are you going to make me do anything that I don't want to do?"

She didn't reply this time, just looking up at him angrily and pointing once more with authority at the limo with all of the people officially stopping to look at the two of them. She turned towards them and dared anyone to consider that she had been in the middle of a scene and everyone just went back to normal as if nothing happened. Sparing one last intent glance up at Naruto she opened the back door to the limo and got in before shutting the door.

"Sometimes I hate my job…" Naruto dropped down from the streetlight and onto the sidewalk where he got directly into Karin's limousine and saw her sitting towards the back, her arms crossed over her chest, a leg over the other that was shaking rather impatiently with her brown eyes staring him down. Climbing into the long seat directly across from her, he sat down and they just sat there staring at each other for a while until Naruto spoke up, "Well?"

"I am just taking a bit of time to think…" Karin said in a terse voice, "…To think about why on earth you would want to mess up a sure thing based solely off of one bout of miscommunication. I made a mistake, and I freely admit that in hindsight. Perhaps I was impatient, _but_, the way you reacted in return was childish." He opened his mouth and this time she cut him off, "Something that is not expected or encouraged in an assassin and a mercenary, no matter what their age."

Well now that they had actually faced off and had a bit of a blowup between them already it felt like the air was cleared a bit and Naruto didn't feel so uptight anymore, "You're confusing me. I don't know if you're my boss, my rival, my friend, my manager. What?"

"I've always been your employer." Karin replied matter-of-factly, "We first met only because I hired you. Whenever you are around me it is due to me summoning you for work purposes." She stopped when she saw that Naruto was looking like he was just about to start laughing, "What is it that you find funny?"

Naruto pointed at Karin and snickered a bit, "The reason you first hired me was to fuck with Sakura-chan after you two fought and you lost to her. Remember the jobs you made me do? You made me dust your whole grand parlor because I can't go home until a mission is done and you thought it would take me months to finish. It took three hours with clones. You made me do the stupidest stuff because you thought I'd complain to Sakura-chan or I'd be too tired to spend time with her and it would mess with her head. How'd that work?"

"It didn't." Karin said, remembering with a bit of a smile how efficiently Naruto handled every single stupid and seemingly insurmountable chore she gave him back when they first met last year.

He'd complain a bit about how he was supposed to be a killer and then he'd clean a massive part of her home full of nooks and crannies and knickknacks, or wash and wax all of her vehicles, or run the stupidest, most obscure and cumbersome errands in Aohura City for her, and he would make it look easy. Eventually she simply stopped trying to get to him to get to Sakura and started legitimately hiring him instead of just trying to mess with him.

"And your jobs haven't been actual jobs for the last six months. It might as well be me just hanging out with you." Naruto said, leaning back in his seat with a grin as he had a point to hone in on, "As a matter of fact that's all they are; me and you hanging out, or me getting back at somebody for you."

"Nonsense."

"Not really." Naruto was really getting insistent in his point and his own mind he was gaining momentum, "Before this whole fighting business started do you remember the last five things you hired me to do?" Karin looked away from him out of the darkly tinted windows but nodded regardless, "Yeah you do. How is riding with you on your yacht a mission?"

"Who knows what could happen at sea? A ninja like you has survival skills. You were useful."

"Yeah, for fishing, diving off of your sail, and watching you tan all day long." Despite the sarcasm lacing his voice, that was actually a very good day for Naruto. Very relaxing, "Okay, well what about going shopping with you in Tokyo? It was annoying as hell after a while, but that's not a real mission."

"It was in case of protection!"

"You're the last rich girl on the face of the planet that needs to be protected by anybody and you know it." Naruto said as he could see Karin's face beginning to turn red and decided to go in for the kill, "Admit it, the only difference between me and a hooker at that point was that hookers actually got-."

"Alright!" Karin finally exclaimed, kicking Naruto in the shin to get him to shut up as her face was atomic red at this point due to the inflection of what he was about to say, "I understand your point. I will admit that they weren't conventional jobs for a mercenary."

Feeling like his point was proven, Naruto nodded astutely, "Yep. They were things I'd do with a friend. And all I have to say about that is that if you wanted to hang out with me you never had to pay me to do it. You're in the friend phone, not the business phone see?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of crap, outdated by ten years prepaid phone with only ten minutes left on it, "Business." He then pulled out his other phone that he bought to spoil himself earlier that year and showed Karin her contact info along with the picture he had taken the other day, "Friend. And friends don't treat friends like cockfight roosters."

So they _were_ friends. Out of an entire world full of people that would kiss her ass once they learned of who she was she had met some people that didn't care that much about such a thing, and here was one. While she may have resented what she saw a lack of respect from people like Naruto and to a far lesser extent Sakura, they were the closest people to her outside of Shibazaki and Ishizaki.

"But I knew that you could win that fight." Karin argued in return, "You can try to hold back all you want to against your friends and against me, but I know that you are more skilled than you appear. If you look past the idiocy, the flagrant arrogance, the stupid look you have often on your face… if one can look past these things then it's clear that you are a fantastic fighter. And I want that fighter to become the best in the world so that I can beat him."

Yes, she just insulted him several times right to his face without missing a beat, but that was who Karin was and Naruto had accepted that months ago. She was brutally honest if nothing else, and sometimes that came off with her seeming like something of a haughty, stone-cold bitch. She was most certainly not stone-cold though as evident by her next action.

"Fine…" It seemed like Karin was accepting that if she actually wanted Naruto to remain cordial to her she had to treat him differently from someone that she paid… because even though she paid him too, it was not because he needed the money, "I suppose I will warn you well in advance the next time instead of acting so hastily."

"Good." Naruto chirped brightly as they had come to an understanding, "I always knew you were a good girl Karin. I keep telling people but they don't belie-."

"-But." Cut in Karin, moving right in front of Naruto to hold up one finger between herself and him, "I still expect you to do as I instructed of you. At the beginning of the new year there will be a rather large open tournament. You will enter, you will win. Understood?"

In a defiant manner, Naruto stared Karin down as she was barely a foot away from him in order to assert her point. It seemed to be a standoff that seemed to be happening more days than in the past nowadays, but one with no real malice behind it.

It was more or less Karin's way of saying, 'Do what I say or no money for you and I'll find some way to make you miserable after you refuse.' It sounded like he had a choice in the wording of her requests, but there really wasn't much of one.

However on Naruto's side of the stare off, it was Naruto trying to say, 'Are you asking me or telling me? Even though it's nice I don't need your money and if you try to get me back… don't start something you can't finish.' It was the same song and dance as always, right down to the ending, "Okay. I'll fight in it, and I'll win it, all for my vain, prissy boss lady... and her money."

What was the worst that could happen? It wasn't like there could be too many people out there as tough as E. Honda that would come to a tournament that was only national at best, right?

"Good. I'm glad that matter was settled so easily." Karin remarked as she opened the door to the limousine and stepped outside, "Now get out of my car."

With that, Naruto climbed out of the limousine and shoved his hands into his pockets as they started to walk away back into the arcade. The air between them was no longer as tense as before and it felt much better all around, "You're still going to treat me like you own me aren't you?" It was like everything was back to normal again.

"Why naturally of course." The pleasant smirk on Karin's face certainly said that everything was back to normal, "Please note that it is only due to the fact that I _do_ indeed own you Naruto-san. No matter what you may believe to the contrary."

"Nobody owns me… they rent me."

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Edmond Honda  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 27 (Birthday: November 3)  
><span>HeightWeight: 6'1/302 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> Unknown  
><span>Likes:<span> Baths, nabeyaki, tiramisu, chankonabe, sandwiches, noodles.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Indecisiveness, dishonoring his family, chocolate cookies, rice vermicelli.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Cooking.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Zangief  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Sumo  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Hyaku no te Binta (Hundred Hand Slap), Sumo Gyorai (Sumo Headbutt), Sumo no Shibuki (Sumo Splash), Oicho Nageru (Oicho Throw), Oni Muso (Peerless Demon).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Kyuukyoku no Satsujin Zutsuki (Ultimate Killer Headbutt), Orochi Shandaki (Great Snake Breaker).  
><span>Background:<span> A powerful and skilled sumo wrestler focused on becoming known as the best of all time, Edmond Honda is currently the rank below the rare and highest level of sumo wrestlers (Yokozuna), and stands with the highly revered rank of Ozeki. Upset that the world does not view sumo with the same respect and prestige of the Japanese, E. Honda began challenging fighters all over the world to prove his own strength and to show that sumo wrestlers are among the best fighters in the entire world, one day wishing to achieve the final title of Yokozuna.

* * *

><p><strong>You know at first I was surprised when I read that so many people had never played a Street Fighter game before and are more or less completely unaware of the characters (this is what Street Fighter Wiki is for, so that I don't have to add this shit in). A damn shame that. God, that really makes me feel old and I'm 20. I was getting dropped on my head as Ken by Zangief's damnable spinning piledriver in Super Street Fighter II Turbo at the age of 5 back in 1996 (great year).<strong>

***sigh* Now all my hopes and dreams are fading away…**

**Okay, I'm done with that. **

**Now to the real point of why I brought that up. It seems that many of you are not aware of the power structure in Street Fighter. You see it goes… there isn't one. Anyone can more or less beat anyone at any given time. Yes, there's the fact that Ryu is the main character and all that, but that does not matter at all as the main character is not really dominant, not in a fighting game. There's no deus ex machina growth here to handle what lies ahead. There are only two (maybe three) 'untouchable' bonafide BAMFs in this game and only one is definite.**

**Akuma (if anyone does not consider Akuma a BAMF I will hire a Danny Trejo lookalike to stab you)**

**M. Bison (maybe because there were times when I could beat even him without losing a single credit, but he's ****definitely**** below Akuma)**

**And the last one is not showing up for a long-ass while.**

**Later all. I've got exams to prepare for and one last university blowout to get to before we close for winter break.**

**Kenchi out.**


	5. A Day in the Life

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. Now get out of my face about it or I'll call Balrog to lay the smack down on you. Don't think he won't.

**Chapter 5: A Day in the Life**

* * *

><p>"Time!" Sakura called out as Naruto rounded the track outside of the school for the fourth time, "And that's 2 minutes, 45 seconds."<p>

"Damn it!" Naruto shouted with his hands on top of his head as he took a bunch of deep breaths showing a bit of exhaustion, "I need to get faster." He said, huffing and puffing before setting himself back down in a running stance to prepare to run again, "Mark me Sakura-chan, I'm breaking 2 minutes and 30 seconds this time, dattebayo!"

Instead of calling him out to let him run his laps again, Sakura just stripped the vest with the parachute and the weights attached from his back and held it up, "Naruto it's been twenty minutes and you're running a full mile in under two minutes and thirty seconds consistently."

"I've got to keep trying to get better at what I'm good at Sakura-chan." Naruto said as he pushed himself up and stretched his legs out, "The tournament I'm entering is at the start of the year and it's past the middle of October. I've got to get the skills I have airtight."

"The under two minutes one you ran last week was a total anomaly, you'll never break that again." Sakura looked at the vest in her hands distastefully, "Not again while you're wearing this thing anyway." She threw it aside and it formed a small crater and a dust cloud upon hitting the ground, "How'd coach even let you mess that resistance vest up the way you did anyway?"

"Because the parachute wasn't enough to slow me down too much by itself." Naruto said as he and Sakura went back to join their other friends in gym class. With a grin Naruto walked past many of the male students that had stopped to gawk at the freshman running faster than any other recorded person even with a parachute on his back, "In case you were wondering, that's what speed looks like!"

Sakura rolled her eyes as Ibuki ran up to them from where she had been before, "Speed huh? You want to race me sometime? I bet I'm faster than you." She teased, poking him on the nose to set off his little temper that she had gotten used to pushing the buttons to by now.

"You want to race?" Naruto replied with a challenging grin after rubbing the spot on his nose where she poked it, "Bring it on, I'll leave you right in the dust Ibuki. I don't have the parachute and the weights on either so bring it."

"No, no, no, no, no." Sakura grabbed the shoulders of both ninja before they could take off running, "All I've been doing is watching someone faster than me run around a circle for 25 minutes. I'm not about to watch the two of you make me feel even slower. Why don't we ever play baseball during gym? Or why don't we ever just spar like normal? All Naruto ever wants to do during gym is run. Speed isn't everything you know."

A thumbs down came from Ibuki at that suggestion, "For a ninja speed is kind of important. And it's also because I hate baseball and we can never get enough people." A mischievous smirk crossed the young kunoichi's face, "Who wants to play baseball with a pair of ninja that can jump fifteen feet in the air and steal bases without needing to get a jump on the pitcher? You're not very nice with the homeruns either Sakura-chan." She started looking around for someone else though, "I haven't seen Kei-chan all period. Where's she?"

"Kei-chan found a way to get herself excused from gym for outside activities." Sakura said, "Something about her allergies. Didn't know she had any really." Her eyes then widened in realization, "Wait, Kei-chan doesn't have allergies at all. But she had a signed note from a doctor and her mother."

"What?" Naruto said abruptly without being prompted, "I didn't forge Kei's mom's signature and a fake doctor signature because she gave me a coupon for six months free ramen. You're crazy Sakura-chan." Naruto said with a sheepish grin.

"I didn't say anything about you…" Sakura gave Naruto a reprimanding stare that had him sweating bullets until she sighed and ran a hand over her own forehead, "What am I going to do with you Naruto? You're going to get yourself into some serious trouble one day."

Ibuki rolled her eyes and pointed a thumb at Naruto, "Once again; he's a ninja Sakura-chan. We do things that would get us in trouble if we get caught… so we just don't get caught. Kei-chan is smart enough to know better than to say anything about it."

"Well when I do get caught one day you can tell me that you told me so and I'll shut up about it." Naruto said to Sakura as they made it inside and split up to head to their separate locker rooms for boys and girls, "See you guys later." With that, Naruto went into the boy's locker room and went right to his locker to change out of gym clothes back into his uniform.

"Hey, Uzumaki is in the top fifty fighters in Japan after the new polls went out."

"Wasn't he barely breaking number 75 during the last poll?"

"Yeah, but there's a story going out that he called out Edmond Honda and fought his way through an entire stable of sumo wrestlers just to beat Honda himself."

"Then I heard he broke his arms to teach him a lesson for not coming out and fighting him directly."

Naruto palmed his face and shook his head, 'What a stupid rumor? A whole stable full of sumo wrestlers?' He seriously hated the dirt sheet aspect of that website, as when confirmed fight specs were minimal there would be tons of speculation over what happened during them and the posters on the site had a serious case of overactive imaginations.

"I heard he won that fight then got down on one knee to propose to some girl right there on the spot!"

"That dog! He hangs out with the strongest girl in school, her cute friend, and the new girl too!"

And that was all he wanted to hear out of the peanut gallery, "I didn't propose to Karin! My fucking back was killing me and I kneeled down!" Naruto shouted at the top of his lungs, getting everyone in the locker room to stop changing and stare at him. Guys even started looking at him from over their lockers in other rows making Naruto feel self-conscious. He quickly changed his clothes and hastily made his way out of the locker room before something weird happened.

His last few weeks had been spent by him trying to hone his taijutsu better against a wide variety of sparring partners; Sakura as a base and the main one he trained against due to their proximity, Ibuki when he wanted to fight someone that could match speed with him, Batsu when he wanted a fight that would inevitably degenerate into a brawl. He was never going to have dojo-refined technique, but he could still stand to clean up his fighting style better to minimize damage. Who knew when he'd fight someone that could potentially punish him like E. Honda again?

An absentminded Naruto walked out of the boys' locker room and did not notice Ibuki hanging from the ceiling directly above the door waiting on him to walk out, a part of a game they played to see if they could sneak attack the other and then make sure the other didn't get them back in response. And this is when she dropped from the ceiling directly landing on his back and flattening him right to the ground.

"Oh come on, that wasn't even fun." Ibuki said as she sat on his back, her tanuki which had taken up the practice of hiding itself during school hours chewing on his ankle at the same time, "You weren't even trying that time. You're so lucky I wasn't an actual assassin." Ibuki pouted as she stood up and allowed Naruto back up off of the ground.

"Ow." Naruto mumbled before pulling himself up off of the floor, wiping the dirt and dust bunnies from his face, "Sorry. Just thinking about my fights." He said as he picked Don off of his ankle by the scruff of his neck and threw him at his fellow ninja.

Ibuki caught Don who scrambled up her shoulder and let out a sigh at hearing Naruto's ever-present problem. She liked to help, that much was true, but she came to school in order to not be a ninja for a while. That was really counter-productive when Naruto asked her to spar afterschool sometimes, "You need to take a rest for a bit. Kanzuki-san hasn't sent you on any fights in a while so you don't have to be on edge all the time preparing for your tournament. Take a break."

"Doing what?"

"Anything! Anything fun! Anything relaxing!" Ibuki shouted at him as they began to walk outside of the school to go home for the day, "What do you do when you aren't working or training?"

It took Naruto a second to think about it as it wasn't a straightforward question at all. He wanted to say hanging out with such and such, but no matter who he would more than likely bring up it usually turned into either a training session, a tagalong on a job, or somehow they'd wind up getting into some kind of fight somewhere. It was a vicious cycle of sorts.

Finally he came up with an answer that he felt was appropriate for the situation at hand, "Sleep and go to the arcade."

"When was the last time you went to the arcade… as boring as even that sounds?"

"Four weeks?"

Upon receiving that half-assed response from Naruto, Ibuki just shook her head, ponytail swishing as she gestured for Naruto to follow her outside where Sakura and Kei were waiting on them, "Okay, I think we should call an intervention. Naruto doesn't know how to relax."

"I do too." Naruto responded, sounding quite offended.

"No you don't. It's why you suck at meditating." Ibuki retorted getting a glowering stare from Naruto, "Don't give me that look, it's true. You don't know how to sit still for long enough to get anything out of it. You're going to burn out like I did one of these days."

"She's right Naruto." Added Sakura who found Naruto's frown fixated on her from that point, "You're busy all the time. Ever since I've known you, all you do is just push, push, push. You never give yourself any real down time. Kids aren't supposed to do that."

"Hello!" Ibuki pointed at herself, referencing her own repeated, nonstop training since youth.

"I said they aren't _supposed to_." Clarified the brown-haired female fighter, "And Ibuki-chan is right. You need to do something calming every once in a while."

"Oh that is such a load of crap Sakura-chan." Naruto said, not paying this conversation much mind at all, "That's like the pot calling the fucking kettle black. You train every single goddamn day… just as hard as I do! When I go home you're still training!"

"I've got to train harder than you because I'm playing catch-up with skills that aren't mine. If I don't do it you'll just run away ahead of me, and if you get that far ahead then how far ahead will-?" Sakura defended amicably before Naruto let out a loud groan and cut in.

"If you finish that sentence with anything involving Ryu, I'm going home." Naruto said, pointing to the rooftops that he just so happened to be prepared to take to in order to split, "Right now. I'm not even going to listen to the rest of what you have to say."

Sakura pouted, knowing that if he wasn't teasing her about Ryu he was probably not even going to listen to anything involving him. He was stubborn like a mule and if she did he probably would run off, "Fine. But this isn't about me, it's about you. Do something to chill out every once in a while instead of just working-."

"-Like go on a date or something!" Ibuki interjected again abruptly, "You're a decent looking guy Naruto. If you weren't so hyper-focused on fighting all the time you could probably get a cute girlfriend. A lot of girls don't really like the whole fighting aspect though just so you know."

"Sakura-chan likes fighters."

"No. She likes _a_ fighter and that fighter isn't you. She doesn't like them all in general. Just one. And we all know who that is by now." The correction from Kei got a blush out of Sakura. When were they going to stop messing with her about how she liked Ryu? It had to get old at some point, didn't it? Maybe not, but from Kei too it was a little much, "But I think Ibuki-chan is right. You do need something like that to teach you to calm down a bit. Just a concerned friend speaking here."

In order to try and test this little theory, Sakura made sure she was in plain and clear sight of Naruto before suddenly reaching towards the top of her own head. Her proximity to Naruto upon doing so got him to react as if someone were about to strike at him; his body tensed and he turned towards her to prepare to intercept the blow that was never to be, "You see, you are on edge! Calm down! Nobody's going to hurt you here!"

"I like to blame whatever diet he was getting in America." Kei said, nodding to herself as if she had found some kind of point to be made, "I heard about all of the sugar and other things those kids get there all the time. Poor Naruto must have been cranked out of his mind before he moved here. It can't be natural for someone to be as wound up as he is all of the time."

"Okay sure… Let's go with that." Naruto said under his breath with a roll of his eyes. What else was he going to say? Would he say, 'No, it's actually an all-powerful source of energy inside of my body that wants to destroy all of mankind that keeps me hyper'? Because that would have just gone over great, he could just tell without even saying it, "I'm not that bad…"

"Yeah you are."

He needed more friends at that school that were guys and that weren't afraid of him. Getting triple-teamed in an argument by girls was not his specialty in fending off, especially when they all seemed to sync up and say something definite in unison. Clones couldn't fight that advantage off because it would be an artificial recreation and that just wasn't as effective at all.

Until then he was at the mercy and whim of the three girls as far as this dispute went, "Well fine." Naruto eventually conceded for his remaining sanity's sake, "So since you three are so smart, what do I do for dealing with this?" Maybe giving up would make this go easier?

"I like Ibuki-chan's idea." Sakura said, trying to contribute to solving the 'issue' at hand, "You should go on a date. Put those outfits I bought you for your birthday to good use and dress nice for once."

"A date with who?" Naruto responded skeptically, "Girls don't like me, and both of you have reasons for not doing it. That's the only reason I can think that I haven't gone on one with either of you before." Sakura had nothing but Ryu on the brain and would compare every boy to him, and Kei was his friend by way of Sakura at first. She and Naruto eventually became friends off of each other's own merits, but it was originally because Sakura was the link that joined them.

Of course, that question of who would possibly go do something with him ended with Ibuki swatting him on the back of his head, "You're really forgetting someone close to you aren't you? Think a little bit harder why don't you?"

Naruto blinked before squinting his eyes at her, "Ugh… if you're suggesting I go on a date with Karin you're out of your mind. She'd laugh right in my face, and then the whole thing would be miserable even if she did say yes. It's just not a good idea."

"No dummy I'm talking about me!"

"You?" Giving Ibuki a confused look, Sakura wondered just how that entire process would work out, "Wait, you always have to get back to your village after school. You only have like two hours to do anything afterwards before going home. How are you going to go on a date with Naruto?"

A sly look came over the kunoichi of the group's face at the question, "Oh, all it'll take is a bit of misdirection and cunning." She turned to Naruto with big doe eyes before speaking again, "You know that thing you do that can transform you into other people? How well can you make yourself look like me?"

XxX

(Two Days Later – Four Hours After School's End – Naruto's Apartment)

'This is either going be really good or really bad.' Naruto thought to himself as he stood in his bathroom and finished getting himself ready to go. How he let himself get talked into this stupid idea was beyond him. A date? He hadn't even thought of trying to date anyone ever, not since he had last tried to do so with the Sakura from his world. Seeing how hard that was with someone he had known for years he didn't really want to try it again in a place where no one knew him, 'I'm the best damn ninja alive! What's there to think about here? I can pull a date off.'

Prepared to carry that attitude into whatever awaited him that night, Naruto left his bathroom in more casual clothes than the school uniform he wore day in and day out only to jump back with a start upon finding someone in his room. Sighing in relief when he recognized the person sitting on his bed, Naruto put his hand on his heart to show the jolt he had received, "Ibuki, stop breaking into my house."

"But it's so easy." The rather cheerful sounding kunoichi said, sitting with one leg crossed over the other on Naruto's bed, "And there's no way I was going to wait outside for you."

"…You didn't have to do that either." Naruto said, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked her over. She still had her hair up in its usual manner, but she wore a black evening dress and a dark blue jacket over top of it. On her feet she had black wrap-around dress shoes and looked very good, as she must have known because she smirked when she caught him staring, "Don't give me that look. I thought we were supposed to meet up downtown after you got my clone into place."

Ibuki hopped off of the bed with an excited expression on her face, "I couldn't wait. And it was easy getting your clone to the village. All I had to do was hold his hand while I had him blindfolded so that he didn't see where it was. It'll be so easy, all your clone has to do is act like me until I can sneak back in. See? Easy." Ibuki grabbed him by his arm and started to drag him out of the apartment, "Come on, let's go!"

XxX

(Meanwhile – Ibuki's Unnamed Ninja Village)

An Ibuki-Henged Naruto Kage Bunshin sat in her room wearing her ninja clothes and staring at its surroundings. Ibuki had taken the clone's blindfold off once they reached the outskirts of the village and gave it directions before taking off back to Aohura City which would have taken her another hour or so to return to.

The place reminded him a bit of Konoha except that the buildings were more of the classical variety than the sprawling city setup that Konoha had. It still had tons of trees and nature, with people moving about at high speeds all around him.

It made him feel a bit like he was at home.

But he had to remember that there were no headbands to distinguish who was a ninja… because everybody was a ninja. He stayed on edge for most of the time until he made it to Ibuki's place of residence with other students under a particular teacher and got to her room.

"This place is actually kind of cool." Naruto in Ibuki's form and voice admitted to Don as the tanuki lay on the bed, seemingly not caring one way or the other about anything, "I can see how it would drive her nuts after a while though." Living in the cities of this world kind of got Naruto used to the amenities that came with such an experience. While he didn't really watch TV or use the internet too often there were still tons of things this world had that he did not in his own. Imagine being Ibuki and knowing that those things existed but not being able to get to them.

The clone certainly hoped that the boss was able to show her a good time tonight for both of their sakes.

But for the time being, the clone was bored. Very, very bored. With no knowledge of what there was to do for kicks in this village it had nowhere to go but to Ibuki's room where it planned on staying to minimize the risk of being discovered as fake.

Not really the most exciting way to spend time in a ninja village for the first time in over three years, but one would take what one could get.

"I guess she was right when she said that all they do around here is train." Naruto's clone said to Don but mostly to itself before looking over Ibuki's form that he had Henged himself into, "Hmm." The clone said inquisitively as if it were pondering over the merits and ethics of its next actions before shrugging and placing both hands on Ibuki's chest, more or less groping itself, "Man Ibuki is firm." All the training was what the clone assumed. It certainly did her body good.

In response, Don cracked an eye from his attempted slumber and growled at Naruto-clone for besmirching his owner's form with his grubby hands.

"Oh whatever you stupid rat." Naruto said, still getting a good feel of what Ibuki felt like, "You do worse stuff every day with Ibuki, Kei, _and_ Sakura-chan just because you're an animal. At least this is technically my body." He could swear the tanuki smirked at him with a gleam in its eye when he brought up the bountiful chest hugs that it got from girls every single day just for being furry and cute, "Yeah, that's what I thought."

While Naruto-clone continued to fondle the form that it had transformed into and commit it to memory for his creator's sake, a knock came at Ibuki's door that startled the incognito doppelganger. Almost jumping off of Ibuki's bed in surprise, it regained its composure to salvage the situation, "Uh, yes? Who's there?"

"Ibuki-chan? Are you alright? You haven't come out at all since you came back from school, is everything okay?"

The voice of a male the age of Ibuki and Naruto came from the other side of her door and Naruto-clone quickly responded in Ibuki's stead, "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just that the trip back from Aohura City was a bit of a killer today. I think I'll turn in early for the night."

"…Okay. But we've got to get through with evening training first. Come on."

Naruto-clone blanched. Ibuki didn't say anything about evening training, she just said that he had to be her right down to the letter… and maybe one could construe that with keeping up her training schedule as well.

Fine. It was better than sitting in the room all night waiting for the real Ibuki to show back up just so that it could dispel… and maybe it'd be fun to see just what kind of training Ibuki did regularly, "Sure. I'll be right out in a moment."

"Just don't be late okay? Sanjou-sensei's not the most patient guy."

"Trust me, I know." Naruto said in Ibuki's form before getting up out of the bed amid the snickers of Don, "Oh shush up damn you."

XxX

(With Naruto and Ibuki – Aohura City – Outside of a Movie Theater)

The first thing that Naruto could think of to do was something simple, like just take Ibuki to a movie. Rather lame, but he had never really been on a date before and assumed that would be the obvious thing to do; it was entertaining and it gave him at least an hour and a half to think of something else for them to do.

She didn't seem to find it a copout course of action though, as Ibuki had thought it a great idea and took to the whole thing with gusto. She clearly wasn't very hard to please and that made for a very enjoyable start to the date.

"Oh that's just impossible." Ibuki said, hanging off of Naruto's arm as they exited the theater. The movie they went to see was some movie with a giant monster out to destroy a large city, which led to the conversation the two were having, "There's no way that's true."

"It's really the truth." Naruto assured her with a big grin on his face, "I summoned this big, big toad before out of thin air, bigger than that stupid monster in the movie. I can't do it anymore… I've tried. But I used to be able to. Is it that hard to believe?"

"Yeah, it is." Laughed Ibuki with a bright lift to her voice, "You can do a lot of weird things like make copies of yourself and turn into other people, but giant super-toads? I think I'd be too scared to believe it even if I did see it. But anyway what's next?"

Naruto had taken the time to actually think about it while they were watching the movie and came to the conclusion that it didn't really matter what he thought would be fun. From the way she seemed to just enjoy being in the theater, Ibuki would probably like anything that they did, so in the end he had his own thought of what to do, "Why don't you tell me what you want to do? There's got to be a lot of stuff you haven't done yet since you started coming to the city all the time."

Her eyes lit up at the suggestion for her to tell him what she wanted to do as it seemed like she had ideas and then some, "Well… I don't know how you'll be able to pull this off, but there is one thing I've really wanted to do for a while."

XxX

(With Naruto's Clone – Ibuki's Unnamed Ninja Village)

Ibuki's village training was pretty uniform. A lot of the other students there operated a lot like she did, only she was just better at it from what Naruto's clone managed to gleam during the training.

Still, training in the dead of night was lame. He wasn't feeling that at all.

He didn't learn anything secret really, and it was probably for the best that he didn't in case Ibuki would get in trouble for letting such a thing happen just to go on a date, but Sanjou, Ibuki's sensei kept a keen eye on Naruto-clone the entire time, and the clone made sure that its every move was just like he had seen Ibuki do back when they had trained. Apparently he had done a good enough job to keep from being called out because no one said anything.

In fact, even Ibuki's friend, a guy wearing a bandanna like hers with brown hair under it, and a tight long-sleeved blue shirt with tan gi pants treated Naruto-clone like he was Ibuki. Pretty awkward, but it seemed to work out. All he had to do was get back to Ibuki's room at that point and everything would be copacetic until the real Ibuki came home to relieve him.

As the clone went back inside the house where Ibuki was roomed up, Sanjou and another ninja watched the students go inside, waiting for all of the students to leave before Sanjou spoke up, "That isn't Ibuki. It's a good impersonation though." The imposter kept complete pace with the training regimen and didn't even really look winded by the end, excelling much the way Ibuki would have.

The man next to Sanjou nodded stoically. He had short brown hair with spiky bangs that hung over his eyes and wore a sleeveless ninja bodysuit with white borders, a yellow sash, and a mesh shirt underneath with yellow 4 oz. gloves on his hands. The Nike shoes on his feet offset the entire outfit sharply though, "It's very good. Do you want to deal with our guest or do you want to go track down Ibuki yourself?"

"If you don't have any missions to attend to I think you should go retrieve her this time Guy." Sanjou said as he started to walk inside, "I believe I know who our 'friend' here is. He knows me and he probably won't panic if I'm the one to expose him. I don't believe his intentions are malicious either way." He turned back right before entering the building only to see that the other ninja, Guy, had already vanished and gone off to find Ibuki.

XxX

(A Few Hours Later – With Naruto and Ibuki – Aohura City)

"You're a terrible driver Naruto." Ibuki teased as she and Naruto sat on the windmill of a miniature golf course, "I thought you knew what you were doing, but you suck at go-karts as much as I do."

Naruto shrugged sheepishly and chuckled, remembering just how disastrous the entire 'Let-Ibuki-drive-a-go-kart' plan had worked out, mostly as far as the point of himself being behind the wheel went. It was still fun though and at least he didn't get banned for life, "Well I never drive. I don't even have a license. I just turned 16 like two weeks ago."

"Well you should get a license and a car too. Something cool. I want to drive a real car next time." Ibuki scooted closer to Naruto while speaking, just for the sake of getting closer to the guy.

With another laugh, Naruto barely noticed her move, his attention placed more on coming up with something else for them to do before it got too late and Ibuki had to go home, "Why? So you can crash that too? You'd better get your own license if you want to drive any car I ever get." He then noticed that she had gotten really close to his side, but still scrunched himself closer so that he didn't overstep any bounds. The night had gone good until that point and he didn't want to risk screwing it up by being presumptuous.

"You know, you can put an arm around me if you want to. You look so nervous right now." It wasn't any use trying to hide what he was trying to do or not to do from Ibuki because his eyes told anyone that was paying close enough attention anything that they wished to know at the moment, and Ibuki could see in his eyes that he wasn't sure how to handle her getting closer, "You haven't been on many dates with a girl before have you?"

'Try none.' But the option was taken out of his hands when Ibuki grabbed his right arm and placed it around the back of her waist to keep her close to him, "Uh… okay."

"Don't ever be that guy Naruto." Ibuki said as she leaned into him, "You're over-thinking things. Don't do that, just go with the flow, and things are flowing nicely right now. That's what I like about you. I know so many ninja that are uptight and don't just roll with the punches of whatever happens. You're like water sometimes. You go your own way, and if someone tries to change that path or get in the way it had better be a real force to actually make you do it or else you'll make them pay for trying."

"Wow." That was certainly not seen coming by Naruto, "So… did you read that somewhere or did you come up with it on your own?" He responded in kind with a grin on his face.

"Oh, so that's how you want to play it I see." Despite the playing growl in her voice when she made to retort, Ibuki's smile signified that she was still having a good time, "You know, I wanted the whole date experience when I got you to go on this whole thing. I more than likely won't be getting the whole walk up to my doorstep for a goodnight, but I guess that would be too normal for me. But I guess it served its purpose in the end either way."

"What do you mean?"

"If you don't know what I'm talking about then I'm not going to tell you. That would defeat the entire point of even doing this in the first place." Naruto was too old to pout about anything, but it did make Ibuki laugh when she saw him do it, "Don't worry about that, worry about me. I'm still your date and I want to do one more thing before I have to go back home."

So she had another idea of something she wanted to do? That was just alright with Naruto. Her last idea was a pretty fun one, and he did want to make sure that she had a great time while out with him, "Anything you want. What do you want to do?"

"I want-."

"You're making a bad habit out of stretching your time away from the village for your school Ibuki."

Both Naruto and Ibuki looked up to see a man in a red outfit standing atop a windmill blade above them with his arms crossed and an emotionless look on his face, "Oh come on Guy!" Ibuki shouted up at the man, "I was about to go home. You didn't need to come all the way out here." Her face was red as she thought about what Guy had almost been there to see her do, "I was helping a friend."

Guy's face didn't change as he continued to look down at the two, "You seem to be awfully comfortable for someone that is supposed to be doing something like helping a friend."

Well damn. Apparently Ibuki was busted. But his clone had never dispelled to warn him that they were in trouble. There might be a chance to salvage the situation and run some damage control to keep her from getting into too much trouble. Lying to this guy wasn't going to work. Naruto could just see that this was one of those guys that didn't accept excuses, especially the kind that he was prepared to make about losing track of time.

"Look, this whole thing is my fault." Naruto said, trying to dump a significant portion of the blame onto himself as he stood up from beside Ibuki, "I'm responsible for this."

"Do you think that our lifestyle is some kind of game?" Guy asked Naruto as the young blonde teen had caught his attention, "I'm aware of who you are by way of what Sanjou has said about you, and I have to ask the question. Just what do you think being a ninja is? You do common household chores, odd jobs, street-level grunt work that would be better served for a gang enforcer. And you call yourself a ninja? It's not just the way that you fight that makes you one."

What was with the dull tone when he was eliciting some kind of superiority stroke on him? He rubbed Naruto the wrong way right off the bat and from the scowl on Ibuki's face she wasn't particularly a huge fan of this person either.

"Just because I don't do the same kinds of things that you doesn't make me a fake ninja." Naruto remarked with a frown on his face, "I don't have a village to give me my missions or to fight for so I've got to do my own thing. If you don't like me I don't care, but don't insult me. Being a ninja is all I've ever done. What's your problem anyway? I said I was sorry, and she's ready to go home."

Guy jumped down from the windmill blade to Naruto and Ibuki's level where he stood slightly over Naruto's head, "Ibuki is a model kunoichi, or at least she was until she met you. These mistake are becoming more and more frequent in a short time. And I'd go as far to say that you could be the problem."

"Me?" Naruto said, pointing to himself as if Guy was possibly talking to anyone else, "What the hell did I do? I'm just trying to get along here."

"Ibuki's focus has been skewed, and her dedication to our lifestyle has been lacking." Guy said as he started to pace around Naruto, "And here I find her with you. What do you think that tells me?"

"That real ninja work's been bussed down to the glorified stalking of a fifteen year old girl." Ibuki quipped, quite unpleased at how her night was turning out due to the interruption from one of the highest ranking people that didn't even belong to her village, "Why are you even concerned with this? You're not even from my clan in the village."

"My master is a friend of your own clan's leader and I consider him a friend as well." Guy said, fixing Ibuki with his stern, business-like demeanor, "I am your elder in this case Ibuki. And your current attitude surprises me. You're slipping."

"I'm stronger now than I ever was." Ibuki assured Guy, "I haven't been slacking off at all. As a matter of fact I've been training right after school most days just like I'd have been if I were at home. I just do it with my other friends." While she would rather do other things than train as long as she was outside of her village, she had to admit that training with the others was more fun, "And Naruto's a plenty strong partner to work with. Sanjou-sensei should have told you how good he was if you were set on coming out here to mess up our date."

"I thought you called this you helping a friend out."

"It was! It is!" This was simply flustering the younger female ninja beyond normalcy, "It's a date that's helping Naruto out! He saved my life from an entire platoon of Geki Clan ninja, I can go out with him if I want to!"

Looking down, Naruto found that the other denizens of the miniature golf course were staring in interest at the three people standing on the windmill and he decided to interject, "Can we take this somewhere else?" Both Ibuki and Guy then noticed the situation and nodded before they all jumped from the windmill elsewhere.

XxX

(With Naruto's Clone – Ibuki's Unnamed Ninja Village)

In order to entertain himself until Ibuki returned and he could dispel, Naruto's Kage Bunshin started looking around her room and wound up in her closet where he saw nothing but different versions of her ninja outfits and her school clothes at first glance. Then after much more searching he found her stash of regular clothes, "So this stuff is like contraband or something?" He asked the tanuki Don aloud as if the creature would give him a response, "You're such a crappy listener. If I had a pet it would be cooler than you."

KNOCK KNOCK!

"Yo? Uh, I mean, yes?" Naruto's clone verbally backtracked hastily before giving a tentative thumbs-up to Don, asking if that was going to slide, only getting a derisive snort from the small mammal. He seemed to historically have a lot of problems with tanukis. At least this one didn't want to kill him. Or did it?

"Ibuki, it's Sanjou."

"Yes sensei, what can I do for you?"

"You can open the door and let me in for one, or is there a problem?"

Naruto's clone blanched but couldn't just leave the door closed if Ibuki's sensei wanted to see her. That would be suspicious… too suspicious to risk doing. It was time to see how well he could actually act like Ibuki or he was screwed. He walked over to the door and opened it up to find Sanjou standing there, "Hello sensei. Do you need something?"

"Nothing important Ibuki." Sanjou said as he walked into the room and looked around to find Don looking at him with great interest as to what was about to happen, "I just figured that I would come here to tell you-." He shut the door and turned to Naruto-clone before clearing his throat, "I already know that you're not Ibuki, isn't that right Uzumaki Naruto?"

"What? You're crazy." He saw Sanjou move to strike him idly and simpered back before dropping the transformation, "Alright, alright, I'm not Ibuki… damn it. How much trouble is she in?"

Sanjou adjusted his glasses on his face as he looked the Naruto-clone over, 'He's stuck in a situation where he himself could be punished terribly for his presence in a forbidden village and yet he cares more for Ibuki's fate than his own.' Of course Sanjou did not know that this Naruto was just a clone. Thus he found Naruto's attitude to be admirable, "It all depends on how much she is letting herself neglect her own ninja responsibilities to goof off like a normal schoolchild."

"Oh." Naruto-clone said before relaxing his hands behind his head with a squinty gaze at Sanjou, "Well if that's all then everything's cool. I train with her all the time after school. She's not getting weak. Trust me. So am I in trouble? I'll take whatever it is, I just want to know." Sanjou shook his head and Naruto-clone grinned, "Good. Oh, and I don't know how to get here by the way, I was blindfolded if that matters. Later. Ibuki should be back like two hours after I do this." And with that, the clone dispelled in a puff of smoke much to Sanjou's surprise.

What a strange boy.

XxX

(With Naruto, Ibuki, and Guy – Aohura City)

All three ninja reconvened outside of Naruto's apartment on the dark, quiet street outside when Naruto got the message from his dispelled clone and turned to Ibuki with a smile, "Ah, you're not in trouble Ibuki. Sanjou figured out my clone wasn't you and busted us. But he says as long as you can prove that you aren't slacking off it'll be fine."

"Great!" Ibuki chirped happily, giving Naruto a big hug at hearing news that good, "That'll be super easy. I can wow sensei in the morning with how good I've gotten and then maybe he'll even take the stupid curfew off."

Guy idly wondered just how Naruto was able to get that kind of information, but remembered that Naruto had someone in disguise at the ninja village that could probably contact him from that far away. But he had his own things to worry about at the moment, "Who said anything about only wowing your sensei?" He said, getting Ibuki to stop hugging Naruto to stare at him in confusion, "I want to see just how good you've become or just how much you've let yourself slip."

The two younger ninja looked at each other and then at Ibuki's attire for the evening before she let out a sigh, "Well I guess I had to change out of these clothes eventually." She said before quicker than Naruto could notice she relieved herself of her eveningwear and was instantly back in her normal ninja gear. The entire process took less than a second, "I was looking to putting off getting back into this stuff before the date was over."

Naruto blinked at the fact that she had completely switched her attire before he could even notice anything, "Uh, how did you do that and where were you keeping the extra clothes?"

Completing her transformation from civilian-Ibuki to ninja-Ibuki, she pulled up the facemask portion of her under-outfit bodysuit at her neck as she winked at Naruto, "Oh that's not very important is it? A ninja has to keep some secrets after all." She then pointed at Guy and put a serious look on her face, "If you really want to dance then bring it on."

Guy's face didn't change from its normal expressionless appearance as he slid himself into his fighting stance in acceptance of Ibuki's challenge.

"Wait a minute." Naruto said as Ibuki moved away from him to the center of the street to fight Guy, "You're going to do this here? Right in front of my place?" He eventually gave up on trying to convince them otherwise and got out of the way, making his way to the top of his apartment complex to watch, "Kick his ass Ibuki!"

Ibuki nodded as she got into her own ready stance and waited for the right moment to begin going head-to-head with Guy. No impatience could be shown in her first approach. This was meant to show that she had grown as a ninja instead of regressing and she was going to show that venturing outside of the village as much as she did was helping her.

Still as a statue, Guy stood. It was clear that his patience was finely honed and he would not be the one that made the first move based solely off of impulse. He could stand there all night if he wished. Ibuki was not going to win a waiting game.

And she knew that. Hence why she chose to risk attacking Guy first.

Ibuki rushed Guy down in a zigzag pattern on the street only to come in from his right and leap in with a spinning ax kick that he sidestepped as he began to engage Ibuki up close and trade strikes with her. Guy's standing offense consisted of heavy usage of backhand strikes with his lead hand to disorient opponents for a stronger strike from his right hand. But Ibuki was fast, using short punches before springing out of Guy's potential range, forcing him to pursue her a bit.

Getting sick of being kept at range by Ibuki, once she sprang back the next time Guy did not allow her the space she needed to dictate the pace of the fight, "Hayagake (Fast Run)!" In a show of blinding speed he rushed straight ahead, slipping well within Ibuki's comfortable choice of distance and slid at her legs, delivering a kick that sent her head over heels to the ground.

Upon being flipped by the kick and landing on her back, Ibuki immediately rolled to her front and unleashed a barrage of shuriken that missed Guy as he rushed at her again and showed off how he was significantly faster than her, dodging her attacks and rushing right at her again.

Ibuki got off of the ground and attempted a spinning backfist to prevent him from attacking her again, but Guy ducked it and delivered a double punch to Ibuki's body that had her stumbling back, holding her stomach. She lashed out with a high kick in response, but Guy blocked the stiff attack with his forearm, shoving her back and pressing forward with his attack again.

Instead of engaging in another close-range contest with Guy, Ibuki jumped right over Guy in a corkscrew motion to get behind him. While in the air, she unleashed kunai aimed at Guy's blindspot, but he was able to turn and avoided them. This gave her the opening she needed to safely land and attack him without having to deal with a counter attack of his, "Kazegiri (Wind Gili)!" She delivered a jumping high kick that Guy blocked, but she used her second leg to turn it into a bicycle kick that caught him under the chin and popped him backwards, knocking him to the ground.

Taking advantage, Ibuki rushed him, but Guy rolled through to his feet and jumped into the air to deliver a nasty spinning kick with multiple rotations, "Bushin Senpukyaku (Spiritual Warrior Whirlwind Leg)!" The series of jumping spin kicks hit Ibuki in the face at least three times and knocked her back to the ground instead, "Do you surrender?"

"Why would I quit?" Ibuki responded as she stood back up, slightly shakily, and faced him down again, "I'm going to make you eat dirt in just few seconds."

"You're not getting another chance to attack me again." Guy said before launching at Ibuki to continue his onslaught. Instead of engaging him directly, Ibuki turned tail and beat a hasty retreat, jumping off of one of the cars parked on the side of the street and off of the side of a telephone pole only to come to rest on another one.

Narrowing his eyes at the girl, Guy swiftly ran right up the pole she had just jumped up, forcing Ibuki to jump from it and unleash a massive amount of weaponry from her arsenal, "Kazumi Suzaku (Mist Vermillion Sparrow)!" Guy didn't let a single weapon touch him, but Ibuki did not get disheartened by the failed powerful attack as she landed on the edge of a nearby apartment complex rooftop while Guy charged on the telephone line itself right towards her. She formed an afterimage to confound Guy, but he was not fooled and he made her pay for it.

Getting close to her again, Guy delivered four punches before backflip-kicking her into the air. Crouching on the ground he disappeared in a dust cloud before appearing above Ibuki to finish her off, "Nothing personal Ibuki, but this is a lesson for you. Bushin Goraisenpujin (Spiritual Warrior Roaring Thunder Storm God)!" He reached to grab Ibuki for a piledriver but only found an afterimage in her place, "What?"

"You really thought I'd let you hit me five times straight and wouldn't have a counter handy? I can see why Naruto always says this; don't underestimate me!"

Above Guy, Ibuki was even higher in the air than he was, holding multiple kunai in her hands that she let fly at Guy as he turtled up to block them. Not a one even came close to truly harming him outside of light scratches on his arms and legs because that was not the true purpose of the attack, "Gotcha!" Ibuki used the attack of kunai as a feint to deliver an elbow smash to Guy's jaw that she transitioned into her falling with her knee in Guy's back, forcing him face first into the rooftop, "Goodbye Guy! Hashinshou!"

"Whoa!" Naruto jumped up from his place where he had been watching the fight, as it had wound up on his own complex's roof, and ran over to where Ibuki had slammed Guy into the surface, "What the hell was that? You never used that on me or Sakura-chan!"

Ibuki sat down and let out a deep breath, "Of course I never used that on you. You're my friend. That's a nasty finishing technique, not something you do on people that you particularly like." She then jumped right back to her feet when she saw Guy start to get up, "Are you kidding me? You should be out cold."

"My body is tougher than you think." Guy said with blood trailing from his lip, nose, and a cut on his hairline, "I can take more than you expect me to." He saw her prepared to keep fighting and he waved her off, "I don't need to see anymore Ibuki. You've proven that you are still improving even with the distractions of your normal school."

Pulling down her facemask to show a nasty bruise on her cheek and under her jaw, Ibuki gave Guy a relieved smile at finding the fight to be over, "I've got some people to help me think outside of the box. Even when I'm not in the village I'm picking up different outlooks on fighting from my friends. Naruto's one of them." Well for better or worse, whether she liked it or not, being coaxed into training with the never-stop pair of Naruto and Sakura regularly worked for her, and for that she was thankful.

Guy took a long hard look at Naruto and got a stare right back from Naruto, a proud smirk on his face as he had just watched his friend vindicate him with her skills, "I see. Well it is time to return to the village Ibuki." He turned his back on both Ibuki and Naruto and crouched down, prepared to leave, "I will have to test _you_ one of these days Uzumaki Naruto. It won't be in a short battle like it was with Ibuki. It will be to a definitive finish."

As Guy leapt his way off of the roof and began returning to his home, Naruto ran to the edge of the building and shouted after him, "Oh it'll be a short battle alright, because I'll put your ass down in thirty seconds, dattebayo!" He then turned back to Ibuki and looked at the cracks in the roof from her last attack on Guy, "Man… I'm going to have to fix that for free…"

Ibuki walked up to Naruto and faced him with a sigh, "Well it was fun while it lasted Naruto. Thank you for taking me out… even if it didn't end the way I kind of thought that it would."

Wait, he knew that the whole running into Guy and fighting him thing was a serious damper, but throughout the entire night Naruto himself was wondering if an Aohura City rival would run into him and kick something off that way. He had been prepared for the night to end in a manner such as this. Ibuki had to have been as well, as nothing ever really went as planned for people like them.

"Well how did you think it would end?" Naruto asked her, shoving his hands into his pockets idly.

"There was something else I really wanted to do that we didn't really get to before Guy stuck his head into this and screwed everything up." She said with a despondent look on her face as she shook her head, "Oh well."

Oh, so he didn't give her the best time he could have in the end. That was kind of deflating. Naruto figured he'd done a great job until the end, "Ah I'm sorry."

"No, no, it wasn't anything that you did." Ibuki assured him cheerfully with a few pats on his hand, "As a matter of fact I can still do it right now if I wanted to."

It was damn near midnight. What in the world was there to do at this point? Either way, Naruto was pretty much game for whatever she wanted and let her know with a shrug, "Well go ahead then. Tell me what it is." He didn't miss the sly look on the kunoichi's face but at this point she was too close and too fast for him to keep her from doing what happened next… even if he wanted to.

Ibuki slipped forward with her hands behind her back and lightly kissed him, nothing forceful, nothing heavy. Just a regular kiss. His brain more or less stroked off for a moment before registering what was happening. Seven seconds later Ibuki hopped back with a satisfied expression and pulled her facemask back over the lower half of her face before leaving to go home as well, "Bye Naruto! See you Monday!"

Naruto stood there staring at nothing for a few minutes, playing back what had just happened in his head before he threw his hands behind his head and grinned widely, chuckling to himself as he made his way back to his apartment.

XxX

(The Next Monday – Tamagawa Minami High School)

"You two seriously aren't going to tell us anything about what happened?" Kei asked with a twitching eye as she sat in class with Sakura, Naruto and Ibuki, giving the pair of ninja the evil eye for keeping the results of their Saturday night from her, "Was it good? Was it bad? What did you guys do? You can't just leave us hanging like that. It was all of our idea for you to even go on the stupid date."

"As long as it did what it needed to do, I guess it doesn't matter." Sakura said, looking over at a very relaxed Naruto as she had to fight down her own curiosity about what had happened, "So what's the verdict crazy? Are you still all wound up?"

"Nope." Naruto said with complete confidence. He'd been in a great mood for all of Sunday and even got out of bed on Monday without a needed fuss from Sakura, "I'm good. Thanks for making me do that. And thanks for going with me Ibuki, I appreciate it."

Noticing that Kei was now glaring at Naruto for not having her curiosity sated in the least, Ibuki let out a small laugh before stopping to wink at him, "The pleasure was all mine. If you ever get more manic and paranoid than usual again I'd probably like to do it again."

Now by this point, Sakura was in on the fact that there was a significant amount of camaraderie and inside-referencing between Naruto and Ibuki and raised an eyebrow, "Okay, now I'm asking too. What did you guys do on Saturday?"

"Tell me!" Kei more or less demanded. The well-kept gossip in her needed to know, "I'm not a ninja and I can't fight, but I will do… something if you two don't spill."

"Sorry." Ibuki said in a non-apologetic manner as Naruto snickered to his heart's content behind Sakura's chair and next to Ibuki's chair with his head on his desk, "But every ninja needs their share of secrets."

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Mainstream Shinobi<span>

(Karin's Aohura City Mansion)

"This better be _really_ good." Naruto said as he and Batsu walked behind Karin and her entourage as they entered her mansion, "We were working on a new idea for a jutsu or a ki attack when you called me." In reality, he and Batsu were actually throwing their respective projectile attacks at each other and watching as they blew up. The last one when Karin actually called disrupted their focus due to Naruto's ringtone and blew up in their faces.

On the other hand, instead of Naruto who had been there several different times by that point, Batsu was stunned at how large Karin's property was, "You live here by yourself? Who the hell needs all of this?" Maybe if he could grab one of those nice looking little statues and get away with it he could get his mom something nice for her birthday.

"My actual home is larger." Karin commented idly as she led the way into what looked to be a very large entertainment room with a television half the size of the entire far wall sitting against said wall, "I do believe that the reason I called you here should satisfy you greatly Naruto-san." She sounded rather pleased with herself as she said this, "Please have a seat."

Neither Naruto nor Batsu needed to be told twice as they both sat down on one of Karin's very comfortable reclining chairs while she herself sat down on a couch, with Ishizaki quickly bringing her a drink on his tray once she was seated, "Why is the super-rich girl inviting us to her house to watch TV? I'm not complaining, this is awesome, but what's with this?"

"I invited Naruto-san, you just came along with him, and I would be a bad host to turn away the friend of a friend."

"You two are friends now?" Batsu asked as he looked between the two blonds sitting in different areas, "So I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the apparent outright dislike you two always threw back and forth on the phone and that one time I was there in person was just good old-fashioned teenage sexual tension."

Naruto stared at Batsu with an unreadable expression on his face before looking to Karin, "If I tried to beat him up on your property could you replace the stuff we took out?"

"You would be paying for it."

"Thought so."

"Either way." Karin said as she picked up a remote control and clicked the TV on, "I have something you need to see. Remember how you always seem to be trying to get work done to get money? Well people only know of your work from word of mouth. That can only go so far, so I figured that a promotional spot would bring your potential clientele up immensely."

The two teen males in the room looked at each other before Naruto spoke up, "So… you made me a commercial?" Karin nodded and absently took a sip of her prepared drink, "Alright, cool. Let's see it."

Without needing to be asked again, Karin queued up the commercial and played it on her massive TV.

"_Any problem can be solved for the right price."_ The voice over said as there was a shot of Naruto walking down the street with Batsu and a group of their other friends, the focus on him, _"All you need to do is find the right man for the job. The right man is a child."_

"I don't like it so far." Naruto grumbled at being called a child, "How'd you even get a camera on me without me noticing it anyway?"

"I can get or do anything I want." Karin said as if she had repeated this to him countless times already, "Keep watching."

At that point the commercial cut to different shots of Naruto in fights with various people that had been captured from bystanders and placed on the internet at some point in time, ending with him standing over Dan at the end of their fight a few months ago, _"If you have a _'problem'_ then you can call Uzumaki Naruto, freelance mercenary. Rates negotiable."_

Nodding at the conclusion of the commercial, Batsu gave his own opinion, "It's kind of cool, but it seems like a lot of sizzle and a little bit of steak doesn't it? I mean it tells people that he takes work for money, but it makes him seem like a thug too. It doesn't really tell people what he does."

"I thought of that as well." Karin agreed as she hit a few more buttons on her remote to bring something else up, "So I had a second commercial made addressing this point. Here."

Instead of the action shots, this time it had Naruto doing odd jobs like walking a ton of dogs, moving things into a truck with the use of clones, retiling a roof, washing windows, things like that, _"Any problem can be solved for the right price. All you need to do is find the right man for the job. The right man is a child. If you have a _'problem'_ then you can call Uzumaki Naruto… the ultimate chore boy. Rates negotiable."_

The commercial ended and left the room in silence until Batsu started laughing uproariously, "Ultimate chore boy! That's great! Put the second one on TV now! At least put it on the internet!" He was then muffled by Naruto getting up and stuffing a couch pillow into his face, though it was evident that he was still laughing.

Naruto was continuing his efforts to try and smother his friend with a pillow while looking over at his employer/friend who was trying to hide the fact that she was just about to start laughing herself, "Karin can I have the master tape for the second one? I want to blow it up." He heard Batsu humorously mumble 'ultimate chore boy' from under the pillow and gave it one good punch, "Shut up!"

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Guy  
><span>Nationality:<span> U.S.A.  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 20  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'10/159 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> O  
><span>Likes:<span> Salmon, rice with green tea, cold tofu, collecting and wearing sneakers.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Horizontal western writing, Ibuki's lazy behavior, evil senses.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Sprinting, making bonsai, jumping from walls.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Mad Gear Gang, Ibuki.  
><span>Fighting<span> Style: Bushin Ryuu Ninpou (Spiritual Warrior School of Ninja Arts)  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Houzantou, Bushin Senpukyaku (Spiritual Warrior Whirlwind Leg), Bushin Izuna Otoshi (Spiritual Warrior Izuna Drop), Hayagake (Fast Run), Kaiten Izuna Otoshi (Rotating Izuna Drop).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Bushin Hasoken, Bushin Goraisenpujin (Spiritual Warrior Roaring Thunder Storm God), Bushin Muso Renge (Spiritual Flower God Warrior)  
><span>Background:<span> A delinquent in Japan in his youth, Guy eventually met and was taken in by the 38th Bushin Master Zeku who trained Guy in his specific art of ninjutsu. He moved back to the United States, living in Metro City, a city with a large gang problem and helped to clean up its streets with the help of a few friends before moving back to Japan to continue his training. Guy rarely smiles and takes most things in life deadly serious, especially his own dedication to the ninja arts. He dislikes anyone that would make light of or disrespect his lifestyle and expects equal dedication from other ninja as well. He is seen as a very prominent figure in Ibuki's village and in multiple groups of ninja around the world.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright everyone. Chapter complete. I have responsibilities to adhere to, so I'll catch you all around later. Hope things are and will go well for you in the meantime.<strong>

**Next chapter should be a whole lot of fun so until next time folks...  
><strong>

**Later. Kenchi out.**


	6. Opening Day

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter... no bullshit, I really don't. Can you believe that crap? I'm pissed about it.

**Chapter 6: Opening Day**

* * *

><p>Winter had a strange sort of comfort to it when one was sleeping. Cold mornings were turned into times when one was stuck underneath the warmth of their covers and sheets to avoid the bite of the open air, especially when one didn't particularly have heat like Naruto did. Hey, Hi no Kuni back in the Elemental Nations always had pretty nice weather. It didn't really get cold there. Not like Japan.<p>

But in order to deal with the lack of heat, Naruto had developed a habit of deep sleeping. People that tried to awaken him by knocking on his door at this time of the year would often refer to this as his hibernation. Mostly because he slept like a rock beyond eight hours or more at a time, and if you woke him up prematurely he would be very cranky for most of the morning afterward.

"Wake up Naruto-san."

"*snore*…"

"*sigh*… Wake up Naruto-san!"

"AAAHHH!" The shout in Naruto's ear early in the morning shot him out of bed like a rocket as he stuck upside down to the ceiling of his bedroom, looking around with a crazed glint in his eye, "You can't have the hat! It's mine so fuck off! You'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands you hear me? Go be a kage like I did if you want the damn thing you wannabes!"

"What on earth is a kage supposed to be? Is that something significant?"

Naruto's eyes focused and he looked down from his ceiling to find Karin looking up at him curiously with Shibazaki next to her, having flinched back from his sudden movement, and Ishizaki looking into the room from the doorway as Naruto's room was crowded enough with three people in it, let alone trying to fit his large mass in as well.

What incredible misfortune. Naruto was having a fantastic dream only for it to be interrupted by the physical mortal embodiment of what he believed to be the devil in a red school uniform underneath a leather coat. What a fitting color for Karin to wear. It was far too early for this crap… at least he thought it was. He didn't know what time it just so happened to be actually.

"How the hell did you get into my house?" Naruto asked, still sticking upside down to his ceiling, "The door is triple-locked." An added measure after Ibuki kept breaking into his place sometimes just for kicks. She could have just asked to come in, but she found it more fun to just fuck with him by tinkering and breaking through his security measures. Karin was not one to pick locks though, and he doubted that any of her two attendants could either.

Karin smirked up at him with her hands on her hips in a superior manner, "The landlord opened the door for me when you refused to wake up to my knocking."

Of course he did. Naruto gave Karin a dry look to show that he wasn't particularly surprised about that. All that money and influence she had was definitely useful for inserting herself into any facet of his privacy that she saw fit to interject herself into. He accepted this though, "Okay… next question. Why are you here?"

Upon hearing Naruto's second question, Karin's pretty face twisted into a frown as she continued to look up at him, her brow now twitching, "I cannot believe that you forgot about today. Unbelievable."

"What's today?" Naruto asked before noticing his state of dress, simply a pair of boxers. And Karin apparently had no shame when it came to looking right at him, like she didn't even care. He didn't know quite how to feel about that, embarrassed or insulted, "Do you mind?"

"Not really." She returned matter-of-factly. Karin had gone with him into a bathhouse full of damn sumo wrestlers. If there was ever a time to be mortified by the male frame that would have been the time; not while looking at Naruto in his home even though it was a better sight, "Now go and get yourself ready for the day. We need to reach Tokyo by two in the afternoon to sign you in." Naruto gave her a clueless look that got her to roll her eyes before answering his unasked question, "For the tournament. It was, or should I say is, today."

What surprising news. So surprising that Naruto fell from the ceiling onto the center of his bed, breaking the boxspring… and potentially his neck from the angle that he landed before depositing himself backfirst on his bed looking up at the ceiling, "Ow. Okay everybody get out so I can get dressed… after I figure out if I broke my neck or not."

"If you broke your neck you are still fighting by the way." Karin informed him as she walked backwards out of the room, getting a lift of the arm and a thumbs up from Naruto for her comment, "Oh, look you can move your arms. At the very least you are not paralyzed. Now chop-chop. We have seven hours to get you to Tokyo and signed in."

"Cool I guess." Naruto said as he grabbed his orange fighting clothes and walked into his bathroom, "Hey, can I bring somebody?"

XxX

(Later That Day – Tokyo, Japan)

The ride in Karin's chopper was slightly more crowded for their trip back to Tokyo for the tournament. There was also more tension in there this time as well because the bulk of the trip had Karin and one of the people Naruto wanted to bring shooting glares at each other on and off throughout the flight.

Yeah, he thought it would be nice to bring Sakura just in case Ryu showed up to this little tournament. He doubted that a big-time drifter/fighter like Ryu would stop wandering and would return to Japan for a little open tournament, but it was the thought that counted.

For the other two riders in the helicopter, Naruto and Batsu, the whole female feuding between Karin and Sakura stopped being funny twenty minutes into the trip and turned annoying from that point forward.

Batsu offered that they just kiss and make up and get it over with.

Naruto then had to make a human chain of Kage Bunshin to keep him from falling to his death after the girls threw him out. He had never seen them work together like that and it was honestly a little scary.

Luckily no other incidents occurred during the flight and everyone arrived safe and sound, because not everyone would probably be leaving that way… i.e. Naruto.

And now in an outdoor courtyard at the front entrance of an arena they were stuck in a pretty long line at least sixty deep to sign Naruto up for the tournament he had been directed to compete in at his benefactor's behest. Naruto let out a yawn and looked around trying to size everyone standing there up. He didn't particularly see anyone worthwhile. There were a few maybes, but in the end if there were any people of interest he didn't see them.

Even Karin had gone somewhere to wait for him to sign up since she did not want to be stuck in a line full of commoners. But Sakura and Batsu stayed in line with him for whatever reason. Good people, to not leave him there all by himself in the crushingly boring set of circumstances he found himself in. A yawn slipped from Naruto's mouth and Sakura nudged him to make sure he wouldn't fall asleep on them, "Why are you guys in line with me anyway?"

"I'm fighting." Batsu said with a shrug, getting a look of surprise from Naruto, "There's no real reason not to. I'm here. I'm in the line anyway. It's not like I'm rusty or anything. I train with you all the time. It could be fun." And the money wasn't really anything for a kid in high school to sneeze at. It wasn't anything for _anyone_ to sneeze at really, "If I won I could probably get mom a nice vacation or something."

"I'm in too. I want to see how much better I've been getting and this is a great chance for it." Sakura interjected with quite a bit of spirited enthusiasm, "It's kind of funny though huh? I don't even know what kind of tournament setup this is and I'm jumping right into it. What does that say about me?"

That made Naruto realize something else as well, "Wait, Karin didn't tell me what kind of tournament this was either other than the fact that it's open entry. Damn it. I told her about this kind of crap." Of course he had never really taken the initiative to ask her or look on the internet for the information himself, but he wasn't about to bring that point up.

Batsu would have hit Naruto on the head, but doing that might have started a large-scale brawl amongst the testosterone-filled populace once Naruto retaliated in kind as he knew his friend would, "Well just find everything out once you get up there. Does it really matter? You fight and you either win or you lose. As long as that's the basis then who cares?"

"I like to be prepared though." Naruto mumbled lowly.

Taking the moment to pick on Naruto, Sakura patted down his supply pouches and pinched his cheek when he started growling at her for the indiscretion, "Prepared? You look like you're prepared to fight a war instead of a tournament. Why did you bring weapons?"

"I fight with tools." Naruto said as they nearly reached the front of the line, "You know that. I've been throwing stuff at you since middle school. You complained less about it back then than you do now." Why try to use chakra when you could just stab somebody? That was the way he felt about it.

"I always tried to get you to stop using them though." Sakura replied, tightening her white headband around her forehead as she kept looking through the crowd, hoping to spot her inspiration for beginning her more intense training. But her attention was stuck on her close friend and his use of potentially lethal weapons, "You don't need to use those things to win. We've seen that they can be beaten and they just kill unnecessarily sometimes."

Naruto let out a loud groan for a topic he had probably been over more times than he cared to return to, "They're part of the way I was trained to fight. No style is really better than any other Sakura-chan… just different. I don't even use my good weapons on people I don't want-, I mean _have_ to kill anyway."

"You don't _have_ to kill anyone Naruto." Sakura said with a pout. Her chosen method of fighting was potentially very powerful, but she would have never tried to kill anyone. Naruto from his way of speaking had obviously killed people even if she had never seen or heard of it. The job he did kind of meant that at some point someone would have had to have died. She didn't like thinking about that. Naruto was not a killer as far as she was concerned.

And again, it was a conversation he didn't want to have either because it wasn't something he could make her understand, "…You just keep on thinking that for as long as possible." It wasn't something he wanted her to understand either. Killing and death were far more taboo in this world than in his own, even if certain amounts of violence were encouraged… like the kind of violence he was about to be engaged in.

Upon reaching the small sign-up desk, Naruto gave the person behind it signing people in a smile and pointed to himself confidently, "Uzumaki Naruto, signing up for the tournament. I'm ready to roll and kick some ass, dattebayo!"

"Fantastic." The very uninspired person doing the desk and paperwork replied as he began to have Naruto sign his name and other info down before passing another form forward that he was meant to sign, "This is going to require your signature saying that any injuries, permanent disability, or potential fatality that you incur during the C9 Grand Ace tournament is in no way the fault or the responsibility of any of the tournament's sponsors nor the C9 corporation themselves and that tournament competitors are not to be persecuted for the things that will happen to you and them. And that any actions taken and consequences occurred during the event are your own responsibility due to your own freedom of free will to be here or not. Compete at your own risk."

Ooh goodie, a release form. That sounded very promising.

Damn it, Naruto's entire job from the age of six and up should have come with a damn release form… not that he could have really sued anyone or pressed charges in Konoha or anywhere in the Elemental Nations. It was a might-makes-right kind of world.

Kami he missed not having to deal with all of that red tape.

Rolling his eyes, Naruto signed his own name on the paper and passed it back only for the man to ask another question, "Any next of kin or emergency contacts to notify in case of catastrophic injury?"

Naruto just pointed his thumb over his back at Sakura and Batsu, "Just them I guess… oh, and Kanzuki Karin if you know how to reach her too. She's around here somewhere and I'm not giving out her contact info." He noticed the man's eyes go wide at the reference of Karin and Naruto figured he shouldn't get used to the whole name-dropping thing, it was a bad habit and he hated people like that, "So what now?"

"Qualifying round. Follow this person to get to your match."

Now?

All three of the youngsters from Aohura City looked at each other before just deciding to go with it. Naruto followed a person in through the front door of the arena, through the halls, and into a secondary venue set aside for lesser events where there were apparently already some observers to watch the elimination process take place. Before they walked through the doors to enter the man decided to pass along the rules to Naruto, "Alright, so there's a five minute time-limit for this fight. There won't be any time limits in the actual tournament, but we're trying to get the numbers down so if the fight goes all 15 minutes both competitors are eliminated. Ways to win are by forcing your opponent to surrender or by incapacitating him. We don't care how."

"No ring out?" Naruto asked, knowing that these tournaments more than likely had rings or some kind of way to keep things under control.

The man laughed and opened the door for Naruto to go through, "What ring?" And when Naruto looked through he could indeed see no ring, just a speculated area where fighters were supposed to do the fighting with metal guard rails to serve as some sort of formal barrier between the crowd and the combatants. The place was mostly dark in the crowd with all of the lights being focused on what was meant to go on in the designated area for combat, "Good luck kid."

Well there was no time like the present to get it done, and Naruto walked out through the masses to stand inside of the ring by himself, punching his gloved hand into his other palm as he waited for his opponent, "Huh. I guess you sign in on one side of the place or the other and they take you to this room to fight whoever signed in at the same time on the other side. Tricky way to pick elimination matches."

After a while, the doors on the other side opened and a cavalcade of kabuki instruments began to play as his opponent walked through the crowd that was cleared for him. A man with white facepaint and long red hair attached to a headband that seemed to have small horns in the front walked out adorned in ornate robes. Upon reaching the ring he took the robes off, leaving him in baggy white pants, blue wristbands, and blue boots with yellow pads on the front. Streamers were being thrown from cheering fans as he broke into a pose after entering the fighting space.

"Dude what the fuck?" Naruto asked belligerently as the man in facepaint began to stretch himself out and the crowd gave applause as the kabuki music continued to play, "He gets a whole entrance? What about me? I had to walk in like some nobody."

"You _are_ some nobody!"

"Shut the fuck up!" Naruto shouted back at the anonymous heckling audience member, getting several people near him to recoil at the angry-looking young man, "I'm finding a way to get some damn entrance music next round. This isn't fair." He muttered to himself as the P.A. system came on to introduce the fight.

"_Introducing first, from Aohura City just a few hours away; he stands five feet eight inches, and weighs in at 154 pounds. The self-proclaimed 'Greatest Ninja in the World', please welcome Uzumaki Naruto!"_

Naruto stretched his legs out during his introduction and raised his hand over his head as light applause came from the people that didn't really seem to care that he was there. Okay, so his opponent must have been famous and he was just the other guy that he was meant to beat to advance. That pissed him off a bit.

"_And his opponent hails from Parts Unknown!"_ Naruto rolled his eyes at that while the fans just seemed to eat it up all the more, _"He stands five feet nine inches, and weighs in at 194 pounds! Fresh off of his impressive performance in the CWA's Crash Carnival World Tour where he finished third overall! This is The Great Oni!"_ Upon the conclusion of the announcer's over the top introduction, the face-painted man shot some sort of green substance into the air from his mouth that dissipated in the air and caused raucous cheering from the crowd.

"Alright…" Naruto said to himself not knowing what to say at that point, "I don't know this guy, but who cares? Let's do this."

"You don't know him?" One of the spectators closest to Naruto said in amazement, getting a hapless shake of the head from Naruto for his trouble, "Man, he's like the best professional wrestler from Japan. Don't you have a TV?"

Once again, Naruto shook his head and kept bantering with the fan, "I do, but TV's boring compared to the stuff I actually do. So he's a fake wrestler then? That's cool I guess." After uttering that, the whole place went silent and everyone stared at Naruto in abject shock to the point where it began to unnerve him, "What? What'd I do?" He then saw The Great Oni glaring at him rather heatedly, more than one should be for a simple fight like this, "What the hell are you glaring at?"

"You called him a fake wrestler." The fan from before pointed out as to why Oni was mad.

"So? Wrestling is fake isn't it? Like people know who the winners and losers are supposed to be beforehand." That was what Naruto kept hearing whenever anyone brought up wrestling around him at least. He never really watched it himself even though he felt he probably would have liked all of the pageantry since he never really spent much time at home. And then people started booing him outright, "Come on, what did I do now?"

The fan was holding the bridge of his nose and shaking his head at Naruto who had incurred the wrath of the fight fans, "Yeah, those are rumors. I don't know where you got that from."

Oni walked forward, adjusting his wristbands on his arms before pointing at Naruto, "I'll show you just how 'fake' wrestling is boy…" He finished, turning his voice upward in a kabuki-like manner.

_Preliminary round fight, begin!"_

To start, Oni sprinted at Naruto, diving at him and missing when Naruto moved. Though Oni caught himself and did a direct upward handstand on the guard rail as he stared at Naruto from upside down. Expecting an attack of some sort, Naruto just stood back and watched him only for the man to remain in the same position not moving. Well if he wasn't going to attack then Naruto would do it himself.

The speed of Naruto's rush surprised Oni to the extent that he pushed himself off of the rail into the air to try and circumvent Naruto's attack with a flying stomp. Naruto dodged and had to jump over a follow-up sweep from Oni before kicking him right in the chest, sending him sliding back along the ground into the metal rail.

With a grin on his face, Naruto did his own little bit of posturing, creating a Kage Bunshin and facing off with it before it threw a fake punch that barely tapped his face. Naruto sold it as if he had been shot and fell to the ground 'unconscious' with his tongue hanging out. His clone quickly covered him and counted to three before dispelling.

Poking fun at wrestling. Smooth.

Angrily, Oni stood up looking as if he wanted to break Naruto's neck should he get a hand on him for his little act and flipped onto the guard rail before launching off of it high into the air to crush Naruto with an outright splash.

Playtime was officially over as Naruto knew he was coming and jumped to his feet to dodge. Oni saw Naruto dodge and turned his splash into a full roll in Naruto's direction that resulted in a rising mule kick to the face.

Naruto got kicked back hard enough to knock over the metal guard rail and gamely spit out some blood before sitting up and seeing Oni charging him down. He then realized that this tournament had no rules and pulled another guard rail in front of his body before kicking it out at Oni, forcing him to stop his charge and stop the guard rail with his hands.

Then Naruto walloped him over the top of the head with another heavy metal guard rail and Oni dropped like a stone.

The crowd went silent as Naruto dropped the now useless guard rail down on top of the fallen Oni and nudged him with his foot, getting no response. Shrugging to himself, Naruto walked away through the crowd since his opponent seemed to be beaten and there wasn't any reason to hang around in there anymore.

"_The winner and advancing to the main tournament; Uzumaki Naruto! That was a complete physical dissection ladies and gentleman, not the cleanest win, but damn that ending was ugly…"_

Naruto heard the announcement as he reached the door and let a grin slip onto his face as he made his way out to find Batsu and Karin waiting there. Batsu had a bruise or two on his face but seemed to be mostly fine as well, "Did you win your fight too?" Batsu nodded with a smirk and bumped fists with Naruto over the pair advancing, "Where's Sakura-chan?"

"There are only two auxiliary rooms aside from the main arena for preliminary fights to take place in." Karin pointed out with a bit of disappointment in her tone, "This one and the other one on the other side of the building. Guess where I was while you were fighting your fight Naruto-san." She sounded most displeased that she had selected the wrong room to wait on Naruto's fight.

Slightly offended at his own match being overlooked, Batsu crossed his arms and turned away from Karin, "Hey, my fight wasn't bad. I think for jumping in cold with five minutes after deciding I was actually going to do this I did pretty good. Next time I'll fight even better."

"Be that as it may, it is still irrelevant. I have no stake in your performance exactly." Karin remarked, "Good for you though." She said, getting Batsu to hang his head at getting overlooked, "No, I came to make sure Naruto-san did not decide to slack off and lose this tournament. I expect nothing but victories. You have the skill."

"Yeah, whatever." Naruto said, cleaning out his ear and not really listening. It was just going to be the same old shit he'd been hearing all fall and winter long anyway. 'You have to win to make me look good as your sponsor.' Or perhaps, 'If you win that means I win. And if you lose… well just remember that I hate losing.' Yawn. Threats only worked the first few times… not after more than twenty, "Come on, I want to go see Sakura-chan's fight-." He started to say before the P.A. system cut him off after opening the doors back to the room again.

"_Winner, and advancing to the main tournament; Kasugano Sakura! How about it folks? A fifteen year old schoolgirl from Aohura City and look at that skill! Hmm, who else is from Aohura City in this tournament?"_

Wow, her fight must have been even easier.

Able to see Sakura soaking in the cheers from the perverts that wanted to see her school uniform get torn in the matches, Naruto's eye twitched slightly at what the announcer had said, "Ow… my pride." He then turned towards Karin, "Why aren't you fighting again?"

"Because I have you to fight for me."

"It's not the same-… ugh, nevermind. Hold on a second." Naruto said before pushing and shoving his way through the crowd, throwing a few elbows to get the more rabid male fans out of the way, "Move… get out of the way… make a hole… just trying to get to my friend here… don't make me cut you." He reached the ring and heard some boos due to the fact that he had a Y chromosome before flipping the audience off and picking Sakura up over his shoulder in one move.

A mortified Sakura looked at Naruto's back in surprise at the smooth lift, wondering what in the world he thought he was doing, "Uh, Naruto what are you doing?"

Naruto just gestured his head towards the crowd and the door, with the mass of humanity blocking the exit, "If you think you can get through them without anyone trying to cop a feel I'll put you back down. Otherwise I was just going to scare 'em all away."

Well while she didn't want to be mean to the spectators that had just cheered her on to victory, Sakura took a good hard look at the lot of them and how their eyes weren't particularly leaving her… some of them grinning in a lecherous manner. Stupid school uniform. It seriously brought out the worst in men, "…Yeah, okay. Get me out of here please."

"Yeah, alright. Hold your skirt down Sakura-chan… or don't." Naruto told her before he started jumping over and on top of the heads of fans as he reached the exit door and set her down, getting a hard punch on the shoulder for his skirt comment. At least he gave her a warning that he would have gotten an eyeful. Jiraiya wouldn't have said a word and would have had his eyes turned to the right to get as much of a panty shot as he could have before putting her down, Naruto was at least respectful of his best friend.

"So… we're all in. That's great." Batsu said, kind of fired up now that the preliminaries were over as far as they were concerned. No more scrubs to fight, and he hadn't gotten to fight all-out in almost a year, "…Now what?" Naruto gave him an 'I-don't-know' look in return.

Karin flicked Naruto on his ear getting a cry of pain out of him before putting in her own thought, "You could maybe go to the main arena where the tournament officials are putting together the brackets as we speak as they have been since the moment I walked in the door. Just a thought." She said as she turned on her heel to head to the exact place she had been previously speaking of.

"Smartass." Both Naruto and Batsu mumbled as they and Sakura followed Karin to the main arena to figure out how the entire tournament would be broken down, "If she knew this much about the damn tournament then why isn't she fighting?" Naruto whispered to the others, getting a few snickers out of Sakura.

"What was that Naruto-san? Did you just say to dock your wages for insubordination?"

"I'm being good! Damn…"

XxX

(Four Hours Later – Main Arena)

Apparently more people showed up to enter the tournament and eventually had to be turned away. Aside from that, the numerous fights that didn't have victors due to reaching the five minute time-limit cut the tournament down extensively.

So the kids from Aohura City and Karin's two butlers found seats while they waited for the actual tournament to begin. Batsu had left and returned with an exorbitant amount of food to eat since he had missed lunch, Karin simply sat in between Shibazaki and Ishizaki who served as her buffers for the common folk (including the people she had come to the tournament with), and Naruto had been sleeping almost right from the moment he sat down. Sakura at first tried to stay active while waiting for the tournament to start, but the boredom was too much and eventually she fell asleep as well, using Naruto's shoulder as a pillow for some semblance of comfort.

Karin spared a glance in Naruto and Sakura's direction and frowned at the sight of the two sleeping before choosing to address Batsu who was steadily chowing down to keep his energy up for his soon-to-be fights, "Ichimonji-san." She said, getting his attention while he was barreling through a bag of chips, "Just why are Naruto-san and Sakura-san so close? Is it just the fighting?"

A part of Batsu didn't see why it mattered, but it was kind of apparent that Naruto and Sakura were closer than boys and girls usually were without having ever dated or anything of the like and could see how it seemed curious to someone like Karin. How many normal friendships could she possibly have had if the stories of the Kanzuki Family were as true as she made them seem? It was a question he could at least try to shed some light on, "Well, Sakura was Naruto's friend years before he met me or anyone else that he'd even loosely call a friend. His first one he had in Japan actually. It's kind of a big deal to him."

"Why?"

"Look at Naruto." Batsu said, pointing at his sleeping blonde friend before reaching at his eyelid and opening them to show Karin one blue eye that didn't seem to disturb his slumber, "He's a total Yankee. Blonde, tan, blue eyes, well-built kid even back then. The complete stereotype, like he just jumped off of the screen of an American movie or something. That's not even adding in his whole attitude and all that get-up-and-go he has whenever his ass is actually awake. He's sort of weird. A lot of people in this country don't like that the way they would in America, cultural differences. He just really doesn't fit in." Shibazaki let out a sneeze at that exact moment, turning away from the conversation at hand, "See? Like that guy. I bet he hates Naruto hanging out with you."

Karin sent a look Shibazaki's way that he didn't turn back around to meet, choosing to make himself look busy by adjusting his glasses and his suit, "So what exactly do his looks have to do with anything?" Karin asked Batsu, "He didn't have friends in Japan at first, now he has more than a few doesn't he? It doesn't explain why he and she are so close."

"Yeah it does." Batsu replied with his mouth full of food, taking a moment to swallow lest he choke while trying to speak, "Loyalty for one; he's like that with everybody. For another thing she lives right around the corner, probably two or three blocks away. They would have stayed friends even if Sakura wasn't into fighting. It didn't hurt that she was though… it seems to be how he winds up making friends with everyone else."

"Really now?" Karin said, sounding interested at that point, "And how exactly does that work out? Win or lose, whichever side winds up on the short end of the fight they would have some ill feelings toward the victor. So how did fighting get him friends?"

"It got me as a friend." Batsu said with a shrug as he took a sip of a soda he had bought, "We fought each other first before we were cool with each other. Then he helped me with some trouble going on around my school and that's how it all started. That's kind of how it worked with you too right? You've fought him before, haven't you?" Karin took a moment before nodding, "See? It's weird isn't it? It's like when you finally hit him with your best shot and he gets back up you want to ask him how the hell he did it. And from there it's kind of hard to hate the kid."

Well it was kind of true. Karin wanted to despise Naruto when they had first met, but she had found it nearly impossible to do once she started coming across him regularly. So now she held what she liked to refer to as an indifferent tolerance for him… which was her closest way of saying in public that she considered him a friend.

At that point she noticed that Batsu had stopped eating for the moment and had moved in front of the sleeping Naruto and Sakura with his phone pointed in their direction, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Taking a picture of this to send so that me and Hinata can fuck with them both about this later." Batsu said as his phone made a shutter click sound effect to let him know that the picture was taken and stored in the memory of the device, "Look at this." He said with a chuckle as he showed the shot to Karin, "They look way too comfortable for where they are."

After taking a moment to observe the real scene and the picture that had been taken of it, Karin pursed her lips before reaching at her foot to take off her shoe, "They certainly do don't they?" She said before winging the shoe and hitting Naruto right in the corner of his forehead, stirring him from his leisurely slumber with a start as his body snapped to readiness and he looked around only to see Batsu holding back laughter and Karin smiling innocently while putting her shoe back on, "Did you have a nice rest?"

"I kind of did actually." Naruto said, looking around to regain his bearings and stirring Sakura from her sleep as well as he rubbed the sore spot on his head, "Hey, did a big bug fly into my head just now? Or a bat from the rafters? Something hit me hard."

"Don't know what to tell you man." Batsu said, busying himself with finishing the rest of his food so that he didn't burst out laughing, "Maybe Sakura headbutted you in her sleep?"

"Oh. Okay." The still reawakening Naruto and Sakura looked at each other and blinked once before Naruto's brain finally kicked on its logic portion, which was coincidentally the last system of his mind to turn on after waking up, "Wait… Sakura-chan's on the wrong side. She couldn't have hit me from there. Which one of you assholes hit me?"

"Maybe I hit you. What would you do about that kid?"

Upon hearing the gruff voice from behind them, Naruto stood up on his chair and turned around to face the person down, "If you were in the tournament I'd wait until we fought then I'd stomp you. If you weren't I'd find out if fighting would get me kicked out… then I'd stomp you." He then realized that he was facing down a rather familiar face-painted sumo that he hadn't seen for months, "E. Honda? Are you here to kill me?"

The large, rotund sumo laughed deeply before patting Naruto on the head, not knowing his own strength as he got Naruto to sit back down with the motion, "No I'm not little one." He said, getting a pout out of Naruto for being called little one, "I came to observe the tournament. Maybe to see someone impressive to note later." He lifted both of his arms that were covered in soft casts, "I can't necessarily fight like this can I?"

"Sorry." Naruto said with a flinch at seeing that he was still injured from their fight a few months ago. He didn't really mean to do that much damage, but getting squashed by a 300 plus pound man kind of warranted some overkill.

"No need to apologize for what was done in a fight." E. Honda said, dismissing Naruto's concern, "The injury will be fully healed within two weeks or so, I just couldn't get clearance from my stable to compete in this tournament." He looked around and saw Naruto's friends, but frowned when he realized Karin was with him and that Sakura was still way too close to him after waking up from their nap, "Uzumaki this is not respectable action to be taking around your beloved."

"What?" Naruto said in confusion before E. Honda gestured his head toward Sakura and then at Karin, finally giving Naruto time to catch on, "Are you kidding me? Didn't we go through this when I kicked your ass in the bathhouse? Karin's my boss and she kind of hates me… and this is Sakura-chan. She's my friend from home and she's in the tournament too." Sakura waved to E. Honda after being introduced as Naruto then pointed at Batsu, "And this is my buddy Batsu… and I'm gonna kick his ass if we end up fighting."

Batsu flipped Naruto off with his finger right in front of Naruto's face in response, pulling it back when Naruto bit at it, fully intending to snap the digit off entirely, "Ah, you bastard. I'm gonna knock your teeth out when it's finally time." The two butted heads, pushing back and forth as they seemed to be just a hair under coming to blows in the stands.

E. Honda looked over the lot of them and saw that they were all so young. There wasn't going to be anyone else getting involved in the tournament that would be their ages, and if what he saw and felt from Naruto during their fight was any indication it would be a very impressive showing to say the very least. Thinking that put a grin on his face, "I'm looking forward to seeing just what you all have to offer in the ring children."

At that point, the main lights went out in the now pretty much filled arena and the lights down in the fighting area took precedence with a large board on the screen hanging above the ring where the names set to fight in the first round were set. Apparently the lineup had been worked down to sixteen fighters which was good with everyone from Aohura City. It was Saturday and they all had to skip for one day just to show up there.

"_Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to the C9 Corporation Grand Ace Fighting Tournament! Over the course of this one evening we will crown a tournament champion where the winner will receive 5 million yen for their efforts! It's winner-takes-all and you are all here to bear witness to this great event!"_

"Finally." Karin said, speaking only loud enough for the others to hear as the crowd began to cheer at the sight of all of the strobe and colored lights waving all over the place," I thought they were never going to begin the way things were going." As E. Honda took a seat in the row behind the place that the party from Aohura City had taken up, Karin turned towards Naruto, "Remember Naruto-san. I do not care who you wind up competing against. I want nothing less than victory."

"I'll beat whoever you want." Naruto said in an exasperated tone of voice, "Just stop saying that already. I get the point. I'll kick ass until my legs are broke, don't worry."

"That's all I ask of you." Karin said, sitting in her chair with an air of satisfaction around her, "Easy no?" Naruto rolled his eyes, but her message was received loud and clear just as it had been for months.

"_For our first matchup tonight we have first and foremost a young girl from Aohura City. A fifteen year old fighter and a high school student to boot, please welcome Kasugano Sakura!"_

Upon hearing her name called, Sakura felt her heart jump up in her chest a little bit and smiled before giving Naruto a hug for mutual luck as she got up to head down the stairs to the open floor to fight. And once again the cute schoolgirl factor got her a massive amount of cheers once she jumped over the black barricade that encompassed a massive amount of the floor for a larger, more secure fighting ring.

"Hey! Come on and introduce me already! It's dark down here!" A loud, boisterous voice shouted, drawing attention to a darkened stage at the end of the arena.

Upon hearing that voice, up in the stands, Naruto palmed his face hard and hoped that it was just some random guy with a very obnoxious (to Naruto at least) voice, "Oh Kami no… please not him. You've got to be kidding me. Why is _he_ here?"

The announcer cleared his throat before introducing the person that had shouted for him to do so, _"And her opponent! On his campaign to show the full power of the Saikyou-ryuu fighting style of which he is the creator and the master of! Everyone please welcome the dangerous, incomparable, Hibiki Dan!"_

The lights at the darkened stage flashed on as loud, blaring techno music began to play. A platform rose up on the stage to reveal a kneeling figure covered in a cape, and when they rose and threw it off, it was of course Dan in his usual pink fighting gi as he pointed at the ring and ran right towards it, flipping over the barrier and landing before playing to the crowd that seemed to be loving the pomp.

Sakura watched the entire scene with a deadpan look on her face as Dan ran circles around the ring, making an ass of himself as far as she was concerned, "This is the guy that Naruto beat right after school started up for the new semester… the one with the wimpy Hadoken."

Dan's ears picked up Sakura's comment and he turned towards her, pointing boisterously at her, "That's a different move! Mine is the _Ga_doken! Get it straight little schoolgirl!"

It was the same move… just his sucked. But that wasn't really important at the moment to Sakura, "Careful." She said with a smirk as she stood in her fighting stance ready to wipe this guy out, "You might hurt yourself trying to take on this 'little schoolgirl'."

"Ha!" Dan said, rubbing his nose smugly, "You don't have a chance sweetie. I haven't lost a fight in years."

"You lost a fight six months ago to my best friend…" Sakura responded as if she couldn't believe the ego on this guy. What a blatant lie… right to her face, "I was there in Aohura City when Naruto beat the pink off of your gi."

"A fluke!" Having that little spot on his record brought up was obviously a sore spot to Dan from his stomping vehemently on the concrete floor, "I had a stomach virus when I fought that Uzumaki kid! But no one ever talks about that! And you're his friend? How'd a rabid dog like that get a cute girl like you to spend time with him?"

"Rabid dog? Naruto's a total teddy bear when he's not all fired up." Sakura said with her hands on her hips, standing up out of her stance, "And if you want to talk down to my friend you can do it after you beat me… if you're man enough." She finished with a bit of a taunt.

Chuckling to himself, Dan decided that enough was enough and it was time to give the people a show, "Oh, don't tug on Superman's cape. Bad things happen when you do that. You're going down!" He shouted as he got into his own fighting stance and saw Sakura get into her own that looked like his only her legs were further apart and her hands were set tighter than his to react to whatever she needed, "Wait… That looks a lot like my stance. Ah, so you're an aspiring student wishing to learn from me are you?"

And just like that, Sakura felt like puking at the mere thought, "No way! That's not supposed to be based off of anything you did, it's supposed to be based off of Ryu's! It's not my fault you use your own versions of his moves! Did you study under the same master at one time or something?" Bah, she didn't care. She could see why Naruto didn't particularly care for recalling his one and only meeting in the past with Dan. If he was able to get her this flustered then what was Naruto feeling like by the time their fight began?

Whatever, the quickest way to shut Dan up would clearly be to render him unconscious. Wow… Sakura was starting to think like Naruto. There was something wrong with that.

But she seemed to be okay with that as she attacked Dan head-on with a direct punch that Dan stepped aside narrowly, catching a spinning backfist on the rebound that smashed him in the nose and sent him stumbling back holding the now bloody appendage, "Ow! Damn it, why is it always the nose?" He said, his voice muffled by his hand as he managed to dodge Sakura's follow-up attempts to strike him again. If there was one thing Dan knew how to do it was take a punch and dodge them as well.

Sakura had to take a few steps back to stay out of the way of some return kicks from Dan and some punches from his hand that did not have a firm grip on his nose to keep the blood from freely spilling out. Having seen Naruto fight Dan months ago it was in her best interest to remember that Dan had solid basics and she was fully susceptible to being caught with a surprise move.

Getting his confidence to rise at getting Sakura to step back on the defensive, Dan decided that it was time to step it up now that he was sufficiently warmed up, "Koryuuken!" Dan attempted a jumping uppercut with a slight rotation, but Sakura wasn't fool enough to stand in the way as Dan got substantial hang-time with the attack, "Hey, you were supposed to try and counter that somehow!"

Right before Dan landed, Sakura charged forward, getting a running start to meet him on the ground where she unleashed her own jumping uppercut with a more authoritative spin behind it, "Shou'oken!" The uppercut landed right underneath Dan's chin and popped him up into the air to land flat on his back, "Ha, got you right out of the air with that one!"

Dan rolled backwards from his place flat on his back and back up to his feet glaring at Sakura, "That was another one of my moves? How'd you learn this stuff?"

"I got a bit of training from Ryu." Sakura said with a smile, "So those moves are kind of knockoffs of his techniques, but they work for what I need them for."

It was kind of disconcerting to Dan that a girl that had to be around ten years younger than him had gotten such skill with techniques the likes of which he trained with for years only to get kicked out before mastering. She hadn't mastered the moves either, but she had polished them up enough to fit her well to the point where it was difficult to tell that her technique was imperfect.

"You could have been trained by Gouken himself, but you won't beat me!" Dan said before rushing right at Sakura, shrieking almost like a girl as he charged her and the two engaged in more direct combat. Sakura blocked his first punch and blocked an attempted leg kick by tactically swatting Dan's kicking foot away with her non-targeted one. Not giving up, Dan attempted two cross punches only to miss and get knocked back with a double-fisted punch to the chest.

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" Sakura unleashed a quick burst of her shorter-than-normal range Hadoken and watched in a bit of satisfaction as it connected and knocked Dan back, sending him rolling away like a ragdoll, "And that's how you finish a fight!"

That was indeed not how one finished a fight, because Dan was not finished. He stood back up, albeit shakily, not willing to lose so easily in front of so many. He was Hibiki Dan. He beat Sagat, and that meant something damn it!

"Hey!" Dan shouted at Sakura, getting her attention before she could exit outside of the barricades, "I'm not out of this yet! It's time for my best move! The Shinkuu Gadoken (Shaking Sky Self-Taught Fist)!" Dan built up an incredible amount of ki before unleashing a massive one-armed distance blast of his Gadoken.

And much to Sakura's surprise and chagrin it didn't merely dissipate after moving only five feet max. It went further and was locked onto her. The speed it was moving and its size wasn't going to give her a chance to move so she did the best thing she could and covered up in preparation for the blast to hit. She had shut her eyes, but after a few moments nothing had happened. No pain, no nothing.

"Epic fail!"

After hearing a doubly taunting shout from the stands from both Naruto and Batsu who were visibly laughing their asses off from their seats, Sakura opened her eyes to see that the Shinkuu Gadoken had still dissipated before hitting her despite its improved range.

Dan was completely beside himself, "Of all the lucky, copout b.s. technicalities!" He shouted seemingly to the heavens, "Why God why? Why couldn't you give me five more feet of range, just this once! Why?" He wailed to the rafters of the arena, dropping to his knees with tears pouring from his eyes.

With Dan wide open due to his own dramatics, Sakura charged him down intent on ending the fight right then and there. After getting close enough, Sakura hit him with a short jumping uppercut that popped him slightly into the air. She followed up with a second jumping uppercut that knocked him higher and finished with a third spinning jump uppercut that had her ki charged behind it, "Midare Zakura (Tumultuous Cherry Blossom)!" She cocked back her second previously unused fist with everything she had while in midair with Dan to drill him with one finishing punch that sent him flying well over the barricade and into the crowd.

Sakura landed on the ground and looked into the crowd where they scattered and let Dan smash into and bust up a few seats as he lay there motionless with a completely look on his busted up face.

Seeing that the fight was officially over, Sakura grinned widely and threw her hand into the air energetically despite the energy she used to make sure she'd finish Dan off then and there. She'd get it all back quickly within a few moments of sitting back down, "Yeah! I'm not getting stopped tonight until I win the whole thing!"

"_The winner of her first round match and advancing to the quarterfinals; Kasugano Sakura!"_

Still fired up from the fight and the win, Sakura ran up the stairs, getting past the other spectators to return to her seat where her friends were, jumping at Naruto with a big hug that forced him to stand up and catch her, almost losing his balance but he still managed to get caught up in her good mood, "You kicked the crap out of that blowhard!" Naruto said, putting a hand on the top of Sakura's short brown hair, "That was awesome! I knew you were getting better!"

Karin smirked as she remained seated in her own chair, having just watched her rival have quite a bit of success. Granted, Hibiki Dan wasn't really a banner victory for anyone decent, but the majority of the people watching didn't really know that, and mass perception was a major deal when it came to being a well-known fighter, "Well done Sakura-san." Karin said, "Maybe the next time we fight I can actually get some gratification out of my victory over you."

Sakura turned around and pulled her eyelid down at the blonde heiress, "Says the girl that isn't even fighting tonight. You probably just thought that I'd beat the skirt off of you… again."

Almost rising to the challenge on the spot, Karin recomposed herself, remembering the reason for the season so to speak, "Ah, there's no need to fight you here. I have a representative in Naruto-san to do my fighting for me in this tournament. If you two are to fight he will handle you accordingly. Of that I have no doubt."

'She still doesn't get the point of all of this…' Both Naruto and Sakura thought as the next fight was going on while they conversed. And Sakura gave Naruto a look that was labeling him as an enabler. In return he just shrugged back at her with an expression that said all he needed to say on the matter; she pays.

Batsu though, had no reservations about speaking aloud due to the fact that he himself had never brought the topic forward in Karin's presence, "Having a representative do all of the legwork for you isn't the same thing as doing it yourself even if you get the same result." He said as another fight began, despite the fact that none of them were paying attention to continue hashing out their own dynamic, "How would having Naruto beat Sakura solve anything? You wouldn't be the one doing it."

Shaking her head, Karin merely chose to instead pay attention to the fighting down in the ring. It was quite obvious that these people had no understanding of the intrinsic worth that a representative had. Naruto's victory was the success of his benefactor, her, and his defeat was the failure of his benefactor as well. She was tired of explaining that to people.

'Freaking brat…' Batsu thought to himself as Karin was apparently ignoring the lot of them as Ishizaki served her a drink. Whatever, if Naruto was going to work for someone like that it was his problem. It shouldn't have grated on him personally.

But it resonated with Naruto. This was like the whole Konohamaru complex only Karin accepted it and ran with it. Naruto walked directly in front of her and stood there until she made eye contact with him, "I like the money you're paying me for all of this and everything, but you've got to figure this out Karin. There's something more important than winning."

"Well maybe you can show me somehow." She responded with a slight sarcasm in the inflection of her words. Naruto was usually a pretty idealistic guy, so he obviously believed what he was saying. She couldn't see it though. She _had_ to be successful at everything she did no matter what, she had no other option. Her father watched her every endeavor just waiting for an excuse to not award his fortune to his daughter. To find some kind of fault or weakness with her, "Excuse me if nothing short of undisputable victory is acceptable to my family."

That sounded like she was madder than she wished to let on, but it was okay to Naruto. He was more or less hinting to her that she was ignorant about something that was right in front of them. No one liked to hear that, he knew that he never did and still didn't.

"Okay, I _will_ show you." Naruto said with a confident grin, "I'll show you just what's more important than just winning anything you do. Winning's important, but without the other thing it doesn't really matter because you'll just lose when things get tough if you don't have what I'm talking about."

"A winner is a winner." Karin said resolutely, "If you are a born winner then it does not matter if one has what you speak of or not."

"_The following contest is the next first round matchup in the C9 Grand Ace Fighting Tournament! Introducing first, from Aohura City; 17 years old and clearly skilled enough to be here tonight by virtue of his victory earlier in the preliminary matches, Ichimonji Batsu!"_

Batsu sighed and pulled a pair of red fingerless gloves onto his hands as he walked out of the row and down the stairs to the open space on the concrete floor upon being announced as the participant in the next match, "Well here goes me. But feel free to keep on arguing." He said to the others as he waved over his back at them, "I'll just win this whole thing while you all keep at it."

"_And his opponent, from Las Vegas, Nevada all the way from the United States of America! He is the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world! Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Balrog!"_

The jaw of Batsu dropped as from the other side of the arena came a very tall and muscular black man wearing blue boxing trunks with white trim, and a torn white short-sleeve shirt underneath a blue tanktop. He wore red boxing shoes on his feet and red boxing gloves on his hands with his hair fixed in thick cornrows, "You've got to be kidding me…" Batsu said, palming his face as this turn of events, "What the hell is someone like Balrog doing here?"

XxX

(In the Stands)

"Oh this is not good for Ichimonji-san." Karin remarked, an intrigued look on her face as she was now watching with interest, "What would a boxing champion from America be doing here in Japan for this tournament? It isn't even that prestigious an event."

"So this guy is supposed to be good?" Naruto asked. He knew that to be a champion this man had to be skilled. But Naruto's belief in his friend's own skill was strong. Titles didn't mean anything as far as he was concerned, "Batsu can beat him."

A frown adorned Sakura's face as she put a hand on Naruto's shoulder, "I'm not really too sure about that Naruto. The only reason Balrog lost his title was because he was banned from boxing. He kept permanently injuring his opponents and even killed one before in the ring. He could kill Batsu if he hit him clean enough."

That was bad news because Batsu wasn't exactly the most elusive fighter. He was an acrobatic brawler at his core and against someone that could kill him with a good enough shot that simply wasn't going to fly for him.

"I'm not trying to be negative, I'm just saying." Sakura continued, "He's really got to protect himself out there or this could get bad in a hurry. I'm worried." At that moment a large hand was placed on her shoulder from behind, getting her to turn and see that it was E. Honda.

"Have some confidence in your friend." The injured sumo said with a smile, "Anything can happen in a fight, and though it is alright to be worried, don't undermine his efforts by refusing to believe in him." He was personally very excited to see just what the other fighting friend of the boy that had defeated him was capable of.

XxX

(In the Ring – Batsu vs. Balrog)

Yes, Batsu was currently mentally going over his recent actions in the previous days and weeks, trying to find what he had done wrong to cause such karmic backlash against him. While Balrog seemed to be smirking and licking his chops at fighting a kid, "Oh yeah. Time to get paid. This little tournament's gonna get me a nice payday. 5 million… can't wait. That's a fortune."

Upon hearing Balrog's comment to himself in English, Batsu felt the need to comment on his to-be opponent's lack of understanding of the currency exchange rate since he understood the language, "Uh, hey. 5 million yen isn't really that much money dude."

Balrog stopped imagining all the money he would be swimming in after whipping these nobodies and started paying rapt attention to Batsu, "What?"

"Yeah…" Batsu said, a shiver going down his spine at the slight glare coming his way from the dangerous boxer, "5 million yen rounds out to like 60 thousand U.S. dollars or something like that. It's not that much money the way it sounds if it was 5 million dollars."

Sixty thousand dollars? That was chump change as far as Balrog was concerned. And he entered a tournament in his spare time for that? Absolutely inconceivable, "Damn it! Why didn't anyone tell me that?"

Because it wasn't anyone else's problem but his…

And he looked like he was about to take it out on Batsu just for being the one to break the news to him, "Maybe knocking out your teeth will make me feel better about this kid…"

Part of Batsu told him to back down. To just walk away, concede the issue, and sit down in the stands before he got himself hurt.

It was a very small part of him and its opinion meant nothing in the face of the overwhelming portion of Batsu that did not like being talked down to and challenged by anyone.

"Oh yeah? Well maybe if I hit you in the head enough your stupid ass will actually learn how to count currency?" Batsu replied to Balrog's threat heatedly before feigning an epiphany, "Oh wait, that's probably what's wrong with you in the first place you punch-drunk punk bitch!" Thank you American TV and movies for assisting with the formation of that insult in English.

"Yeah… you're dead kid." Balrog said as he put his hands up and angrily began stalking towards Batsu to punch some manners into the boy. Didn't he know who he was dealing with there? Because if he didn't he was damn sure about to learn.

Too bad Batsu wasn't in the mood to be taught anything by anyone's fists at the moment. And he wasn't about to let the boxer get close enough to try. Batsu held out his left fist before punching it with his other hand to release a wild energy blast that went flying at Balrog, "Kiaidan (Guts Bullet)!"

Balrog narrowed his eyes at the attack and scoffed, dashing forward with one large striding step and punching the projectile attack head-on, sending it flying away from him and into the crowd where people had to scatter to avoid being hit with it, "You ain't keeping me away with little light tricks."

XxX

(In the Stands)

Sakura's jaw was dropped at seeing someone deflect a ki blast with a punch, "How is that even possible?"

Naruto's teeth clicked irritably as he continued to watch the fight below, "Batsu's Kiaidan isn't like a Hadoken, or even like my spitfire move. When it's done right it's tightly compressed, a bit like my Rasengan. When it hits something solid it doesn't just burst like our attacks do, it keeps going until it runs out of energy and gets weaker the further it goes. You can knock it away if you can hit it harder than it's moving."

Karin could understand the explanation. The Kiaidan's strength and distance relied on momentum generated by the ki needed to form it and would never be stronger than the moment it left Batsu's hands. The further it went the weaker it would get, and it wouldn't explode the way a more volatile attack could. There was no doubt that Balrog had incredible physical strength, and if there were anyone in the tournament with the power to knock away Batsu's Kiaidan at will it would have to be him.

So his only distance attack wouldn't give him any kind of advantage as long as he didn't have an angle on Balrog. It was worse for Batsu than they had originally speculated.

XxX

(In the Ring – Batsu vs. Balrog)

As Balrog moved closer, Batsu kept trying to hit him with a Kiaidan to no success as Balrog kept on punching them away before finally reaching Batsu. The boxer started swinging away with hooks and crosses that Batsu desperately ducked and swayed out of the way of lest his head wind up in the fifth row.

He couldn't backstep his way back out of Balrog's range however. The man had incredible footwork to keep up with the backpedaling Batsu who tried to respond with a high kick, only for Balrog to block it and shrug it off, shoving his shoulder into Batsu's entire body and knocking him back and to the ground. Balrog grinned and rushed towards Batsu in a sudden burst of speed as he rolled through the shove and got back to his feet, placing one gloved hand on Batsu's back to pull him in and having the other one cocked back to deliver an uppercut, "Dash Low Smash runt!"

Batsu felt as if Balrog had punched a hole right through his torso as he had been lifted off of his feet, hanging in the air on Balrog's fist, spittle trailing from his open mouth as he desperately tried to suck in as much air as he could.

Pulling his hand back, Balrog let Batsu fall to the ground, but he landed back on his feet, stumbling backwards as he held his stomach. That punch had to have broken some ribs, "Come on now, you're no fun. I don't even have any of your blood on my gloves yet."

Batsu stopped stumbling around Balrog and stepped towards him before uncorking a return uppercut of his own, fueled with his ki to turn his punching arm red. Balrog got a guard up and blocked it, but it sent him stepping back this time, recoiling at the surprising force that Batsu generated. That little punk had some ridiculous raw strength for someone his size.

"Mikazukikero (Crescent Moon Kick)!" A diving, driving kick from Batsu smashed into Balrog's guard once again, surprising the fighter as it seemed like Batsu was fighting more viciously now that he was injured. It was like dealing with some kind of berserker as after the kick, Batsu began pounding away on the boxer's guard with punches, a few actually getting through to hit him on the sides of his body.

It was pissing him off because the punches actually really hurt, and he was hitting him around his guard the way a boxer would. Balrog always hated the pipsqueaks that would pepper his body when he was guarding his head, but he had a little something for that. It wasn't exactly legal in the boxing ring, but this was a fight without rules.

"I'll pulverize you! Dirty Bull!" Balrog grabbed the attacking Batsu's shoulders to hold him in place before delivering a pair of headbutts right to the face that stopped his offense. He stomped harshly on the stunned Batsu's foot and cocked his arm back for what looked like a punch, only for him to smash Batsu in the face with his elbow. The only thing that kept Batsu from doing a full 180 and falling to the ground on his face, spinning like a top was the fact that Balrog still had his foot pinned underneath his own. He did fall to one knee though, with Balrog's foot being the only thing keeping him even partly upright as the man laughed at the damage he had just inflicted.

There was nothing technical or pretty about how Balrog had just pummeled Batsu. He hadn't done anything that remotely looked like boxing and it looked like he had beaten Batsu unconscious were it not for the fact that he could feel that Batsu had a weak grip on his boxing shorts.

"Are you still trying this?" Balrog said before putting a hand on his head to laugh down at Batsu in disbelief, "Since when do kids like getting beaten up so much? You're the best punching bag money can buy, you know that?" He continued to laugh, reaching down to grab Batsu's collar only to stop when the sound of a quite solid thud echoed out through the arena. In the middle of a laugh, Balrog's voice shot up to a squeaky high pitch and his knees began to shake because Batsu had just punched him directly in the testicles with the hardest uppercut he had ever been hit with, cup or not.

The thud was the sound of the cup cracking.

Balrog gently held his groin area and slowly shuffled away from Batsu, hunched over in pain as he did so and spouting threats in the highest falsetto possible as he tried to walk it off.

Meanwhile, Batsu stood back up, his face all sorts of bloody, but with an angry sneer on his face, "No rules right?" Not waiting for any sort of response, Batsu charged Balrog down and delivered a punishing uppercut that knocked Balrog into the air as he began to channel all of his ki as he held his left hand out in front of himself, "Now block this! Nekketsu Zenkai Kiaidan (Burning Super Guts Bullet)!"

The punch that let the Guts Bullet loose was so intense that Batsu left the ground to get the force needed to make it work. A blazing red massive ball of unstably compressed ki flew through the air wildly before rising up above the falling Balrog and slamming him into the ground with an explosion.

Balrog's body, propelled even harder by Batsu's super-powered Kiaidan, left an indentation in the ground where he lay face down. Smoke wafted up from his body as burns permeated his motionless frame and the crowd let up a cheer at the come from behind victory.

"_It's… it's completely improbable folks! The former world heavyweight boxing champion Balrog has just been defeated by 17 year old Ichimonji Batsu! Give it up for the winner!"_

This announcement and the pure shock value of the incident did nothing to really help Batsu on his way back to his friends as enthusiastic fans gave him hearty pats on the back all the way up the stairs. Pure murder on his broken ribs.

Upon reaching his row of seats where everyone had been sitting, instead of sitting back in his chair and allowing the others to congratulate him and whatnot, Batsu lay down on the floor on his back, letting out a few grunts of pain in the process. Naruto, Sakura, and Karin just stared at him blankly until Karin motioned for Ishizaki, "Ishizaki, please bandage Ichimonji-san's ribs and provide him with some painkillers."

XxX

(Elsewhere in the Arena)

An extremely handsome man in a very expensive looking suit sat in his seat, surrounded by beautiful women as the entire row he was sitting in, as well as the row in front of and behind him were all clear. The man had long light brown hair kept in one single long braid down his back and blue eyes that seemed to be amused as he shook his head at the sight of Balrog being carted off, "Idiot." The man said about Balrog, "I'm not his babysitter… so it's not my problem, but he'd better hope that Bison doesn't care if he makes an ass of himself or not."

He held out his hand as a glass was placed into it by one of the women and another filled it with wine, "Vega are you enjoying the show so far?" One of them asked him, seemingly fawning over his good looks.

Sparing the woman half a glass before taking a sip of his beverage, Vega let off a scoff as if it was not worth his time to comment, 'This 'show' is worthless to me.' He thought to himself instead of openly voicing it, 'I'm looking for talent. For someone to maybe recruit, but it's all been ho-hum. The boy that defeated Balrog couldn't duplicate that feat in a million years. And everyone here is so unflatteringly unattractive. It's repulsing.'

Vega himself could have entered this tournament firsthand to really find if there was anyone worth recruiting, but it would have been a waste of his time as far as he was concerned. A small-time tournament like this would pose him no challenge and all he would have done would have been to work himself up for nothing. But it was so boring.

These fights were ugly and had little flair to them with a minor exception of the first match with the girl that was pretty cute, not nearly as beautiful as himself of course, that the crowd seemed to love. Where was the flash? Where was the showmanship? Did these people have no sense of style? As the tournament continued on after Balrog's loss, Vega was getting more and more irritated.

Until he saw something that put a little glimmer of hope into his eye.

"_The winner of his first round bout and advancing to the next round, Uzumaki Naruto!"_

"I'd better get some goddamn theme music next time if you gave that jackass Dan a whole entrance with pyro and lights!" Naruto's loud and irritated voice shouted over the cheers of the crowd. As his beaten and thoroughly trounced opponent was taken away by doctors, Naruto jumped up on the barricade and played to the fans, "Best ninja in the world, dattebayo! I don't need a clan, I'm the man!"

Well this was certainly intriguing. A ninja was he? That was interesting to Vega for his own reasons first and foremost. The way he seemed to handle his opponent as if he himself had been bored with it told quite the story to Vega. He had a flair for the dramatic, or at least was rather boisterous, and unlike that loser Hibiki Dan he seemed to be able to back that up with action.

To say the least, Vega liked what he had seen. He just needed to see a little something more before he decided to make an offer, "I think Bison might be pleased with this one."

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Balrog  
><span>Nationality:<span> U.S.A.  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 31 (Birthday: September 4)  
><span>HeightWeight: 6'6/225 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> B  
><span>Likes:<span> Women, bourbon, money.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Fish, hard work, math.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Gambling  
><span>Rivals:<span> Anyone that messes with his money.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Street Boxing  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Dash Straight, Dash Upper, Dash Low Straight, Dash Low Smash, Buffalo Head, Turn Punch.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Gigaton Blow, Crazy Buffalo, Violent Buffalo, Dirty Bull.  
><span>Background:<span> Balrog was once a great boxing champion and renowned prizefighter, winning the world heavyweight championship at his peak. He was banned from boxing in the midst of his title reign for accidently killing an opponent in the ring to go along with other previous incidents of maiming his other opponents and his noted brazen use of illegal maneuvers. From that point forward he turned his skills towards earning himself easy money as the top enforcer of a shadowy criminal organization (Shadaloo), following the orders of the head of the organization and running criminal errands at his will. He is a selfish, temperamental, arrogant, sadistic thug with insatiable greed. To obtain money and fame Balrog has no problems with cheating, stealing, and killing in order to get what he wants as honor is not something Balrog recognizes. Despite his rather high placement in Shadaloo he is not particularly smart or cunning, mostly up there in the pecking order due to his ability to follow orders and execute pretty much anything asked of him.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter done. I've got no witty or semi-interesting comments to make during the holiday season because it's not New Year's Eve and I haven't seen enough drunken debauchery from my family and friends yet… Christmas bore no hilarious fruit. So I'll just bid you all adieu until the next installment of something of mine that you read.<strong>

**Later all. Kenchi out.**


	7. The Reason I Fight For

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. If I did then I would have Steven Segal doing voiceover work… priceless.

And where are my tungsten knuckles!

**Chapter 7: The Reason I Fight For**

* * *

><p>It was down to the semifinals as Naruto's two fights in both the first round and quarterfinals were total tomato cans as far as he was concerned. He didn't even need to use a clone to win. Batsu's second opponent in the quarterfinals was infinitely easier to defeat than Balrog had been, especially since the fool thought that Batsu would be easy pickings due to his injury. It took him less than a minute to polish the idiot off and lay back down on the ground in his friends' row of seats.<p>

Sakura's quarterfinal opponent met a very unpleasant end to his tournament run when she realized that he kept forcing her to throw high kicks so that he could try looking up her skirt. Seriously… that damn uniform she wore brought out the pig in adult men for some reason. She then proceeded to introduce his face to her fist and then to the barricade until he screamed for her to quit beating on him, which she did reluctantly.

And now in the next round it would be Sakura against Batsu, and then Naruto would do battle with his own opponent for the chance to meet one of his friends in the finals.

"Is 5 million yen really worth this?" Batsu asked aloud as he sat shirtless with Ishizaki re-taping his ribs by request of the ever-so-gracious Karin, "The second you punch me in the stomach Sakura I'm going to be puking blood."

With that visual stuck in her head, Sakura was visibly uncomfortable with going ahead into the next round, "I don't want to fight you if you're hurt Batsu. But you're not going to drop out either, are you?"

"Hell no."

"That's what I thought…" Sakura mumbled with a frown, running a hand through her short brown hair, "Would you hate me if-?"

"I won't be mad if you fight me like you'd fight anyone else." Batsu said, cutting her off from asking the question. Of course he wouldn't care. It was a damn fighting tournament. What was she supposed to do? It was obvious, "I'm not laying down for you out there either. You're legit going to have to stop me." He told her as Karin's large butler finished heavily taping his ribs back up, "Ugh… thanks a lot." Ishizaki nodded to him before retaking his seat.

Instead of putting his shirt back on, Batsu tied it around his waist. Everyone left in the tournament with the exception of one guy were his friends, everyone already knew he was injured and he'd need to be able to move as freely as possible as he was. No need to hide it.

Even with the reassurance, Sakura was still kind of concerned. It was one thing to fight if Batsu was actually healthy. He most assuredly was not healthy if the good half inch thick layer of tape around his torso was any indication.

"Does anyone have a marker?" Batsu asked as he tried to find a comfortable way to sit in his seat with busted up ribs, "Because I think I want to draw a bullseye on my stomach just to be funny for the next round."

XxX

(With Naruto – Arena Lobby)

"Sorry! I got dragged out of bed at first light this morning, there's no way you were done with your morning training by then to get here anyway!" Naruto desperately defended over the mobile phone in his hand. His frantic motion up and down the hall getting others out there to look at him strangely as he continued to speak, "Come on, you can't really be that mad can you Ibuki?"

"_You're damn right I'm mad you jerk!"_ Ibuki responded loudly enough through the phone for Naruto to hold it away from his ear, _"I've always wanted to see Tokyo and you and Sakura-chan just take off a day from school without saying anything? No warning at all to anyone. I wanted to go too…"_ She finished, her voice making Naruto think that he could see the pout on her face from there.

"We would have had to pull another trick on your sensei." A grin came to Naruto's face as he finally stopped moving to lean against a wall, "And really, we've been standing in line and just fighting. You would have been bored unless you split up from us for the day."

"_*sigh* I guess there always next time. I've got to go, I'm almost close to getting back to my village and I can't let them see the phone. At least bring me something back and I'll see you guys in school on Monday. Don't get yourself put into the hospital, alright?"_

Hearing the sound of Ibuki ending the phone conversation got Naruto to put his own phone up and sigh, "…I wouldn't go by choice anyway… I hate hospitals." His thoughts then turned to the semifinals of the tournament. As expected, there weren't many people here that were notable, Balrog was an anomaly and his win over The Great Oni in the preliminary round was the only other example he could think of, "In the finals I'm going to fight either Sakura-chan or Batsu. For real this time."

It was sort of exciting, fighting his friends with something actually on the line this time. Not just a spar for once.

"I believe that you are getting ahead of yourself." A turn of his head saw Naruto looking at Karin as she walked down the hall towards him, proper as ever and ignoring the people around her until she stood directly in front of him, "You still have to win your semifinal bout before you can think of defeating one of your friends."

"Well… I'm excited." Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, "I haven't been this excited to fight in a long time come to think of it. I want to see just what my friends have really got."

Pointing a stern finger right in Naruto's face, Karin spoke again, completely serious, "Like I said before, you need to worry about your semifinal bout first and foremost. Your opponent is extremely dangerous and he received a bye through the quarterfinals after the victor of the first round match that would have faced him bowed out due to injury. He's fresher than you too."

Naruto grabbed Karin's hand to get it out of his face and flexed his other arm at her, "Heh, if you think that I'll get tired just like that then you're crazy. Don't worry."

"You didn't see his first round match because you ran off to get Batsu medical supplies after winning your own fight." Karin said with a touch of concern in her brown eyes that was difficult to miss. But just like that she squashed it and launched into an explanation, "What do you know about professional wrestling?"

"I beat that Oni guy in the prelims." Naruto said, dredging up the memory of the very showy man. But did that question mean that his next opponent was another wrestler? It had to be if Karin was bringing it up, "So I'm fighting a wrestler again?"

"Not just that. You will be fighting the best wrestler in Russia." Karin informed him with a hollow look in her eyes, "A national hero, and a walking monster of a man." With a sigh, Karin spoke again, looking like what she had to say was very difficult for her, "Naruto-san you have my express permission to surrender before the next round."

A look of shock came over Naruto's face. That was one thing he had never expected to hear, "S-Surrender? Are you kidding me? I haven't even seen the guy yet and you're telling me that you want me to just quit?"

"It would be better if you did." Karin said abruptly, running a hand through her curls to place them behind her shoulders, "I don't need to see my investment turned to pulp by some hulking brute just for this tournament. There will be better chances in the future to prove your strength and skill. You can walk away without losing anything."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." Naruto said, waving his hands in front of him rapidly to bring Karin's reasoning to a close, "So you can send me off to fight a sumo wrestler in a bathhouse but I can't fight this Russian guy? What's with the big change of heart?"

"Like I said…" Karin remarked, her eyes panning down to Naruto's hold on her wrist where she removed it with her other hand, "You didn't see his first round match."

_(Flashback – First Round)_

"_Ow…" Batsu complained still laying on the floor in front of the row of chairs occupied by the others, "Where's Naruto? Hasn't he been to Tokyo enough to know where the nearest store that sells medical stuff is?"_

_Instead of being worried about that, Karin crossed her arms over her chest as one of the fighters for the next match walked into the ring, "If he is a savvy fighter he should return as quickly as possible to watch the rest of his opponents that he may wind up facing."_

"_He'll be back." Sakura said with full confidence, "Naruto didn't send one of his clones because they tend to kind of go off and do dumb things when he gives them money to buy things like this. They'll spend it on themselves, and Naruto doesn't like technically stealing since when his clones dispel the money the clone had in their pocket will dispel too."_

_Karin glanced over at Sakura momentarily before looking back down into the ring with an uninterested look in her eyes, "Well, well. You certainly know quite a bit about my employee."_

_A shrug came from Sakura, not really seeing anything notable about it. Of course she'd know that much after being around him as close as they were for well over three years, "Yeah. He was my best friend first, not your worker. Of course I know more about him than you. You don't even consider yourself a friend of his."_

_That made Karin bite the inside of her lip as she wanted to respond and dispute that point, but her damn pride. Naruto had to hound her in private to get her to say it. There was no way she was just going to come out and say that they were friends with no prodding._

"And now ladies and gentlemen it's time for the last first round match of the evening! Introducing first from Seoul, South Korea, he stands six feet one inch, and weighs in at 184 pounds; Chan Doo San!"

_A man with a white taekwondo uniform on and a long ponytail lifted his arm in acknowledgement of the announcer calling out his name as he stood in front of a man that was crouched down with a red cape concealing his entire body as he kept his head down._

"His opponent, straight from his training in Siberia, he stands seven feet tall and weighs in at 254 pounds! This is the Red Cyclone of Russia; Zangief!"

_The man threw off the red cape concealing his body to reveal his entire frame to everyone in view. He had brown hair in a Mohawk and a goatee/beard as well as a large patch of hair on his chest. Scars littered his body in numerous places and he wore red wrestling tights with a yellow studded belt around his waist, red boots, and red wristbands. All in all he cut a very intimidating figure._

_It didn't seem to matter to Chan though, as he moved right at Zangief and delivered a leaping ax kick that Zangief blocked before throwing him away. The agile taekwondo fighter landed on his feet however and went right back in at Zangief, throwing kicks at the bulky frame of the Russian wrestler. One of the kicks happened to be caught though, and Zangief pulled him in for a stomach-rattling punch that fully doubled him over._

_Taking this chance, Zangief grabbed his opponent around the waist and held him upside down before jumping at least ten feet off of the ground, spinning in the air before landing on the ground in a sitting position, slamming Chan upside down headfirst._

_Cheering raucously, the crowd roared as Zangief tossed Chan's limp body aside and stood up, lifting his arms into the air to point at the sky and yell loudly at his victory. It was clearly his win because Chan was not moving an inch._

"And Zangief simply overwhelms Chan with his massive signature Spinning Piledriver! One move ladies and gentlemen, that's all it took! We can only hope that Chan is alright, but advancing to the next round of fights; the Red Cyclone, Zangief! Expect nothing less from the most powerful man in Russia!"

_Zangief flexed to the crowd as they cheered his name and the EMTs took Chan away on a stretcher to hurry him out of the arena._

(End Flashback)

"Chan Doo San was _not_ alright." Karin said, putting a hand on the back of Naruto's neck, right where she could feel his vertebrae, "He has since been pronounced by doctors as paralyzed. An attack of that nature on a concrete floor, there was no give. I am not willing to take such a risk with you."

Taking a moment to remove Karin's hand from the back of his neck, Naruto just held it and gave the back of her hand a few firm pats, "I'm not going to get paralyzed Karin." He had been piledriven off of a cliff headfirst into rocks before and lived through it. And aside from that, Zangief had to grab him first, "So don't you worry one bit boss lady." He then realized that something wasn't happening, "Where's Shibazaki? Normally other times when I've tried to lay a hand on you he has a heart attack at me."

Karin smirked at Naruto as he returned her hand to her, "I sent him to the vendor area to request the use of their equipment to feed me. While I am not that hungry, I did need to find a moment to speak to you alone. This was the easiest way to ensure that."

"Trying to get me alone without your butler looking over your shoulder?" Amusement crept into Naruto's voice as he smirked along with his fellow blonde, "I've got to be rubbing off on you somehow, because that seems like a 'me' kind of move."

Karin leaned in close towards Naruto, getting him to lean back a bit so that their faces didn't touch. The halls were beginning to clean out for the end of intermission as no one wanted to miss the semifinal round, leaving Naruto and Karin more and more alone, "You say that as if you've taught me how to be devious. That could not be further from the truth. I was already devious before you and I ever even met." She finished in whisper.

"…I already knew that." Naruto whispered right back, feeling kind of awkward at the proximity the two of them were sharing at the moment. If he wasn't so terrified of how much evil he was quite certain was kept in Karin's female body he might have been a bit flustered by how close the two of them were, "…If you're going to kiss me for good luck you should just go ahead and do it now."

An airy laugh came from Karin before she backed away from Naruto and placed her hands saucily on her hips, "I do not kiss commoners Naruto-san. Keep that dream though."

More like a nightmare, but he wasn't about to say that out loud and wreck any good will between them.

"Very good. I've found you fairly easily."

Both Naruto and Karin turned to see a man flanked by many beautiful women following his every move, and Karin had to admit that he was an extremely attractive man. Definitely not a commoner from the looks of his suit, or his long flowing brown hair kept in a neat ponytail with not a stray hair in sight, "Is there some way that we can help you?" Karin said to the man as he got closer, "Do you have some business with us?"

The man looked at Naruto with a bit of disdain, 'Now that I've seen him up close he's rather unattractive. What are those marks on his face? He looks like a complete thug.' With that, he chose to turn his attention to Karin who was obviously beautiful and the one he would rather be conversing with. It didn't matter as long as the message got out, "I have business with the young man here. I wish to offer him a job of sorts… I simply need to see more of what he is capable of in order to finalize whether or not I will require his services."

"And you are?" Karin asked, raising a delicate eyebrow at how the man had not introduced himself.

"Ah, of course." With a sweeping bow that got his female hanger-ons to swoon at his grace, the man lifted his head up to smile at Karin disarmingly, "You may refer to me as Vega. You are quite a charming young woman Kanzuki-dono. Your family name precedes you even amongst the nobles in Spain."

Hearing her name brought up in a formal matter by a man with proper foreign conditioning, Karin returned Vega's bow and stood back up, "You have an issue you would like to bring up to Naruto-san? Is this true? It pays, correct?" She added, thinking it thoughtful to try and broker a good price for Naruto. For some reason, Naruto was stockpiling money and this could greatly help with that if the man paid well.

"Of course." Vega said with a pleasant smile on his face, "I can assure you that he will be paid very well for his assistance."

A nod came from Karin before she turned to Naruto who hadn't spoken a word since Vega's arrival, "What do you think Na-?" She stopped her question when she saw a rather hard, scrutinizing look in Naruto's eyes as he stared at Vega, "Naruto-san?"

It didn't get Naruto to break his stare away from Vega, as if he was trying to find something by looking into the man's eyes, and he apparently found what he was looking for when he narrowed his own eyes and moved slightly in front of Karin in a bit of a protective manner, "I don't want to hear your offer. I'm not interested."

"Are you sure?" Vega said, but this second offer only got Naruto to bristle in a harsher matter. He could see the darkness behind Vega's seemingly harmless eyes, 'The boy is quite perceptive… I guess he has to have some qualities to compensate if his appearance is so unsightly.'

'There's so much bloodlust in his eyes.' Naruto thought. From the moment Vega got a good look at his face, Naruto could feel the killing intent flooding the hallway. It was thick, but he had felt worse before. This man had clearly taken many lives though. It was as if Naruto could still see the blood on his well-kept hands as they spoke, "I'm completely sure. I don't need to hear anything. Karin pays me more than enough, I'm not looking for another person to work for right now."

Vega nodded stiffly, seemingly in understanding before turning around and walking away, the women following him, "I see. Well thank you for your time Kanzuki-dono, Uzumaki-san." Even with his hard-soled shoes his footsteps never made a sound. That was crazy.

He was skilled. So what in the world did he want Naruto's help for? He seemed capable enough all on his own.

"Why did you turn that man down so abruptly?" Karin asked him, rather heatedly as Vega returned to the main arena. Her foot was tapping the floor impatiently for his answer, "He was well connected. I could clearly see that much. He had incredible funds and would have paid you handsomely. Isn't that your goal?"

"I'm not taking anyone's blood money." Naruto said, still glaring down the hall where Vega had long since departed, "That guy… he had the eyes and the body language of a killer." Since coming to Japan Naruto could see marked differences in how people carried themselves from people in Konohagakure. It was rare to see anyone carry themselves with a modicum of combat etiquette, let alone the tense assassin-like manner that Vega moved with. It seemed like his every motion could have been transitioned into a lethal attack, "Whatever he wanted me to do, it wouldn't have been worth it."

"What about your goal?" Karin asserted, trying to appeal to the side of Naruto that wished for financial security… for whatever reason he needed it for, "How is turning down a lucrative opportunity going to help you?"

Once again, Naruto didn't budge on the matter, "That guy's eyes… I don't like him. There's something really messed up about him past that pretty boy face of his. I don't work for people I don't like." He then addressed the silent issue that Karin's skeptical eyes were asking him, "…Yes, that means I kind of like you. You're not a bad person at all."

Oh, a compliment. How nice. But that wasn't really the point of conversation from Karin's point of view. So Naruto just flat out didn't like or trust anything about Vega. That was his right as his own agent to line up his own work, but still… "Apparently you need my money to help you, so why do you not simply tell me now what it is? There is no need to cause an incident like this to occur again by accident. What are you searching for?"

"I can't tell you."

"And why not?"

"Because you'd never believe me… no one would. And I don't need anyone thinking I'm crazy."

So this was something he hadn't even told Sakura, his best friend, about? If that were the case then trying to strong-arm it out of him by being bossy wasn't going to work for a single moment as far as Karin went. There truly was something strange about Naruto that went beyond his fighting abilities.

The two had something of a standoff before Karin sighed and waved the whole thing off, "Honestly… you say I need to be open, well what about yourself Naruto-san? There isn't much that you could say to me at this point that would cause too much of a stir with me. I am very level-headed." She sounded as if she were bragging, but there was something more behind it, "Just know that whenever you wish to bare your secret ambition to me I will lend you an ear."

"Why would you care?" Naruto asked in legitimate curiosity towards her intentions.

"Who knows? It could serve to be just as interesting as I figure you yourself to be." Wow, what a cryptic answer. If Naruto wanted such a vague answer from Karin he wouldn't have asked the question in the first place, "Now shall we return to our seats? Shibazaki should be finished preparing my meal soon."

Naruto just stared after her as she started walking back down the hallway corridor to return to the appropriate arena entrance before deciding to just follow after her. Thinking about what was exactly was going on in a wealthy girl's head was just going to sidetrack and confuse him. He had a fight to prepare for, and his friends were on deck for their own bout in just a matter of minutes.

XxX

(A Few Minutes Later – Main Arena)

A tentative looking Sakura stood in the middle of the ring facing off against a calm looking Batsu, though he still had his uniform top tied around his waist to reveal the bandages adorning his torso. His face slightly twisted in a scowl when he could see Sakura's apprehension from her body language, "Are you still on about me fighting hurt?" Batsu said with a lot of irritation, "I'm fine with it… mostly. So just get over it."

"I don't fight to hurt people, just to win." Sakura replied with conviction in her eyes, "I can't win without making your wounds worse. Way worse."

"Then just do it and stop bellyaching about it." Batsu said, standing in a ready stance with his fists clinched, "Because I'm not going to take it easy on you. If you aren't going to quit then you'd better put me down hard and in a hurry."

"_The first semifinal match involves two high school students from Aohura City and they seem to know each other quite well, how interesting! It is Kasugano Sakura against Ichimonji Batsu! Winner heads to the final round! Let's see who's the strongest student!"_

"If you won't attack me, I'll attack you!" Batsu said, holding out his left fist before hitting it with his right as if he were striking a match, "Kiaidan (Guts Bullet)!" Wasting no time, Batsu fired off his specific ki attack at Sakura, forcing her to dodge it and beginning the battle in earnest as he tried to close the distance, using the previous attack as a feint to give him a chance to get closer.

Sakura was still hesitant to use a special attack of her own in retaliation. And this actually allowed the far slower due to his injury Batsu to get close and begin trading strikes with her. The wild swinging kicks of Batsu didn't touch Sakura, but she wasn't countering. Outmaneuvering him was a definite possibility, but her immediate instinct when getting past the guard of someone bigger than her was to deliver punishment to the body.

Her hesitance to do so in this instance caused Batsu to take advantage of her pulling her punches, making her pay in the process, "Mikazukikero (Crescent Moon Kick)!" Sakura felt pain rip through her own torso as Batsu delivered a deep, driving kick to her body that sent her fumbling and rolling back over the floor. Of course, the full extension of his body that was required for the move to be effective caused Batsu to drop to his knees, clutching his stomach, "Stop fighting sloppy Sakura…" He said, "Even if I'm hurt I can still beat you to a pulp damn it."

Feeling her blood pumping at being hit with such a clean shot, Sakura got back up and saw Batsu himself on his knees. And just like that, her resolve to fight back started slipping away again.

Pity from an opponent, especially someone close to him, pissed Batsu off, and this was no exception as he got right back up to his feet and got back into his fighting stance, "Come on already! Naruto says that you're good, well stop acting like a coward and fight me!" He shouted, charging at her again.

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" Sakura fired a wild and fast flashing Hadoken at Batsu, hoping that the weak but fast attack would put him down without too much harm, but Batsu just jumped over it and made her pay for her errant miss.

"Ryuuseikero (Falling Star Kick)!" Falling from the sky, Batsu drove another stiff kick into Sakura actually hitting her hard enough to cause friction sparks as she went flying back again. The crowd collectively let out an 'ooh' as her body crashed into the sturdy barrier separating the crowd from the fighting area, "If you don't fight back _you're_ the one that's really gonna to get hurt!"

XxX

(In the Stands)

Naruto flinched when the sound of Sakura's body hitting the barrier sounded out through the arena, "Come on Sakura-chan. Even I know that when you've got someone hurt you've got to finish the job." He said quietly from his seat next to Karin.

Her butlers due to Shibazaki's previous absence wound up sitting on her right side while she had Naruto to her left, much to Shibazaki's chagrin. The two seemed to be getting along very well though, focusing on the fight before them, "She should be more aggressive than this. When we fought she was sharper. Her form was very unclean, but this is completely different altogether. It seems like she does not even wish to hit him."

"She's too scared she'll hurt him worse."

"That's stupid." Karin bluntly stated, seeing her rival in a lesser light with the revelation from Naruto, "If he was fine she'd be trying to beat him to a pulp. The way things are now the only thing that has changed is that the job is halfway done. She's too soft to win a real fight."

As much as Naruto wanted to defend Sakura's good-natured heart, there was a time and a place for it, and if Batsu was stubborn enough to fight she should have flat out torched him. Naruto could see why Batsu wanted to keep fighting as he would have done so himself, "Sakura-chan if you lose without fighting him back I'm gonna make your life a living hell when we get home! You can count on that, dattebayo!"

XxX

(In the Ring – Sakura vs. Batsu)

Naruto's voice was very distinct, and when he wanted someone to hear something there was no amount of background noise possible to keep his voice muffled. Sakura clearly heard Naruto's threat and knew that he would never harm her, but that wasn't the kind of hell that she was well aware that he could bring her. Embarassing prank booby traps, and it would be unbearable because he was well aware of her entire daily schedule and anywhere she could go to try and hide from him.

"Take him seriously damn it!" Naruto shouted down at her again, "You're disrespecting Batsu like this! He wants your best, he doesn't want you to pity him! How would you feel if that was you?"

She'd be pissed. If she was still able to stand and insisting on fighting and her opponent didn't give her the time of day in a competition she'd go at the bastard tooth and nail to let him know what a huge mistake it was to underestimate her. Apparently Batsu felt the same way because he had delivered a few nasty attacks while her guard had been down.

"Okay Batsu…" Sakura said aloud as she stood back up and walked away from the barricade she had crashed into, "No holding back anymore. If this is what you want, this is what you're going to get."

A scoff came from Batsu as he moved his hands away from soothing his injured ribs to getting back into a defensible fighting stance, "Finally. This way when I beat you I can say I'm that much better than you." Bad physical condition or not, he still knew in his mind that he could win. All he needed was to string together a good combination of moves. His body could take the pain that a good chain of attacks would give him.

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" Sakura fired another wild Hadoken, sacrificing power and control for speed and range, but missed wide. It let her get close enough to fight hand-to-hand though, letting her start off with a low front sweep that Batsu avoided by lifting his leg up. Sakura followed up with a spinning backfist that he ducked, but it put stress on his ribs to do so, and Sakura's spinning combination was not complete as she spun through for a third time to land a rather solid low-aimed kick that battered his right side, even with his guard up to protect himself.

A small pained grunt came from Batsu as he shoved her leg away and stood up straight, now blocking a flurry of punches coming from Sakura before shoving her back and trying to unleash a harsh rushing uppercut that missed, again causing incredible pain to his body due to the full extension required by his body to put his full force behind the move. Sakura didn't pity him this time and delivered a side kick to his body, picking at the weak point instead of trying to avoid a fight altogether.

Stumbling back, Batsu's knees shook and he fought to keep them from giving out on him. This was what he had asked for, Sakura not taking it easy on him, so there wasn't any way he could complain about it. Sakura let out a yell of effort as she struck home with a direct, straight punch that got Batsu right in the ribs. However, she found that she couldn't pull her hand away and looked at Batsu's face to find him smirking at her painfully.

Of course it was going to be an attack to the ribs. Any half-assed schlub that fancied themselves a fighter of any real value would have gone for that big white-taped opening at any and every opportunity. There wasn't any way around it. So all he could do was prepare accordingly, "All I do… is get into fights where I'm guaranteed to get the crap beat out of me." He said, tightening his grip on Sakura's arm before lifting his leg to give one authoritative big boot to her face that freed her from his grip but knocked her down and away, "Do you really think I don't know how to take a punch like that?"

Sakura lay down on the ground for a moment, holding the shoulder of the arm Batsu had held onto before kicking her away. It felt almost like she had dislocated her shoulder, but she could still move it so that was not the case. She counted herself lucky to be awake after that, as she had seen Batsu throw a racing motorcycle like a shot-put before, and that kick to her head was underpowered due to his injury. That was her only reasoning as to how she was not knocked unconscious by that clutch counterattack.

She got up and growled to herself as she charged towards Batsu again and attacked, "Shunpukyaku (Twirling Gale Kick)!" Multiple 360 rotations went into Sakura's jumping spin kick that merely bounced off of Batsu's guard and let her drift into the air, almost like a pinwheel as she flew over his head and followed up with a falling punch that got through and smashed him right in the face.

Blood sprayed from Batsu's mouth onto the ground as his head snapped down and to the side from the shot, but he turned back and retaliated with an attempted haymaker of his own that Sakura ducked under, 'Fuck.' Batsu thought to himself as Sakura was in a full crouch underneath his fist and entire arm, 'I overextended! I was too wild!'

"This ought to fix you!" Sakura shouted before delivering two low spinning kicks that bashed Batsu in his ribs. Before he could fully double over and hold his torso, Sakura hit him with a third kick, a high front kick to the face that knocked him into the air. Flipping above him, Sakura used a two-handed smash that sent him back to the ground with her landing flawlessly in a double stomp right on Batsu's ribs again, "Haru Ranman (Turbulent Pride of Spring)!"

"AAAHHH!" Batsu cried out loudly, with all of Sakura forcing herself right into his torso before blacking out from the pain, going spread-eagle on the ground and lying there motionlessly.

Sakura stood in her crouch on Batsu's body before falling to the side on her backside and heaving a sigh of exhaustion, "I really didn't want to break out my new special combination on you, but you just wouldn't go down." She said to the unconscious young man before standing up from the ground.

"_That's it for that one everyone! The winner of the match, and proceeding to the final round of the tournament; Kasugano Sakura!"_

Smoothing out her dress as she lifted up one hand in victory, Sakura looked back at Batsu sorrowfully as the EMTs were already there checking him over and loading him up onto a stretcher, "He's going to be alright isn't he?" She asked, walking with the doctors for a ways.

"You broke one of his ribs, but nothing ruptured as far as we can see yet. No internal bleeding coming from his mouth." The main doctor amongst them said, "We've got to take him to the hospital though." Hearing that stopped Sakura at a pair of ground level double doors that would have led to the back of the arena, just looking at the doors in shock.

"Oh no…" Sakura said, feeling lower than the floor. This was what she didn't want. She didn't want to hurt a friend and now she had sent one to the hospital. Such was the nature of rule-free full-contact fighting. She turned around and saw that Naruto had hustled his way through the stands to see Batsu off as well and immediately ran towards him to hug him tightly, "Naruto I didn't mean to do that to him."

"I know." Naruto replied, just hoping that she wouldn't start crying on him. The last thing he needed and something he had no idea on how to handle was how to console a crying girl. And he was up next to fight, he knew he couldn't calm her down by then if she wound up losing it, "Look, Batsu knew what he was doing when he came down for this round. You didn't do anything wrong; you went after the weak spot. That's how you win a fight. It's okay Sakura-chan."

Well hell, she knew that. It didn't sit easily with her though regardless. Sakura pouted, though he couldn't see it from the position of her head buried in his shoulder and chest, "I know how to win a fight… I don't want to hurt my friends though."

"Batsu's going to be fine. He's a tough bastard." Naruto asserted, patting her on the back, "Now come on. Stop being all emotional and girly. My fight's next and I can't be all full of estrogen and touchy feelings when I'm trying to crack skulls."

Pulling away from him, Sakura thumped Naruto in the chest with a small smile on her face, "I'm girly because I'm a girl stupid." She remarked before sighing a bit, "…Thanks for that though. So you won't be too angry when I beat you will you?" The sound of someone loudly clearing their throat got both Naruto and Sakura to turn around to see Karin standing there with her hands on her hips, "Yes Karin-san? We were talking."

'Talking is what she calls it?' Karin thought to herself with a twitching eyebrow before squashing that thought, "While you two were having a moment, Naruto-san's opponent entered the ring. So if you're done holding him up with your little near-breakdown…" She trailed off before smirking, "Unless you want to cry on his shoulder some more little girl."

Damn it, he could damn near see the electricity flying between their eyes at each other at that point. Naruto let out a groan and just started walking to the ring. He was not about to stand there and break up a catfight between two girls that could potentially beat him unconscious right before a match just for getting in the way, "Don't beat each other up please…" He remarked before walking back to the barrier and hopping over it to enter the ring.

"_Now it's time for the second semifinal match of the evening! It's the sixteen year old self-professed ninja, the part-time soldier with a chip on his shoulder; Uzumaki Naruto! And he's taking on Russia's greatest athlete, the most dangerous grappler on the face of the planet; Zangief! This is a real David vs. Goliath matchup, I'll let you go ahead and guess who's who!"_

It had been a while since Naruto had to look directly up at someone to see their face. Zangief stood more than a full head over him and was at least twice as wide, "…I didn't know you could get muscles there." He said, almost meekly at the sheer size of his opponent. Naruto was just utterly dwarfed, "Well whatever… after getting the chance to get into the ring with the best ninja in the world and getting your ass kicked, I'll give you the chance to shake my hand." Naruto said, trying to muster some bravado and braze to up his own fighting spirit.

Zangief chuckled down at Naruto and ruffled his hair, unknowingly almost popping Naruto's neck from the strength in his very large arms, "Let's see just what you've got to offer little one." Naruto felt Zangief's grip begin to tighten and remembered that Zangief was a wrestler and that this was not good. The powerful Russian lifted Naruto up, palming his head like a basketball, but Naruto wrapped his arms and legs around his arm like a leech, not willing to be thrown, "What do you think you're doing? Let go!"

"No! Screw off!" Naruto shouted back at him, attaching himself with chakra as Zangief tried his best to shake Naruto off for a throw or a slam. Zangief got upset and lifted his arm to slam it into the ground, Naruto and all, but that was what it took for Naruto to eventually let go, swinging himself around Zangief's arm like a metal bar and dropkicking him right in the face before flipping away and gaining some distance, 'I've got to stay fast or this guy'll kill me if he can grab me.'

With a mighty yell, Zangief jumped through the air at Naruto, firing a dropkick of his own that Naruto rolled out of the way of. This guy was too big to try and test with a punch, kicking him in the head earlier felt like he had just booted a log, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Twelve Naruto clones manifested out of smoke and dove at Zangief to pin him down, but they might as well have just been ragdolls from the way that Zangief threw them away into each other and kicked them off when they tried to grab his legs.

"_Are you kidding me? Tell me I'm not seeing double… or dozen in this case! Uzumaki Naruto just cloned himself on command! Is he even human?"_

It bought Naruto enough time to land a flipping ax kick, but Zangief's core was like iron and he grabbed a hold of Naruto's leg after its heel smashed into him. Naruto could feel a pressure directly on his kneecap and realized that he was a hair's breadth away from getting his leg broken. Naruto made more clones that were quick to leap to their creator's defense, brazenly pummeling Zangief's face and tugging at his arms to free Naruto before something terrible happened.

The combination of the beating and the incessant pestering of the clones freed Naruto as several of them dragged Naruto away. In a burst of angry strength, Zangief stood up, throwing away Kage Bunshin, one in each hand, picking up another one and headbutting it into oblivion and punching the last that tried to attack it in the face, turning it to smoke.

After disposing of his multiple attackers, he glared at Naruto and his seven remaining clones, growling as a blood pulsed out of a throbbing rage vein in his forehead. The clones looked at each other warily but they all had Naruto's original grit to fight. Well there was one sure-fire way that they could all break a man's spirit for fighting… and since Zangief already seemed to be spurting blood from a vein in his head it probably wouldn't even take this much to finish the job so to speak.

"Let's finish this!" Naruto shouted as his clones surrounded Zangief like a wild animal, making hand-seal, "No man alive can stand up to this move! Harem no Jutsu (Harem Jutsu)!" Smoke came and went to reveal that in the place of Naruto and his clones were multiple beautiful blonde women that were sorely lacking clothing, smoke not even concealing their modesty or lack thereof, "Hello Zangief-sama!" They all cried in unison as they hung all over the man.

XxX

(In the Stands)

E. Honda had to cover his own nose to keep blood from flying out of it upon the sight of what was below in the ring. Hopefully no one saw him, but he felt safe since most of the guys in the place were either cheering wildly or suffering the same physical affliction as him at the moment, "What on Earth? How in the world does he call that a technique?"

"I might kill him." Sakura said stiffly, glaring down at the ring where her friend was making a perverted ass of himself. He had somehow neglected to ever use that 'world-beating technique' in her presence ever… luckily for him, "I might really kill him this time. I don't think I can hit him enough to make him realize how messed up this is."

"I am sure there is a proper number somewhere." Karin said, gritting her own teeth at the sight of the Harem Jutsu, "…A very high number." Would it have been wrong of her to think of docking Naruto's wages for his actions?

XxX

(In the Ring – Naruto vs. Zangief)

Sadly, having nearly a dozen nude women hanging off of him did not have the desired and practiced effect on Zangief that Naruto figured it would. Instead of going red in the face and ejecting most of his lifeblood through his nasal passages the way many before him had done, Zangief's face twisted in anger, "Raaah! Double Lariat!" Extending his arms to the side, Zangief spun around at a high speed and blasted the transformed clones and the original away violently with clotheslines and spinning backfists, "What kind of fighting technique is that? Turning oneself into a whore!" He spat hatefully on the ground before running at Naruto who was sitting up.

"What are you, gay?" Naruto shouted from his backside, blood streaming from his own nose due to being hit by Zangief's pole-like arms. Who just shrugged something like that off? He got a good view of the man charging towards him and made a few more hand-seals before spitting his next attack at him, "Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!"

"Banishing Flat!" Zangief's right hand glowed green and he simply slapped Naruto's spitfire attack away, not stopping his charge and reaching Naruto by the time he had gotten back to his feet.

"He just slapped it away!" Naruto cried in disbelief. No one just knocked his jutsu away like it was a baseball, it should have done something. What was that green stuff? Zangief's ki? But Naruto then sharply exhaled when Zangief slammed a knee right into his belly.

Grabbing the doubled over Naruto around the waist, Zangief flipped him up onto his shoulders and jumped into the air, slamming Naruto directly onto the ground head, neck, and back first, "Flying Powerbomb! This is what real fighting is all about!" He shouted to the crowd with spittle flying as he stood on Naruto's chest with one foot and lifted his arm into the air victoriously, "Not cheap light tricks or misdirection! Crush your opponent and show your superiority with no shadow of doubt to the outcome!"

The pain from being powerbombed on the concrete overwhelmed Naruto's senses as he almost couldn't feel himself trying to move for a bit. When he got feeling back in his limbs though, he wasn't about to let this meathead just step on him like he was a bug. Naruto clutched at Zangief's boot with one hand as he formed a blue sphere of rapidly moving energy in his other hand, "Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

Zangief let out an intense howl of pain when Naruto slammed the Rasengan into the side of his knee, the force of which forced Zangief to do a full flip through the air thrice speedily before landing on his face on the concrete floor.

Naruto quickly crawled and then stood up to run away now that he had his opening and turned back to see Zangief looking at him from his place belly down on the ground, eyes nearly bulging out of his head in either agony or fury as he rolled over and sat up, his right leg clearly dislocated at the knee.

'That's got to be it.' Naruto said to himself mentally, spitting his own blood out as he stared at the downed Zangief as if telling him to give up. But when Zangief painstakenly lined his own leg up and slammed his hands against both sides of it to audibly pop it back into place he had to fight back the urge to gulp, "Fuck…" Naruto thought, seeing Zangief beginning to stand back up, "Fine! I'll just knock you out now then!" He created five clones that surrounded Zangief again as he stood up, with all of the Narutos attempting a rising kick, but it was like trying to kick a small car off of the ground as they barely got Zangief to lift up to his tiptoes, 'Is he really that strong?'

"Spinning Lariat!" Another wild, spinning arm attack once again rid Zangief of Naruto's clones, but Naruto himself ducked, retaliating quickly with a hard uppercut to the ribs that got Zangief to grunt from the cleanly landed, technically sound shot. It hurt, but it wasn't enough, "You punch like a girl."

That wasn't really much of an insult especially when it came to the girls that Naruto knew, but an insult was an insult and he didn't take them without responding.

So he stomp-kicked at the knee that he knew he had just dislocated moments earlier.

An appropriate response.

Zangief dropped to one knee, shouting in pain once again before growling and grabbing Naruto around his neck with both hands. The mammoth Russian warrior lifted him off of the ground and began strangling Naruto with his bare hands, "Close your eyes and go to sleep little one…"

Naruto started kicking away wildly, but Zangief's reach was scary and Naruto could barely reach his body with the tip of his toes as he tried in vain to pry his opponent's hands away from his throat, 'He's so strong! It's like Super Bushy Brows Sensei's grip!' Naruto couldn't even make choking or coughing noises as his blood buildup started turning the whites of his eyes red as blood vessels were feeling the strain due to the blood pressure building in his head.

He didn't want to do something like this in a fighting tournament, but he wasn't about to be strangled to death in the middle of an arena for a bunch of bloodthirsty people. Naruto stopped trying to pry Zangief's grip free as his vision began to blot and darken. He reached for his supply pouch and pulled out two kunai that he proceeded to bury deep into Zangief's forearms.

Getting stabbed by the black iron blades forced Zangief to drop Naruto to the ground. He stumbled back in surprise and pain, roaring as he tried to pull the stubborn weapons out of his arms. He tossed them onto the ground with a clatter and stomped angrily towards Naruto who was on his hands and knees, wheezing and choking down sweet oxygen for the first time in over a minute.

Zangief stood behind Naruto and pointed both of his fingers into the air with a shout, "For Mother Russia!" He then bent down and grabbed Naruto by the back of his waist from behind before bridging his own body back and slamming Naruto's back, head, and neck into the ground, "Ultimate!" He seamlessly rolled through and picked Naruto back up before slamming his back down across his knee, "Atomic!" He then flung Naruto into the air and jumped with him, catching him and driving him into the ground with an improvised spinning piledriver, "Buster!"

"_Oh my goodness! What a terrible display of chain-grappling! On the unforgiving concrete floor to boot! I think we've found our winner, there's no way that our young friend is still conscious! There's just no way!"_

"NARUTO/NARUTO-SAN!"

Sakura and Karin's panicked shouts from the stands were more or less drowned out by the loud cheering of the people surrounding them as Zangief got up from the ground, letting Naruto's body lay out in a more natural facedown position from where it had been previously. With a satisfied smirk as he didn't see Naruto budge an inch, he turned towards the crowd and raised his hands in victory.

"…That last attack was cotton soft."

Zangief heard Naruto's weak voice and turned towards him to see that he was still down in the same position as before, eyes still closed and everything. He scoffed at Naruto's attempts to taunt him and crossed his arms over his massive chest, "I hear your mouth moving little man, but I don't see you getting back up to prove it."

"Fine." Naruto said as his body started to twitch, but he didn't get up Zangief let out a barking laugh at his expense. Even a few vocal crowd members started telling Naruto to stay down, getting Zangief to laugh even louder, "Don't laugh at me…" He said, stirring but still not even beginning to stand up.

"You have the heart of a tiger, but the body of a deer… broken by a real tiger." Zangief mocked, crouching down to Naruto's level as he started pushing himself up, "Stay down!" He yelled directly into Naruto's ear.

"Apparently steroids shrink your brain as much as they shrink your balls because I already told you that your last move was soft!"

Zangief kicked at Naruto's body, sending him rolling on the ground, but to his surprise Naruto got up faster this time, his body and clothes covered in the marks of battle. Upon reaching his feet and almost falling back down again, Naruto let out a chuckle and proceeded to flip off Zangief with both hands.

A sneer took over Zangief's face and he charged towards Naruto, intent on grabbing the defenseless looking teen and turning him into a pretzel for his disrespectful remarks and actions, "I'll crush you and throw you into the wind!"

From flipping the double bird, Naruto's hands set themselves in hand-seals as he started making them again, "Crush this." Naruto mumbled, inhaling deeply as the seals continued. Zangief charged up his glowing green hand again to repel whatever energy attack Naruto had planned, but Naruto kept charging it anyway. A blue glow formed in the back of Naruto's throat as he stopped his hand-seals on the tiger seal, "Chou Ikitaihou (Chakra Breath Cannon)!"

Instead of blocking a normal kind of projectile attack, Zangief found his body completely blasted with a steady wave of millions of thin, spraying chakra needles from Naruto's mouth that all seemed to stab into him as they bounced off of his body and dissipated into the air. It was clearly not an attack with all-encompassing range, but whatever its range really was didn't matter much as Zangief was right in Naruto's face and took every little bit of the attack.

Zangief yelled until his voice was hoarse at the sudden and shocking sensation of being blasted with raw chakra straight from the source of Naruto's throat until he ran out of breath and let the attack fade. Blood covered the entire front of Zangief's body from his pores instead of from actual wounds as none had been opened. He stood tall for a moment, face still twisted in yell-mode until he fell backwards with a great crash onto the ground like a fallen redwood tree.

All Naruto did was stand in place, panting and eying the downed Russian superstar, hoping that he didn't do his best impression of the things in those zombie movies that Sakura liked to watch in the dark all the time.

It seemed to be an eternity before enough seemed to be enough and the announcer decided to call it. He had given Zangief even more time than he had planned on giving Naruto to stand back up, but he couldn't and wouldn't hold out any longer, _"Can you say upset! Like I said, it was David vs. Goliath, and that amazing blast of ki from the little blonde guy was the slingshot and stone that felled the giant! Ladies and Gentlemen your winner and advancing to the final round of the C9 Corporation Grand Ace Fighting Tournament; Uzumaki Naruto!"_

The crowd once again roared, inspired by the crushing finale to the extremely violent match that left both combatants bloodied and battered. Naruto didn't even bother raising his hands up in victory or playing to the crowd, because for a winner, he didn't feel very much like one.

"You're good… but you're not 'Uzumaki Naruto' good." Naruto crouched down painfully in front of the unconscious Zangief and stared at him before blinking and frowning, "Okay, you can't shake my hand, but I'll shake yours." He said, grabbing Zangief's closest hand and giving it a hearty shake before standing straight back up and limping off, "Kami… do I even have enough for the finals?" He asked no one in particular as he barely reached the barrier and sat down against it, not caring that the fans were taking that chance to pat him on the shoulders and ruffle his sweaty, grimy, and bloody hair, "Hurry up and heal me you stupid fox…" He muttered under his breath, "…I'm gonna need it."

XxX

(In the Stands)

Vega's eyes were coldly locked onto Naruto as he concluded his battle with Zangief. Even with his flock of lovely female companions surrounding him and vying for his attention, they didn't matter to him. He could have more women just as beautiful anywhere he went in the world.

No, his concern was on the victor of the last deathmatch.

All of that skill and power, and he turned his offer down without hearing him out.

What an insult. An insult that Vega's pride wouldn't allow to stand. How dare that ugly peasant slight him and stare at him in the lobby with those spiteful eyes. Eyes… all eyes were to look upon him with admiration, adoration, and jealousy. And all that could have stood if he had just accepted the offer for work.

Well if he wouldn't work he could serve another purpose. His blood could ease Vega's mind. Watching the life drain from the boy's eyes would be equal to obtaining his services in Vega's mind. After all, if one wasn't with Shadaloo they were against them by default.

And with that in mind, Vega stood up and walked off to another place. He had someone to see and an arrangement to set up. The final round was of no matter to him. The victor was unimportant. No matter what, Uzumaki Naruto would pay for his transgressions by the end of this evening.

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Zangief  
><span>Nationality:<span> Russia  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 33 (Birthday: June 1)  
><span>HeightWeight: 7'0/254 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> A  
><span>Likes:<span> Wrestling grizzly bears, Cossack dancing, eating borscht, drinking vodka.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Projectiles, beautiful young women, bears that can't wrestle properly.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Drinking vodka in one gulp, enduring the cold, deflecting energy-based projectiles.  
><span>Rivals:<span> E. Honda  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Pro Wrestling, Sambo  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Spinning Piledriver, Banishing Flat, Double Lariat, Flying Powerbomb, Atomic Suplex, Vertical Suplex.  
><span>Hyper Technique:<span> Final Atomic Buster, Ultimate Atomic Buster, Siberian Blizzard.  
><span>Background:<span> Zangief is a Russian national hero, revered for his worldwide recognized skill at professional wrestling, something he has a reputation in on every continent on the globe. When he is not set to compete in tournaments of both fighting and professional wrestling to show the strength and talent of Russian athletes, Zangief is usually found training in the Siberian wastes and the Russian wilderness wrestling bears for sport.

* * *

><p><strong>A long, grueling battle against a juggernaut of a man ends in triumph for Naruto, but at what cost in the end? With one battle left against his dearest friend Sakura, how will the conclusion of this tournament pan out? And what of Vega? Behind that handsome visage lies the mind of a psychopath, and the wheels are turning!<strong>

**Why am I writing and trying to sound like the announcer guy at the end of Dragonball Z episodes? Who cares?**

**All the answers will more than likely lie in the next chapter!**

**Kenchi out.**


	8. Skeleton in My Closet

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. In the end these things always own you, as a significant chunk of my time and effort is spent writing things about them. So in the end, who owns who?

WHO OWNS WHO!

**Chapter 8: Skeleton in My Closet**

* * *

><p>A little nap. That was all Naruto wanted after getting kicked around by the walking, talking Russian bear that was Zangief and pulling out a victory at the cost of great bodily harm and a large amount of chakra in the form of his high-powered ninjutsu. That was an understandable desire, to sleep. As long as someone kicked him awake in time for the final round after the second intermission he'd be fine.<p>

The way he woke up was a little bit more pleasant than that though.

Naruto's eyes panned open with him laying flat on his back. Though he expected his eyes to be greeted with the harsh glare of the arena lights digging right into his corneas he was shielded from being blinded by the lights by way of Karin seeming to lean slightly over him, a somewhat concerned frown on her face that was somewhat shaded from his view due to the backlight from above shadowing her features.

"K-Karin?" Naruto managed to get out, wincing to the extent that she couldn't tell that his eyes had been open for a while. After a moment he noticed that he wasn't lying flat on the ground. His head was in her lap as she sat in seiza on the combat floor, using a damp rag to wipe the blood and grime off of his face, "What's up?"

Now when Karin had volunteered to clean Naruto's wounds while Shibazaki went off to get supplies to assist in his speedy recovery for the next round and Ishizaki did what he could on the spot to fix him up as he was, she did so under the pretense that he was unconscious and would not be roused from his cataleptic state without significant prompting first. However Naruto's own durability was severely underestimated in this regard.

And now he was awake and looking up at Karin with curious blue eyes, blinking confusedly as to why exactly he was in her lap. It was certainly way softer than the floor though.

Well this was awkward… at least as far as the absurdly rich girl herself was concerned. Naruto's dense nature aside, she knew exactly what it looked like with her cradling his head in her lap even if he didn't and she was under the assumption that he did. She did not need him jumping to conclusions, she was merely protecting her investment. Nothing more.

She could have done a better job of it though as when she realized that he was awake she dropped his head from its place on her thighs, letting it hit the concrete with a smack and a rag draped over his face. Whoops.

"Ow…" Naruto muttered under the wet rag, not moving from his place on the ground even though by then Karin had darted to her feet, smoothing her skirt out and playing off both what she had been doing and the fact that she might have rung his bell all over again by accident. With a grunt, Naruto sat up and pulled the rag off of his face as he turned to face his benefactor, sitting cross-legged on the ground as he did so, "Thanks though." He said with a toothy grin as his face didn't feel so sticky and gross anymore, "I appreciate it."

"Ah, it was nothing." Karin said, getting some of her bravado back upon receiving Naruto's appreciation. Apparently he didn't see anything strange about how he had been positioned and she certainly wasn't going to point it out to him if that were the case, "As long as you just so happen to be in fighting shape for the final round. You _are_ able to fight are you not?" It sounded more callous than it actually was intended to be, but she stood by it, "Your injuries are rather debilitating."

Much to her surprise however, the male blond stood right up and stretched his stiff joints out with quite a bit of effort given. Yeah, it hurt. Everything hurt. But he could stand, he could walk, and if he could do those things he was fighting. No one could ever say that Uzumaki Naruto was a quitter and they wouldn't today either.

Ishizaki held out a small glass for Naruto to take, something that Naruto did so after staring at the clear liquid for a second. At the large good-natured man's silent urging, Naruto simply shrugged and tossed the substance back, growling and holding his chest a bit as it went down, "Ugh. That was nasty. It burns too. What was that for?"

"You have just taken something of a painkiller." Karin explained, "Only instead of making you numb to everything, which would be dangerous for going into a fight, it replaces the pain with a burning feeling akin to muscle rub. How do you feel?"

Smacking his lips at the bitter taste of the medicine, Naruto randomly touched places on his injured frame, "Huh. Whatever this stuff was, that burning feeling is coating my entire body. I must have been messed up last round." He looked around noticing that the floor was one member of the current Aohura City student entourage short, "Where'd Sakura-chan go?"

Finding a moment to poke at her declared rival, Karin jumped all over that opportunity, "Sakura-san went to the back for a moment before her set fight against you. She said if she stayed out here looking at you while you were blacked out she would be unable to muster the resolve to fight you. She said that would make you quite angry if she did so." A stout nod from Naruto confirmed this much.

"Damn right." Naruto said, crossing his arms over his chest and turning away from Karin with an upturn of his nose, "If Sakura-chan doesn't bring it I'm never letting her forget it. Dattebayo." Sakura was way stronger than she thought she was and had shown openly, he had seen it. He was going to pull it out of her that night, injuries be damned.

XxX

(With Sakura – Arena Lobby)

Pacing the halls as the time ticked down before the final round match against Naruto, Sakura was steadily punching her gloved hand into her adjacent palm trying to stay in a fighting mood as she knew that Naruto would be much like Batsu was; he wouldn't accept anything less than her very best, and if she didn't give him that he would go out of his way to humiliate her for underestimating him.

Underestimating him outright after watching him defeat Zangief would have been the definition of foolish regardless of his wounds.

"You're going to ground a rut into that floor if you keep going back and forth like that."

Sakura began paying attention to the man that had said as much and smiled slightly at the good-natured sumo wrestler that had been sitting with them since the tournament's start, "Hello Honda-san." She greeted kindly, "Uh, is there something you need? Naruto's still down in the ring."

"I know, but I came to talk to you." E. Honda said, surprising the young girl, "The techniques you use when you fight. They remind me of someone I met not too long ago. Does the name Ryu strike a bell with you?" The question need not have even been asked as her face lit up when the name was brought up, "I see you do."

"You saw him?" Sakura wondered before closing the distance between them with enough speed to make the large man take a step back for some personal space, "When? Where? He's in Japan?"

"He was around a week ago." E. Honda said, feeling like he was being shaken down by a high school girl one-third his size, "He came to see if any powerful fighters were competing in this tournament. One in particular, but it wasn't anyone I had heard of. I couldn't fight due to my arms and with that he didn't think there was a reason to fight in this competition."

Well that was unfortunate from Sakura's point of view, "So he's probably gone off wandering the world again and whatnot…"

"I might know where he is." Once E. Honda let that slip, a grin crosses his face at the saucer-eyed look Sakura gave him, "But I'm not just going to tell you." The glare she gave him could have frozen hell over, but he just shrugged it off. She wasn't going to beat up a handicapped man, "No, you have to earn the things you want. I'll give you some incentive to do your best against someone that I know is very skilled. If you can defeat your young friend I'll tell you everything I know."

That was so unfair.

Sakura pointed at the wall in the direction she knew the main arena was as she continued to eye E. Honda down, "If he's standing and ready to go come fight time, what in the world am I going to do to put him down? You saw that last fight. The Zangief guy looked like he snapped Naruto's spine like a twig and he _still _got back up."

"I'll tell you what you do." E. Honda said, setting a very large hand on her much smaller shoulder, "Fight him to win." Sakura gave him a confused look, but he proceeded to explain his point for her benefit, "Before you even say it, you haven't been fighting to win. You've been fighting to fight. Taking Uzumaki Naruto-san on for fun is not any way to approach a fight with him."

"I've been fighting him for years." Sakura muttered, "No matter how good I get I can't beat him. He gets up from everything." Back at the start, his overall hand-to-hand technique was sloppy and raw. Sakura could fend him off even if he tried using clones as long as she kept herself from being surrounded. As they both improved it became easier for her to formulate ways to stop the clones, but she could still never fell Naruto himself for good. No matter how long their spars dragged on for she could never drop him hard enough to keep him down.

The answer to that was simple as far as the sumo was concerned. E. Honda had come to this realization of how to overwhelm Naruto directly after losing his last battle against him, "Then just don't give him the chance to get up. I made the same mistake." He gave Sakura a long, hard gaze and tried to generalize the way she had fought Naruto in the past, "I'll bet that the times when you actually did get him down with a good shot you backed away and let him try to get up again. I did the same thing. You probably never used your strongest attack against him either."

"H-How could you know that?" It wasn't like she'd broken out her strongest move for all to see. She hadn't been desperate enough to reveal her ace attack to anyone. Naruto had never even seen it during times when they trained together.

"Someone like you, you have techniques. Powerful techniques. And you use them readily in every fight you've had in this tournament. That means you have something else that you're holding back in case you need it. Well you need it for this one. Don't hold back. If you do he'll just beat you again." A sage-like nod came from the experienced mammoth of a man, "And do not let up. Every second of recovery time is like gold to Uzumaki-san. Don't stop until he stops."

"I can't beat on Naruto like that!" Sakura exclaimed crossly, "That's terrible! This is just a stupid tournament, he's my best friend! I'm not going to do that to him! Just kicking him and hitting him when I know he's hurt?" Even in a fight with no rules, she was reluctant to follow up on grounded opponents that weren't that close to her personally, "It's one thing to attack a weak spot when he can still defend himself, I can do that, but you're talking about wailing on him when he's down!"

"It's the only way you'll keep him down." This was the extent of the advice that E. Honda could give her. If she didn't want to listen and take it under consideration, it was her own ethics, but he wished he had taken his own advice when he had fought Naruto, because then he might not have gotten his arms broken at the end of that encounter, "That's all I have to say." Nothing left to really add to the point, he went to return to his seat.

As he did so Sakura watched him leave. E. Honda honestly made a lot of tactical sense. Put him down, keep him down, and don't let him up until you _know_… without a shadow of a doubt that Naruto is out cold. And the thought of just how much damage that would take sort of made her sick to think about, because it had to be constant.

The distressed schoolgirl ran a hand through her short brown hair and gently massaged her scalp as she slowly started walking back towards the ring. Intermission was almost over and if Naruto was up and ready for action she had to get back there to face him. She entered this tournament to prove her skills as a worthy martial artist, and that focus couldn't be allowed to be broken so easily now.

XxX

(With Naruto – Main Arena)

"Are you sure you're all set to go Uzumaki-san?" Ishizaki asked, packing away the medical supplies used to patch Naruto up well enough to get him to the next point he needed to be at so to speak. He, Karin, and Shibazaki had decided to remain in the aisle right by the guard barricade for the duration of the final round of the tournament for an up-close and personal viewing, "I did the best I could, but I'm not a medical professional."

"Yeah, it's okay." Naruto said, stretching himself out past the comfortable limit for most of his limbs to get them used to working with the pain running through his body at the moment. He'd just have to walk it off, or in this instance fight it off, "It's definitely better than nothing. Thanks a lot." The large man just nodded in acknowledgement of the thanks.

Shibazaki had actually gone to fetch Karin a seat which she was now sitting in to observe the coming battle in comfort, "Naruto-san, I would hope that you plan on fighting Sakura-san all out. In your condition I would not advise you pulling your punches in this situation." She for certain knew that Sakura was not one to be trifled with. She herself did so when she had the upper hand in her fight against her rival and wound up being put out of commission shortly thereafter.

Hearing her advice, he spared Karin a glance and a grin, "I wasn't going to go easy even before I got hurt. I want Sakura-chan to go all out. She's strong. Really strong. She might be the second or third toughest woman I've ever met, but she doesn't show it very much."

He remembered when he first helped Sakura learn how to use her chakra. She had a huge amount of power, and he knew something about having a huge amount of power within him. But she never went full-on guns blazing, desperado-style. She always fought with too much control, keeping from trying to harm an enemy too much. Too sweet for her own good.

Well she was going to fight tonight. He was going to make her do so one way or another. And he'd been building up just how he'd pull that off with over three years of research and attentive watching of his close friend's temperament and mannerisms. She was probably the only person in the world whose buttons he would know how to press by heart as he had made it a habit to learn them in order to avoid doing so.

The sound of the crowd cheering and wolf-whistling let the Aohura City contingent know that Sakura was making her way back through the crowd down the stairs to return to the ring. Naruto stopped trying to stretch out his aching body and instead elected to stare Sakura down as she hopped over the barricade and looked over at him as well.

"_It's time everyone! We've seen tremendous effort put forth by an incredible amount of fighters, getting many both domestic and abroad, but we're down to two that have been able to fight their way through the murderer's row of challengers to meet here and now!"_ The lights cut out and bright spotlights were placed on Sakura as the introductions began, _"Introducing first, the adorable schoolgirl from Aohura City! Despite her appearance and demeanor, when the battles have begun she's fought with a ferocity that the vast majority of adult men could only wish to match! This is Kasugano Sakura!"_

Sakura raised a hand into the air and waved to the audience that cheered for her, quite a few people asking her to marry them and whatnot. Weirdoes… she wasn't even sixteen at that point in time. Still, fan support was fan support and she'd accept it as it was.

At that point the spotlights began to drench Naruto in full view of the audience as well as mixed cheers and boos began mixing in, dueling chants in the crowd for him drumming up to boot, _"Her opponent, also from Aohura City, I can't believe he's actually standing after the sheer amount of abuse dealt to him by Zangief last round, but here he is! Brash, loud, flashy, but more than capable of backing up everything right there in the ring! This is Uzumaki Naruto!"_ Naruto just grinned and nodded his head in response, _"Now let's begin! Fight!"_

The lights went back up, but both Naruto and Sakura just stared at each other before walking right up to one another. The people started buzzing when they got face to face, but to their surprise angry words weren't exchanged, they weren't even glaring at each other. Instead Sakura extended her hand to shake.

Everyone hoped for fireworks to be set off when Naruto sternly shook his head, declining to shake Sakura's hand a putting a frown on her face, but the only thing that came of this was instead of shaking hands they gave each other a hug, "You big idiot." Sakura said, smiling despite the comment.

"I'm not gonna shake your hand Sakura-chan. We're way past shaking hands at this point." He replied before breaking apart the hug and backing away from her, his friendly smile then being replaced by a serious look, "If you hold back you won't beat me."

Sakura nodded, knowing that Naruto had every reason in the world to switch gears attitude-wise, "I won't hold back… if you can just promise me that you won't hate me when this is over."

The look of severity on Naruto's face faded when he heard the pleading tone of voice Sakura seemed to be using with him. He couldn't stay keeping a stony-expression when she sounded like that, "Sakura-chan… you know there's nothing you can do to make me hate you. I don't think there's anything you can even do during this fight to make me mad. I want you to try your best. Do whatever you think you have to." He shouldn't have had to tell her that.

But now that she had heard it from him directly it seemed to ease her mind considerably. Sakura felt as if she wished to let go of a breath she hadn't even been holding as the two moved apart from each other and began circling carefully.

The sizing up of one another didn't last long. There was simply no need for it. Both of them knew the other's moves by heart by now. It was almost as if they could play the fight through in their heads and come up with identical images. And the images came to life when Sakura was the first to spring to action.

She was not going to let Naruto attack first and dictate the pace. That would have been foolish.

In Naruto's mind he had never seen Sakura so forward when they had fought before. She made the first move. Bravo. And thus the two engaged in their oh-so familiar dance that had been thoroughly refined hardway by virtue of their years of working with each other.

Naruto wasn't one for combinations, instead looking for decent enough openings to launch slick knockout attacks. Until that point in time he'd dodge what he could and he would block what he couldn't, packing away the damage until he could aptly retaliate.

Sakura was extremely flexible and fleet-footed. Frighteningly fast over short distances, she was hard to keep away from as she'd just jump right back into your personal and start the whole process over again before leaping out of an opponent's attack range, forcing them to miss any chance at retaliation.

It was like oil and water swirling around each other. And the fight looked like it.

Sakura's hands were faster than Naruto's and she'd use that accordingly. The first move involved getting too close for Naruto's brand of taijutsu to be readily effective. She then began trying to strike away at Naruto's stomach rapidly, but Naruto had his arms crossed over his torso to dull the impact before suddenly shoving Sakura back enough to break her balance enough to launch a stiff front kick aimed at her face.

Proving her elusive skills though, Sakura went with the flow of Naruto's shove, knowing that his retaliation would be direct and bent herself back into a back handspring that allowed her to cleanly avoid Naruto's kick and lash out with her own. Naruto felt the toe of one of her shoes brush slightly against his nose, which showed how close her kick came to hitting home.

Still, this didn't deter Naruto from trying to turn the tide as he rushed forward. He was _not_ going to fall into his one habitual pattern that he knew without a shadow of a doubt Sakura knew how to deal with better than any of his other techniques that he possessed. Attempting what he instinctually wanted to try would just be a waste of chakra and in a fight with someone that had more than enough ki to spare, stamina would not be a deciding factor tonight.

Naruto struck forward with a straight right hand that he knew Sakura would parry, and she didn't let him down as she pushed it to the side. Having been prepared for this, Naruto spun around with the direction that Sakura had pushed his hand and delivered a hard spinning back kick to her stomach that knocked her back.

Sakura stumbled back after getting knocked up and almost onto her backside, taking note of the footprint Naruto's kick left on her white uniform blouse as he came forward to attack her again, this time though, her eyes widened as she saw the spinning blue orb of energy in his hand and she gasped as he lunged at her with it.

"Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!"

The two attacks canceled each other out and shoved each fighter back to a standoff with smoke wafting between them where their attacks clashed.

Sakura just stared at where the two had met previously with their conflicting energy maneuvers and noticed that she had stumbled back more considerably than Naruto had. His Rasengan had more lasting power behind it. Were it not for the fact that her Hadoken hadn't had time to fly very far from its source (her), it still had enough power from its initial burst to neutralize Naruto. Any further away and he would have just destroyed the ever weaker Hadoken projectile and kept driving forward. It wouldn't have been able to keep him back.

"You actually used that on me?" Sakura said with a modicum of disbelief, "You've never used that on me, even when I told you to try it." She wasn't angry, she was just surprised really. Naruto had been adamant on never busting out the Rasengan in a spar. He never let it even come close to touching her once in over three years.

This was because Rasengan wasn't a technique you wanted to use on someone you planned on seeing tomorrow. If hit in the wrong place Rasengan could at the very least jumble one's internal organs all around internally. He would have never use that one on her, except for now. This was because he had already agreed that this fight was to be serious. If anything, it was just a sign that Sakura had better bring her A-game or else.

"This is different." Naruto said, still standing in his informal ready stance, "So deal with it or get beat. I told you I wouldn't get mad no matter how you tried to win this fight. Well that better go both ways." Taking advantage of the lull in the action, Naruto dashed at Sakura and jumped into the air, forcing her to prepare to intercept him in her own way.

"Shou'oken (Rising Uppercut)!" Sakura immediately ran and launched at Naruto with her spinning uppercut, tailor-made to take opponents down out of the air, but much to her chagrin, Naruto created a Kage Bunshin in midair that shoved him out of the way and took the hit in his stead.

Naruto landed on the ground just as his clone was defeated and he managed to catch Sakura in the back with a charging punch that knocked her down hard. Of course Sakura knew how to fall and instead of face-planting on the ground she rolled forward and turned to face Naruto again, ignoring the throbbing pain in her back from the sharp attack.

The offending hand of Naruto was still extended from the punch while he was stuck frowning at Sakura. He had figured out exactly how to counter her Shou'oken a long time ago in such a circumstance. It was just bad form to use the attack like that when they'd been in that scenario countless times before, 'Come on Sakura-chan… don't make me do what I planned on doing… for both of our sakes.'

Sakura stood back up and instantly fired a flashing blue and purple energy ball from her hands at Naruto with shocking speed, "Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" As mentioned and made fun of repeatedly by Naruto, Sakura's stronger Hadoken attacks didn't have much range for all of the power she pumped into them, but her ones with range were far faster as they sacrificed force and accuracy.

This one didn't hit him, but it came close enough to get his full attention, and with that time Sakura closed the distance.

Naruto turned his eyes back to her with an intent swiftness and realized that he had been played with a feint. She turned a weakness into a strength by using a crappily fired Hadoken as a diversion… sneaky wench. But this caused Naruto to panic as Sakura was so close he could see the smile on her face from knowing that she got him.

When Naruto panicked he tended to fall into an old habit that was doomed to fail against any half-decent fighter. It was a habit he had come close to breaking time and time again because it did more bad than good, but Sakura pushed him right back into it. This was how well she knew him. And she was the exact last person to resort to this habit against.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!"

Naruto used a wall of over a dozen clones to put space between himself and Sakura, but this didn't stop her in the slightest. A good tap would destroy a clone, she didn't even have to put all of her focus and force behind it. They were empty bodies that Naruto used to overwhelm people and assist him with his more advanced techniques. In the heat of battle they would rarely show individuality, more akin to mob tactics.

Well hell, she could beat that.

After smashing her way through one clone without missing a beat or being taken back from seeing them all, Sakura immediately launched into her next move to fend off the simultaneous attack from four more jumping at her directly, "Shunpukyaku (Twirling Gale Leg)!" Spinning like a cyclone, Sakura kicked the attacking clones into smoke before immediately backpedaling form the other several clones.

Her strategy developed for dealing with Naruto's clones was simple in its execution. It just took practice to put into use. A lot of practice. All it required was that she kept retreating. Just running and running and running. Openings would present themselves as the clones steadily caught up to her one or two at a time and she could outmatch them quickly.

The more clones he used the easier it actually was to avoid them. They would constantly get in each other's way, crowd around, and make it easier for her to pick them off quickly. It wasn't like they were the real Naruto either as they couldn't take a beating. She could hurt them even if they got their arms up to block and they would dispel from the pain she inflicted even on their arms.

It didn't take long using this strategy for Sakura to dispose of the last clone, however when it burst into smoke an amphibian flew out of it and hit her right in the face, getting her to stumble back in shock until she could peel the slimy creature off of her face to look at, "Is that a… a frog?" She asked no one in particular before she realized that she was holding a cold, slimy frog that had appeared out of nowhere. It was huge too.

Sakura let out a shriek and shook her hands, dropping the animal to the ground as it hopped away from the shouting girl, and she would continue to do such until she heard a very calm voice from behind her that was very familiar.

"It was a toad actually."

Sakura stopped freaking out and turned her head and neck behind her to see Naruto crouched behind her with his hands clasped together and his middle and index fingers extended straight out as if in a hand-seal aimed right at her backside. Damn it she had lost sight of the most dangerous Naruto of all, the original.

Naruto's hand-seals were dangerous. Sakura knew full well that if he was holding a single one he had her dead-to-rights and there was nothing she could do, "Naruto…" She managed to get out with a tinge of fear in her voice from the look of melancholy on his face.

"I'm sorry Sakura-chan. I didn't want to do this, but you're not giving me a choice!" Naruto said with a sigh before a sharp look of ill intent came over his features as he swiftly thrust his hands and fingers forward, "Konohagakure's Secret Taijutsu, Sennen Goroshi (One Thousand Years of Death)!"

"WAAAH! NARUTO, YOU DIRTY, PERVERTED BASTARD!"

There is no need to describe where exactly Naruto's 'attack' hit home at, but either from the sheer force at which he poked her or Sakura's own over-spirited attempt to jump away from Naruto's violation of her personal female rights, Sakura was rocketed into the air clear over the barrier into the crowd while Naruto held his kneeling pose from the aftermath of the attack like a rockstar.

Well, from the way the crowd treated him afterwards he might as well have been one… because he had won the rest of them over. Perverts. There were actually people in the front rows visibly bowing to him over it.

Still, fan support was fan support and he'd accept it for what it was.

From her seat, Karin was completely red-faced and torn on the inside. She wanted to laugh, because it wasn't every day when she actually got to see someone get one over on Kasugano Sakura, especially to the extent that Naruto just did… and as her representative it was like she herself had just done so to her greatest rival. On the other hand the sheer audacity of Naruto to do such a thing to a woman, and in public as well.

If he ever did that to her she would tear his head off.

"Naruto-san!" Karin snapped at him as she stood up from her personal chair to storm over to the barricade. She beckoned him over to her, leaving no room for refusal with the look on her face. She wanted to chew him out personally, "What in the world do you call something like that? How vulgar!"

"I know…" Naruto said, feeling like a five year old being scolded by a teacher, "And I'm gonna pay for it too." He already knew because the crowd was scattering away from a path being walked through them like someone was swinging a knife to clear the way. That only meant that Sakura was up, and she was very, very pissed, "Maybe I should have just groped her instead?"

He turned in the direction where Sakura had just stormed her way back through the crowd and felt like he had just provoked a tiger from the look on her face.

In his mind he had been trying to do his best friend a favor, by getting rid of all of her mental obstructions when it came to hurting him. Perhaps a chance existed that he had done too good of a job in that regard.

"Sakura-chan…" Officially regretting his action at this point, even if his original reasoning for attempting it seemed sound in theory, Naruto slowly moved away from Karin as if he were trying to keep a predator as calm as possible while he made his escape, "I only did that to make you get serious." It didn't seem to be working as she jumped over the barricade back into the ring and started stalking towards him with punching into her palms.

"Uzumaki Naruto… you're a dead man." Sakura hissed out lowly as Naruto could only see the angry whites of her eyes at that point. She didn't say another word as her footsteps began to quicken, steadily increasing until she was in an outright sprint coming his way where her hands and feet began flying furiously at Naruto in her best attempt to knock his block off.

She didn't slow up a bit as Naruto dodged and ducked as best he could, finally being forced to block a kick that would have stricken him in the side of his body had ne not used his bicep and forearm to block. Of course with only one other arm useful for blocking he was unable to stop a punch that slammed right into the front of his head and snapped it backwards.

"Did you think it was funny?" Sakura asked, with every move she made, the dance that was their respective moves becoming more and more of a blur between the two of them, "Did you think it was cute? Be smart about picking what you say next!" Naruto wisely did not say a word and focused on defending himself appropriately.

His blocks were preventing less and less of Sakura's attacks from getting through. She had more of a bead on punching right past his guard. Eventually she wasn't even trying to throw any kicks anymore, choosing the direct punches as a way to hurt Naruto with a furious flurry directed at his head and torso. With nothing to utilize Kawarimi no Jutsu with in the empty ring, Naruto was pretty much on his own.

He did not know that she was that fast. Even though he was hurt from his last matchup there was nothing wrong with his legs. He was still able to move with the exact same speed available to him prior to any fights at all. But Sakura could match his and Ibuki's speed in direct combat. That was a change, she had never used it.

Maybe because she never had to? No one in Aohura City worth fighting ever really needed the use of blinding speed, so of course Sakura would never show it because unlike Ibuki and Naruto her method of fighting didn't rely on being faster than everyone else. She was more used to directly fighting and outmatching her enemies, but she was keeping up with his every step.

Naruto decided to dig in and stand his ground, stopping his attempts to get away and instead meeting Sakura's hand-to-hand attempts to batter him with his own efforts to do the opposite.

It surprised Sakura as Naruto was not one to trade blows with her, but into the fray he charged, forcing her to stop her own reckless attack and duck a high kick before having to block a low kick from the same leg. The kicks were thrown so that Naruto could use his hands to make a clone in Sakura's blind spot that charged and slid into her from behind with a dropkick, knocking her up and forward right into a strike from Naruto's knee.

Sakura gasped with the sudden loss of air from her body and stumbled back, but sucked in a big breath of air as she knew that this was a setup for one of Naruto's signature moves that she needed to stop before it was too late. She saw his hands come together to form the Kage Bunshin needed for the coup de grace, but still holding her ribs, Sakura charged directly forward and smashed the crown of her head into Naruto's face, preventing him from creating more clones.

With the equivalent of getting smacked in the face with a battering ram, Naruto spit blood and flew through the air, landing right on his back on the ground, "Gah!" He sat up to try and stand once more to continue on, but would be met with a rude wakeup call upon doing so.

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" Sakura was close enough to fire a multicolored ki blast at Naruto's head as he sat up, forcing him to lay back down flat to avoid it but as it passed over his face harmlessly, Sakura stood directly over him. Needless to say she wasn't planning on being harmless. She lifted one leg and stomped it down hard on Naruto's torso, cringing for the first time in the bout at the shout of anguish that came from Naruto's mouth.

"Oh… Sakura-chan you bitch." Naruto coughed out, holding on to Sakura's ankle after having received the stomp to the ribs, but finding no strength in his arms to pry her foot off of him, "Gah, right for the ribs. You took long enough."

Sakura shut her eyes tightly before pushing her foot up off of her friend's chest, hearing him grunt again at the force she shoved off with, and raised her leg high into the air for an ax kick, "Quit." She asked him, "Please."

"No."

It was impossible to reason with that stubborn ass, and Sakura wasn't going to give him the recovery time trying to do so. Apologizing mentally, she slammed her leg down and kicked Naruto heel first in the chest, his hands barely able to negate any of the impact.

Naruto let out another shout of pain, but grit his teeth before it got too loud or too long. Trying to defend himself, Naruto quickly swiped at the back of Sakura's knees to knock her down and off of him, but Sakura's balance was impeccable and she managed to fall forward, pinning Naruto directly to the ground where she used the force of the fall to headbutt Naruto in the face, knocking the back of his head into the ground.

At this point, Sakura scooted up towards Naruto's chest and pinned his arms to the ground with her knees before grabbing a hold of his hair and cocking a fist back, 'Keep him down. Keep him down. Keep him down.' She kept repeating in her head like a mantra. It was the only keeping her from breaking down at seeing a bruised and battered Naruto beneath her as he was, "Naruto… just quit."

Naruto locked eyes with her and sighed as he tried to struggle beneath her, unable to move anything above his midriff where Sakura was pinning him down awkwardly. Kami, Sakura had strong legs, "…I can see up your skirt from here you know."

That was more or less Naruto ignoring her request altogether. She knew that he heard her, and he was responding with a 'do whatever you have to' in his own way. Her eyes softened a bit and she leaned forward enough to kiss Naruto on the metal plate on his forehead before her features steeled and she began relentlessly pummeling Naruto's skull, "Don't hate me Naruto. I'm sorry."

Karin from her seat looked away from the scene with her face being blocked by one of her hands. It was too much to ask of him to fight after being wrecked by Zangief. The sheer fact that he stood up and moved around after the last round was mesmerizing. But Sakura wasn't even giving him the chance to get back up. She wasn't going to stop until he went limp, 'If only he were fresh. Sakura-san is far healthier than he is.'

Back in the ring the punches kept thudding off of Naruto's head, but his eyes never lost their focus, 'Come on Sakura-chan, give me some daylight here.' He thought in between getting his brains scrambled with hit after hit. Just one opening. That was all he needed. As he thought this and tried to wriggle his way free, a punch smacked the back of his head onto the concrete again. He didn't need to see a mirror to figure that his face was a mess by now.

He grit his teeth tighter with each shot he took that turned his head from side to side. Whoever told Sakura to beat the stuffing out of him like this to win was an evil bastard that knew their stuff for certain. Naruto's vision was starting to swim as he started struggling harder and harder before he wound up being rendered unconscious. He was hurting all over to begin with, his head was being tenderized by a pair of very strong fists, and it had been a long day.

Sakura at this point had shut her eyes as she continued to punch down. He was still awake because she could feel him bucking and trying to twist himself free like a pinned down wolf. But with her eyes closed she couldn't see Naruto's canines grow sharper as he grit his teeth. Nor could she see his whisker-marks darken and deepen, or his eyes begin to turn red.

"Sakura-chan get off!" Naruto roared as orange chakra burst from his body and he rolled them both over in a show of overwhelming strength before jumping back away from Sakura to get space.

Having been thrown back onto her butt, Sakura immediately stood back up and formed her fists, unfazed by Naruto getting back up. What gave her alarm though was his appearance once she looked at him again. In addition to his obvious aesthetic changes, Naruto's wounds on his face were quickly healing up before her eyes. She let out a gasp at Naruto's feral and overpowering form.

"Naruto? What's this?"

"Just keep going!"

Sakura took a step back at the gravelly voice and the authoritative order, but went on guard when Naruto moved faster than she had ever seen him move in their entire time together. It was purely inhuman as he reappeared right in front of her and took a swipe at her instead of punching at her. She jumped back, but he slashed the bottom of her top off to reveal a significant part of her bare torso. His nails had grown to a dangerous and sharp length like that of a beast. He couldn't be allowed to get that close again, "Hadoken (Surge Fist)!"

Upon seeing Sakura launch the blast at him, Naruto ran forward and swatted it away like a volleyball with his bare hands. She didn't even have time to drop her jaw in shock as she had to block a punch aimed right at her body. Even though she got her arms up to protect herself, the one punch from Naruto knocked her meters away and off of her feet as if she weighed nothing.

It was ridiculous. Naruto was strong. Very strong. He could heft a 220 pound man a decent ways into the air with a kick. He could drag a 300 plus pound man to the ground and make him cry like a girl, she had seen it. But the way he had just punched her… if she hadn't braced her arms against her body he would have broken her forearms.

'Is this what Naruto's real power is?' It felt too angry to be Naruto. It didn't feel like him at all. That power wafting off of his body couldn't be his. She had felt his energy signature before. He had run it through her body to give her the feel for ki or chakra when she was developing her skills with it. Naruto's sheer power felt safe, it felt kind, calming. This felt dark, "Naruto, what is this?"

Naruto prepared another attack before stopping and realizing that she was scared. Scared of him. He looked at his hands and saw his sharpened and toughened nails and paid attention to the orange aura surrounding him, 'What? I haven't done this in years. Turn it off already you stupid fox.'

It took a moment, but the dark voice inside of Naruto's head chimed in again, **"You fool. I suppose letting this girl try to kill you with her bare hands is supposed to be acceptable to me. You demand that I heal you… I find this a waste of my chakra! Healing you is **_**not**_** what it is meant to be used for, I am not your doctor! It's meant to destroy!"**

'Sakura-chan wasn't going to kill me!' Kyuubi's excuse for giving him its chakra was lame at best. Sakura wasn't Sasuke. Not even close. She would never kill him, even by accident, even if she was angry at him for before, 'Turn it off before I hurt her for real! I can't fight her like this without killing her!'

"**Well how unfortunate that would be." ** The Kyuubi responded sarcastically, **"Too bad! Don't you remember what you said to me when we first spoke years ago? That I owed you 'rent' as it were? Well consider this payment for time passed."** Oh that malicious, vengeful bastard. Was this because he kept ignoring it for all of those years? What would anyone else do if all it said when Naruto went into his head to visit just so happened to be the demon telling Naruto that this world could be taken over? He was no dictator or megalomaniac.

Naruto's breathing started getting faster and faster as the Kyuubi's chakra didn't cease coursing through his body. So he had the options to either quit, continue fighting and maim his closest friend for a stupid tournament, or saw screw it to both plans that were lose-lose and fight down the Kyuubi's influence before he was forced to do either of the previous options.

'Stop giving me chakra damn it!' Naruto shouted in his head.

"**Or you'll what?"** Kyuubi chuckled at Naruto's empty threat. If he planned on trying to do anything that required him to get close to the seal he would pay for it somehow.

'Fine.' Eventually Naruto realized that realistically there was nothing he could do to the devilish chakra construct, 'You want to know what I'll do? I'll show you.' Naruto started focusing and channeling more and more of his chakra until instead of a layer of orange chakra there was a tower of it just piling off of his body.

Sakura had to jump back as Naruto's chakra began licking out dangerously, even leaving a lash in the concrete floor where it struck with some force, "…What is this?" She couldn't beat that. She knew that Naruto wanted her to fight him for real. After she calmed down she figured that this was the only reason Naruto used that damnable 'technique' on her from earlier. He would never have done anything like that without a reason.

But even fighting as hard as she could, she couldn't even get close to him safely.

Meanwhile Naruto's will to be calm was trying to override the Kyuubi's chakra and its influence to do the exact opposite.

His breathing began to taper and slow after he realized that he wasn't going to burn off all of the chakra in him, and that it was stupid to even try to do so at first. So fighting it down would only be possible by calming himself.

Eventually the orange aura started shrinking, his physical features grew normal, and the oppressive feeling in the building faded to nothing as the crowd collectively exhaled breath that they didn't know they had been holding.

"Hah… hah…" Naruto was visibly winded from shoving the intense chakra back inside of his body, but he still spared Sakura a grin to let her know that this was not going to happen again, "Sorry about that Sakura-chan… I'm good now."

Sakura still stood in her fighting stance in case this was Naruto trying to Trojan Horse a sneak attack on her, "Naruto, what was that? You've never done that before." She was clearly still shaken due to Naruto's unconscious killing intent while he had been in that form, "Are you alright?"

No, no he wasn't. Simply fighting down the slightest influence from the Kyuubi reinjured his tender torso area, "Yeah, I'm fine." He had to finish this in one shot, and he knew it had to be a sure-fire night ender for her, or it could be the end of the night for him, 'Fighting the Kyuubi, myself, and Sakura-chan at the same time isn't smart…' He wasted an absurd amount of chakra not even twenty minutes before this fight even began and he used even more to regain full control of himself, 'I haven't been this tired since after the fight with Neji in the chunin exams.'

But if he was still standing that meant that he had more to give, and if he had it he would be using it. A clone appeared at Naruto's side and the two extended one arm between them, putting Sakura on guard.

"Naruto…" She warned, moving her hands into the position to prepare a Hadoken as she charged her ki up. It was like an old western standoff at high noon, "A Rasengan isn't going to stop this one." She said as the energy in her grasp started shining through her fingers.

Naruto and his clone were molding their own chakra between their hands as a blue orb started forming, "Yeah? Well a Hadoken isn't going to stop this one. So let's find out!" He and his clone ran forward at Sakura as a larger than previously seen Rasengan came into clear view. It looked like a Rasengan encased in a larger Rasengan shell, "Odama Rasengan (Great Ball Rasengan)!"

Sakura took a deep breath before launching her own attack in response. Bigger, stronger Rasengan or not, she had a bigger and stronger Hadoken all ready for him, "Shinkuu Tengyou Hadoken (Vacuum Heavenly Command Surge Fist)!" A blast like a cannon shot emitted from Sakura's hands as she fired a flashing Hadoken twice the size of her own body at Naruto's incoming Odama Rasengan.

Naruto and his clone shouted as they charged headlong into the attack and thrust their jutsu forward.

Much like earlier in the contest the two moves were evenly matched as they had been constructed under similar pretenses; extra time needed to build the power for the moves, far larger than the original form of the attacks… and since they were evenly matched like their earlier Rasengan/Hadoken clash, they once again exploded.

This time the blast was deafening and its effects were clearly felt. A burst of harsh wind and debris from the epicenter of the explosion pushed outward over much of the front rows and into the air directly.

Coughing and shielding her eyes from the dust and debris, Karin stood out of her seat and right at the barricade, "What happened? It is too thick to see through!" The only thing anyone could do was wait until the dust raised towards the ceiling before finding out what happened.

Slowly, the dust began to float up and away from the point of the blast, and the scene became visible, eliciting a gasp of shock from the audience. A crater sat where Naruto and Sakura met, but neither of them were inside of it. Instead Sakura sat on one side of the ring, limp and with the barricade nearly destroyed from her body's impact against it.

On the direct other side opposite from Sakura, Naruto had been closer to the point of the two attacks detonating and had paid the price for it. He had been dragged through a small trench bored out by his own jutsu's volatility and wound up smashing clean through the barricade on his side, laying at the feet of the front row fans equally as unresponsive as Sakura.

The entire building was silent as everyone waited for one of them to move and stand back up, but neither of them budged an inch from where their bodies came to rest.

"_Neither Uzumaki Naruto or Kasugano Sakura are capable of moving ladies and gentlemen! This match is declared a draw! We've seen something very special today now let's get those kids some medical attention!"_

"A draw." Shibazaki said as he, Ishizaki, and their charge Karin witnessed the EMTs rush into the ring to tend to Naruto and Sakura on the spot, "Kanzuki-sama, Uzumaki-san didn't win." That meant that the endeavor was a failure. If there was one thing he knew Karin couldn't stand it was failure, and that meant that this little relationship between her and Aohura City's local cracker of skulls had to be over.

Instead of expressing complete irritation at what was an obvious fact, Karin simply stood against her side of the ring's barricade and turned her head away from the EMTs to Shibazaki where she glared at him sharply, "He didn't lose either. You of all people should know that Sakura-san was powerful over a year and a half ago and that his injuries were already grave. I may be asking him to do something extremely difficult for my benefit, but the parameters he happened to be put under today were nearly impossible to overcome."

If he had won today, she would have wondered just what she would have had to do to defeat him if he just so happened to actually become the most famous fighter in the world per their agreement.

Aside from that, she had to know just what Naruto did during his fight against Sakura. It was the most intense thing she had ever felt. Her instincts were telling her to run away, to get away from him, and he never even did anything with it. Yes he was stronger still than he let on, and he was getting increasingly interesting by the day.

Taking the initiative to jump over the barricade and walk over to Sakura first since she was closer, she found Sakura loaded up onto a stretcher as she tried to take the neck brace that been placed on her off, much to the chagrin of the medical staff. Upon reaching her side, Karin frowned, but assisted her in removing it, "You should have kept the brace on Sakura-san. You do not know how hurt you appear to be right now."

"Yes I do." Sakura said weakly, taking the moment to lay back down now that the tight and in her view unnecessary neck brace was off of her, "I've never felt this bad in my life. Naruto really messed me up. He earned that win."

"He didn't win." Karin said, getting the EMTs to turn the stretcher so that Sakura could see Naruto getting placed onto his own, much like Sakura he was trying to keep something from happening, he was trying to keep from being placed on the stretcher altogether. Apparently he could stand up since he was limping over to them at the moment, 'I… don't believe it. He can move?'

How would have been the first question on her lips if she had the thought to speak instead of gawk.

"Never again…" Naruto uttered once he got within earshot and almost collapsed, keeping himself upright by leaning against Sakura's gurney. His legs gave back out and he dropped to one knee despite his having made it all the way over to her and Karin, "We're never fighting again." He had his head held down as he was too exhausted to pull it up enough to face her.

"No way… that's not your choice."

This however, prompted him to lift his head to stare at her curiously only for her to set one of her gloved hands onto the top of his head, "You won though. I can't get off of this stupid thing. At least you can still stand up."

Karin chimed in with a little fact, "It was actually recorded as a draw. Neither of you won this fight."

Hearing that, a gleam came to Sakura's eye as she smiled at Naruto sweetly and ruffled his hair with the hand that was set on his head, "In that case we're definitely going to fight again Naruto."

His eyes widened in surprise, "Say what now?"

Sakura let out a sigh and continued explaining, "This was my very best shot. If I lost I'd have stopped trying to get stronger than you. All these years, all that hard training, and I'd never beaten you even once. This was as close as I've ever gotten. And it proves that I _can_ do it. So next time, crazy orange ki or not, it'll be clear that I'm the one that beat you." She tugged on his whisker-marks playfully the way that she did from time to time to show that she was alright, "I'll see you at the hospital."

"Yeah, yeah Sakura-chan…" Naruto said, peeling Sakura's weak grip from his cheek while lowly conceding the point that he was still going to have to fend off challenges from his closest friend in the future. Now that she knew defeating him was possible for her she'd probably start training the moment she was medically cleared, "If you see Batsu first, make fun of him for losing before I did for me." With that, he plopped down on the ground sitting cross-legged as Sakura was escorted out of the arena.

Karin stood next to him watching her rival being taken away and endeavored to increase her own training if Sakura could fight that well at this point in time. It was obvious that there was quite the divide between them. Still, she had something more important at the moment sitting by her legs.

That orange power was incredible though...

"So the tournament is done. I believe the prize money will be split between you and Sakura-san, and I guess you have performed well enough that I will recompense you as well." Karin said with a small smile, knowing she would gain favor with her interesting fellow blonde for paying him even more money, "So tell me… what are you thinking now."

"…That I should have stayed on that stretcher and waited to talk to Sakura-chan at the hospital."

THUMP!

A groan escaped Karin's lips as she didn't even need to look to the side to know that Naruto had fallen out on the floor. Stubborn ass… and what necessarily did any of that prove to anyone there? Well it was probably best that she escorted both Naruto and Sakura to the hospital since that was where everyone in their merry little party seemed to be going anyway. First Batsu, then the other two, "Okay, Uzumaki-san is unconscious again. The paramedics can load him up into an ambulance before he awakens now."

XxX

(Sometime Later – Tokyo, Japan – Nearest Hospital)

A pair of ambulances pulling into emergency room parking attracted the attention of one person sitting on a rooftop nearby in the shadow of the nearby hospital. He had been waiting there ever since after the semifinals. He simply knew that somehow his target would end up there.

A phone vibrated and it was pulled out to be placed by the man's head, "Yes?"

"_Vega-san, the competition is over. The final round was contested to a draw by Uzumaki Naruto and Kasugano Sakura. I don't understand why you couldn't stay until the end of the tournament, but just as you've asked I've informed you to the end results."_

"Thank you director-san." Vega said in a very pleasant and friendly manner as he still sat swathed in the natural night shadow provided by the moonless night and the proximity of the hospital to his own diminutive building of roost, "I must say, it was a very interesting show before a more personal matter pulled me away. Were there anymore unfortunate injuries like the man that the Russian paralyzed?"

"_No thankfully not. Although both of the finalists are in quite rough condition. I was surprised that children could fight so fiercely, especially against one another."_

"Well human nature is indeed constantly surprising. And as you said, hopefully those children can get some quick medical attention for themselves. Goodbye and congratulations on a successful show." With that, Vega ended the conversation and dropped the phone on the roof before standing up and stomping on it to destroy the now useless to him device.

Walking out from the pitch-black shadows, he was no longer wearing his noble and distinguished looking clothing. While he still had his long light brown hair in a braid down his back, he now wore purple and yellow trousers with a red sash around his waist, white leggings down around his calves, and brown loafers, something like a matador. He wore no shirt now, leaving a purple snake tattoo visible on his chest that went up and around his right arm.

Still, the most noticeable attachment on his person was on his left arm. Around his bicep he wore a golden bracer, but further down his arm on his hand he wore a long razor-sharp metal three-bladed claw.

He slipped an expressionless white porcelain mask onto his face and through its eyeholes looked out where he could see Naruto and Sakura being taken from the ambulances into the hospital itself.

"You should have accepted my offer you little fool. Bison would have loved to have another pawn like you to play around with. And having another ninja-trained assassin around could have been interesting." Vega said to himself, tightening his weapon around his wrist and hand, "Still… this only proves just how crushingly ugly you truly are my poor unsightly friend-."

With absurd speed, Vega rushed towards the hospital building and leapt from his own to begin effortlessly scaling the side of it towards the rooftop.

"-Because handsome fighters… never lose battles."

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Vega  
><span>Nationality:<span> Spain  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 21 (Birthday: April 24)  
><span>HeightWeight: 6'1/185 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> O  
><span>Likes:<span> Beauty, himself, beautiful women, hair conditioner, killing the ugly, bloodshed.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Blemishes, ugly people, getting sweaty or dirty, his face getting damaged.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Climbing walls, being vain.  
><span>Rivals:<span> None  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Bullfighting, Ninjutsu.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Rolling Crystal Flash, Scarlet Terror, Sky High Claw, Flying Barcelona Attack, Izuna Drop.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Flying Barcelona Special, Rolling Izuna Drop, Bloody High Claw, Splendid Claw.  
><span>Background:<span> Born to a noble family in the midst of decline, Vega's mother was forced to remarry for financial security. Still, Vega ventured around the world in his teen years, studying bullfighting and actually receiving training in Japan to learn ninjutsu, a style that meshed naturally with his grace and agility. Vega used these skills in underground cage fights until his stepfather murdered his mother because he felt that she did not respect him. In response, Vega butchered the ugly man and the incident warped Vega's mind, planting sociopathic and murderous (borderline hematolagniac) tendencies behind his dignified and graceful day-to-day façade as a man of affluence. He is in truth a barbarous psychopath who due to the appearance of his mother's killer has no respect for those he deems ugly, saying that they warrant no mercy. He cherishes beauty of all kinds, especially that found in young women. Due to his killing ability, Vega was sought out to run the main assassination and covert activities of Shadaloo. Despite his flamboyance and egotism, Vega is perhaps the most ruthless, dishonorable, and wildest fighter in the criminal organization.

* * *

><p><strong>Hello world. Once again back with an installment of something you apparently read since you're here, it is I; Kenchi618. Welcome back.<strong>

**Ooh, Vega's on the prowl... and Naruto and Sakura have just gotten through tearing each other apart in front of a capacity audience. That dastardly villain gives our hero no pause or rest after his long day of battles.**

**How can any of them survive the coming storm?**

**I know because I'm the author, but you don't… unless you can break into my notes or you have spies in my house somewhere. So for those of you that cannot do or pay for these things to figure out a lowly fanfiction author's thought processes I'm afraid you will simply have to wait for a bit until the next chapter.**

**Later. Kenchi out.**


	9. The Shadow of Shadaloo

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. Guile's theme, contrary to popular belief, does not go with everything. It will however go with my funeral. During the slideshow that shows pictures of my awesome life and my amazing feats (such as me with my children, or me one day winning the UFC Middleweight Championship) Guile's theme will be blasting because it goes hand-in-hand with success, spirit, victory, and the American way.

As a matter of fact if I ever get into the UFC the first theme song I will choose to use will either be Guile's theme or Ken's theme.

Because they are great.

**Chapter 9: The Shadow of Shadaloo**

* * *

><p>"For the last time Naruto-san…" Karin stated, hands on her hips as she tapped her toe on the ground impatiently, "You may look fine, you may say you are fine, you may even truly believe that you are fine. But you are <em>not<em> fine." She asserted, staring at a bandaged and bruised up Naruto, "It has been forty-five minutes since we arrived here. You cannot fly home as you are."

Lying in his hospital bed, only being kept there by the stern glare of a woman, Naruto was visibly pouting. He had woken up all of three minutes ago and had immediately said that he wanted to go home and cash his and Sakura's victory check.

It didn't matter that Karin had a point. He only he had to walk far enough to reach Karin's limo and then far enough to reach her helicopter. As a matter of fact he didn't even have to walk to either. They could land the helicopter on the helipad on the hospital roof and he could get a wheelchair to take himself up there.

Although he was not good to go. Twenty minutes after being nearly snapped into two by Zangief was not enough time to heal his bones, even for him. Forty minutes damn sure wasn't enough. More like ten minutes since it probably took half-an-hour for his medical treatment to finish. At most he needed a day and he'd be 100 percent. But an hour wasn't enough.

"I hate the hospital." Naruto muttered to himself as he looked around, "Where's Sakura-chan and Batsu?"

Rolling her eyes at the first thing Naruto had said since waking up aside from 'let's go home', Karin answered him, "Sakura-san and Ichimonji-san are in their own rooms doing what you should be doing right now; resting." She walked over to him and prodded at one of the bandages that were situated above his left eye, "I simply do not see where you get this from. You cannot be fully human the way you operate."

Naruto's gaze shied away from Karin as she poked at him, "I'm just an energetic guy I guess."

"Energetic? That is not the word I would use for you." Karin said, moving away from Naruto to take a seat, crossing one of her legs over another, "So tell me Naruto-san… what technique did you use to produce that strange orange energy? It was shocking to see if I were to be honest."

"Err…" Naruto muttered out, scratching the back of his neck with his cast-encased left hand, "You know how earlier I told you that there were some things that you'd never believe if I told you about them? That's one of the things."

Karin merely shrugged with her hands calmly and nobly placed in her lap, "Well seeing is certainly believing. I saw it. So now I would like an explanation to understand it. Humor me if you could." She said with a sweet smile on her face. Although the underlying meaning behind the smile was that he was better off telling her what she wanted to know otherwise she was going to find out her own way and that was the last thing he wanted her to do.

Instead of answering her question, Naruto simply hit a button on the headboard of his bed and went slack in his bed with a satisfied look on his face, "Oh… morphine… I love that button."

'That devious bastard…' Karin thought to herself with a twitching eye as she saw Naruto doped up on hospital painkiller, 'He would rather drug himself into a stupid, lucid haze than answer my questions?' Well that just meant he was a ninja after all, taking his secrets seriously and keeping them at any cost. That just meant she had to get more creative with her information gathering tactics.

XxX

(Elsewhere in the Hospital)

No surgery needed. That was the best news that any of the Aohura City trio could have received. Neither Naruto, Sakura, or Batsu required actual surgery to heal any of their injuries. They all just needed rest and that was it. They would be kept overnight for observation and then allowed to go home the next morning.

That was good because Naruto was never a hospital kind of guy. If it weren't for the fact that the others were there he probably would have tried to leave the moment he found that he could walk under his own power.

At the moment, Batsu was in Sakura's room in the middle of a stationary wheelie in the middle of her room while sitting in a wheelchair. Sakura herself was sitting in bed poking at some of her deeper, more prevalent bruises on her torso underneath her hospital gown (if this was why Naruto hated hospitals she could fully understand why), "Batsu why are you still in my room?"

"Because I'm not leaving you by yourself." He responded, still trying to keep the balance of his wheelie up, "Naruto's got the Karin girl with him. Teme doesn't need me there, and he wasn't even awake yet last time I checked in."

A small smile came to Sakura's face, "Naruto told me to make fun of you when I saw you for losing first out of the three of us."

"Yeah? Well why didn't you?"

"Because he beat me too." Sakura frowned as she touched a rather intense bruise in the shape of Naruto's fist on her back that she could make out the marking of, "It's not like I won either. What would I look like picking on you?"

Batsu placed his wheels on the ground before continuing the conversation, "I thought it was a draw. It was on TV you know." He ran a hand through his spiky black hair and let out a sigh, "What was that weird orange power though? I've never seen ki like that before." He never even knew Naruto had it.

"He stood up after it was over… that means he won as far as I'm concerned." Were it an actual fight, Naruto would have had Sakura at his mercy with her on the stretcher and him on his feet, but this was not the major concern at the moment, "I don't know what was with his orange power either. It was like it changed his entire body. I don't know if that came through on TV."

"It looked like fire though."

"It wasn't hot." And for some reason he didn't want to use it. But when he had been utilizing it he had been overwhelming her. A single direct hit while he had been like that and he would have soundly defeated her. She knew it. Even from the one punch that she managed to block she knew it, "His entire body was five times stronger and he was even faster like that."

Batsu let out a grunt and stomped his foot on the ground with a scowl on his face, "For a loudmouth he's such a secretive bastard. For all of the stuff we actually know about him we really don't know a damn thing do we?" Naruto's background might as well have not existed before he first showed up in Japan. He never talked about it, never alluded toward it, never told them any stories or anything from then, "It kind of pisses me off."

Despite the fact that she let out a laugh, the humor in Sakura's tone of doing so wasn't really filled with much frivolity. Mostly because Batsu had a point.

"Okay." Sakura finally said, swinging her legs over the side of her bed to prepare to stand up, "The doctors said they were going to start bandaging me up in an hour. I'm sure that I'm really gross right now, so get out please. I want to wash up."

Instead of immediately reacting to the request, Batsu just sat there in his commandeered wheelchair with a blank look on his face, "I could stay here and keep a lookout. Hospitals are full of all kinds of weird people. Who knows who'd try to sneak a look at you while you were in the bathroom, or worse?" The red beginning to fill his face gave way to his actual intentions.

Sakura just stared at him before getting up with a pained grunt to wheel Batsu out of the room, getting a disappointed groan out of the teenage boy as he was shoved out into the hall and the door was closed behind him, "Okay, bye Batsu, go see if Naruto's awake yet." Ignoring the indignant shout of 'come on' from the other side of the door, Sakura made her way towards the bathroom wondering what she would wear home since Naruto tore up her uniform top during their fight.

With the male in the room having been kicked out, Sakura decided to try and get a quick shower before her doctor came back to treat her bumps and bruises.

XxX

(With Naruto)

For some reason, the content look on Naruto's face as he slurped down container after container of takeout ramen from a stand near the hospital seemed to put a smile on Karin's face. There was finally something she was capable of with her money that mattered to him. It wasn't that Naruto never cared one way or another about her riches and resources, it was that he found no practical use for most of them.

Well her pull to get him outside food into the hospital was obviously something he was very grateful for.

It was too bad that he kept trying to talk with his mouth full… and that the only time he seemed to feel like talking was when his mouth was full of noodles, "Mranks Mra-rin, Rye russ rettin wrungphy (Thanks Karin, I was getting hungry)!"

"You're welcome Naruto-san." Karin replied in a dry tone as at this point her smile was quite strained. Goodness, did he have no table manners? The fact that he was in a hospital bed and not at a table did not particularly matter in this instance, "I have taken the liberty of procuring you, Sakura-san, and Ichimonji-san some clothing for the trip home tomorrow morning as well. Your previous attire was covered in blood." Shibazaki had taken the liberty. But she had been the one to request him to do so, therefore she was still the one that was responsible.

Naruto stopped eating momentarily and realized that he indeed hadn't been in his real clothes since he had woken up, wearing a light green hospital gown in place of his fighting gear. No wonder he felt more or less naked the entire time, "Huh… well that's nice of you." He looked around himself at the several other filled containers of ramen that Karin's second larger butler had given him just a few minutes ago, "Hey, do you want one of these? You paid for the food after all."

"How considerate of you." Karin replied, confident smile back in place now that Naruto was speaking like a reasonable human being, "But I have already eaten earlier, and if you remember correctly I would rather not sully my palette with the diet of commoners."

Of course, Naruto realized that this translated in normal person speech to, 'No I'm fine, but thank you for asking.' He had come to understand a long time ago that Karin didn't try to be as abrasive as she seemed to be on the surface. The current gestures of clothing and feeding him were prime examples of such.

A few knocks then came at the open door as Batsu rolled himself into the room, "Well look who's awake. You look like crap Naruto."

"I'm not the one in a wheelchair." Naruto quipped in return before downing the rest of the ramen, toppings, and the broth in his container in one move. He then threw the empty container at a fast moving figure, growling at the loss of one of his extra ramen bowls, "Jackass! That's my dinner!"

"So what?" Batsu said in a satisfied way as he sat back down in his wheelchair, "And I don't need this chair by the way. It's just more fun than walking everywhere." He popped open the top of the container and took a deep whiff of the contents within, "Ah, I think I've got the one loaded down with the most meat in it. I'm a better ninja than you apparently." He boasted as he pulled off the chopsticks that came with the bowl.

Hearing that Batsu had probably gotten the best ramen out of the bunch, Naruto was about to leap from his bed to lay a beating on his friend for his beloved food until Karin pressed her hand onto his chest to keep him down. He was prepared to push her hand aside, consequences be damned, until he got a look at her eyes.

"Naruto-san this is a hospital, please behave. You still have six more helpings to yourself and you were about to spill them onto your bed and onto yourself." How a rich girl's glare was able to cow Naruto into submission was simply something he himself would never comprehend, "If you are prepared to behave like a child I am prepared to treat you as one. Do not force me to feed you myself."

Naruto's face turned red at the prospect of Karin feeding him, and neither Shibazaki nor Ishizaki were there, with both men gone to return the limousine to where it had been rented from, so it would be her doing it herself the way she made it sound, "Um…"

"Oooh." Batsu commented cheekily before ducking in his chair to avoid a hospital slipper being thrown at him, "Oi! Calm down, I'm still hurt here!"

"And yet no one in the room cares." Karin stated as she moved away from Naruto back to her seat, "After all, I do not have anything invested in your wellbeing and Naruto-san was the one that was originally going to assault you for food. You should be thanking me that a slipper was the only thing that was thrown."

Naruto calmed down from the thought of a pretty girl feeding him his favorite food and focused on simply the food as he popped the lid off of another ramen bowl, "How's Sakura-chan doing? I haven't seen her since they took us away."

"She's fine." Batsu answered, choosing to follow Naruto's lead and dig into the food in his lap, "She kicked me out of her room so that she could clean up before her bandages were put on her. Stingy…" He wanted to say something stupid like he could have helped, but he did not put it past Naruto to chuck his food at him in return, and his aim was going to be way better than Karin's with a slipper.

Naruto gave a pleading gaze to Karin who rolled her eyes and stood up to exit the room, "Very well. I guess checking in on Sakura-san for your sake would not be too difficult for me to accomplish. I'll return in a moment."

Once it was confirmed that Karin was gone, Batsu rolled his wheelchair over towards Naruto's bed to converse with his friend, "Naruto, why don't you ask that Karin girl out?" He asked, getting a confused look directed right at him, "Don't give me that look. I think you could get away with it."

"Not a chance." Naruto did think Karin was pretty, but he didn't believe for a moment that he could get away with asking her out. How would you try and date the richest girl in Asia even if one did have an inkling to try it? That wasn't for guys like him, "If I ever did that she would laugh right at me and probably make some comment about me falling for her. And then Sakura-chan would probably act all passive-aggressive until she stopped being mad about it… whether Karin said yes or no."

"Coward."

"I'm not scared, I just know better."

Batsu felt like ripping his hair out by the roots trying to reason with the younger teen, "Well then just date Sakura. She acts like your damn wife most of the time anyway, and she's the only person besides me with a key to your apartment." He was then smashed across the head with a pillow.

Still holding his current weapon of choice, Naruto bared his teeth at Batsu, "Because Sakura-chan is already into Ryu. It's not some fan thing either. I've seen something like this before, and it's best for me to get out of the way, even if I did like her like that."

"It's a pipedream of a crush damn it." Batsu said with a hint of exasperation, "It's like how girls will fan out over some music idol or something. Sakura doesn't get like that for rockstars, well she's like that for Ryu. Don't take that literally. You're real. You're right there in front of her, and you always have been." He then coughed into his hand, "And if Ryu ever really does show his face you can kick his ass and show off."

Ugh, if he went about it like that then he wouldn't have learned anything from his own past mistakes. That would just make things like a new version of the situation between him, Sasuke, and Sakura in Konoha. Only from what he knew Ryu wasn't a jerk, this Sakura didn't hit him for being dumb, and he wasn't trying to interject himself in the middle of Sakura's attraction for the famed fighter.

Things were fine now the way they were, and he wasn't upsetting that for something that wasn't going to happen the way he did with the Sakura from Team 7. This Sakura did love him, she just wasn't _in_ love with him. He didn't need to rock the boat to test the waters on such a thing, he knew as much without needing to be told, and he was good with that. Actually, he was great with that.

"Can we talk about something else instead of my love life?" Naruto asked with a twitching eye. It wasn't like Batsu was too much of a ladykiller either. For hanging out with Sakura's friend Hinata as much as he did he certainly didn't have anything to show for it either.

"Pssht. What love life?" Batsu responded glibly, flinching when Naruto cocked his pillow back to swing it again, "Alright fine teme… how about that freaky orange ki of yours."

"Chakra."

"Whatever. Tomato/to-mah-toh."

"Not really. What do you want to know about it?"

"Well… first of all what the hell is it?"

"Chakra. I thought we'd been through this already."

"…I hate you."

XxX

(With Sakura – Elsewhere in the Hospital)

A newly refreshed Sakura, redressed in a new hospital gown stepped out of the bathroom still fretting over the damage dealt to her by Naruto. Goodness, how much harder could he have hit her? She could see it all over when she was in the shower.

A rather devious part of her wished that Naruto was just as sore as she was at the moment, but not knowing whether or not he was awake she felt that this was a rather evil thought to have and quickly quelled it. As she did so, a knock came to her door that she opened up.

On the other side was an absurdly handsome man with long brown hair in a braid, wearing a very long doctor's coat that nearly reached his feet and pushing a supply cart into the room, "Hello Sakura-san. It's good to see that you're taking your injuries a bit better than what I'd heard about you."

"I'm fine really." Sakura said with a pleasant smile as she got back into her bed, "Naruto beat me up pretty badly, but it's just bruises really. They'll be gone soon enough even if they do hurt."

"What a brute." The doctor said as he pulled out a roll of bandages, setting them on the top of his cart while his left hand was kept out of sight underneath the same cart top, "To do such damage to a beautiful young woman such as yourself."

"I'm a fighter." Sakura informed the handsome doctor, "And Naruto's not really a brute… that much. He's a good person, and I did the same thing to him." She undid the back of her gown and gave her back to the doctor, shrugging the gown down past her chest to pool around her waist in order to begin the process of bandaging her injuries.

The doctor continued smiling politely as he drew a prepared syringe up from the cart with his right hand, still keeping his left under the top of it out of sight, "Alright, just a little painkiller to help with the discomfort and then we'll proceed and get you all patched up."

Sakura nodded, a little embarrassed at giving her bare torso to a male doctor. She winced slightly when the needle was injected into her back but almost immediately her body gave out as she could barely sit up straight any longer, "Wh-Whoa… that was a lot of morphine for something like this."

"Morphine?" The 'doctor' said with a chuckle as his smile turned from a comforting one to a more devious and maniacal one, "Oh, I'm sorry my dear, but this isn't morphine. It's amazing what you can get from the women at the pharmaceutical supply with a doctor's coat and a face as handsome as my own. Now go to sleep."

Her first instinct was to punch the bastard's lights out, unfortunately hers went out beforehand as she fell back into the doctor's arms, leaning against his chest as he caught her, revealing a long claw attached to his left hand that he had been hiding.

"Oh yes…" Vega said, stroking Sakura's cheek with the claw, lightly enough to keep from cutting her face, "You are going to be quite useful to me my dear. So shall we go?"

XxX

(With Karin)

How embarrassing, offering to go and search for Sakura to check on her wellbeing only to find she didn't know where her rival's room just so happened to be. Luckily that hall had a desk for information and she quickly got the room number, 'Room 723…' She thought to herself as she strode through the halls.

This had to be quick, as visiting hours in the hospital would be over and she would have to leave and retire to a hotel for the night. Ishizaki had made her accommodations while he had been out with Shibazaki and would be back soon to retrieve her so speaking to Sakura would probably be the last thing she would do before leaving.

Eventually making it to room 723, Karin knocked on the open door before peering inside to find it vacant. She narrowed her eyes and growled to herself lowly. Sakura had probably gotten up and left to find Naruto's room while she had been searching for her room. Well this was the price she paid for being a good person.

Stomping back down the hall in a huff towards the elevator, Karin reached them to see the doors to one of them closing. Normally she would be thankful of this as she was not going to ride an elevator with strangers by choice, but this time before the doors closed she managed to get a glance at the people inside.

A very familiar and very handsome man with long brown hair in a braid and a doctor's coat, and a young woman with short brown hair in a hospital gown and a wheelchair that seemed to be unconscious. Karin couldn't see her eyes, but she still had a crushing suspicion as she could swear that she had seen the man before.

It took the closing of the door and the chiming of the elevator before her eyes widened and she strung together what she needed to know about the identities of both people, "Sakura-san and Vega-dono?" Her eyes turned towards the floor marker above the elevator door as the lights started chiming and descending until stopping on the sixth floor, "Thank goodness." She said, getting out her cellphone to quickly dial.

XxX

(Meanwhile – With Naruto)

"You're so full of crap." Batsu said as he and Naruto decided to use the top of a ramen container as a makeshift Frisbee, tossing it back and forth from Naruto's bed to Batsu's place by the door, "That's physically impossible. No one in the world, nobody, has breasts that are 106 centimeters that don't sag. That's retarded." This was clearly before Naruto's time in Japan or he would have told him within minutes of meeting this person. He had to go to America.

"I'm telling you it's true." Naruto responded, catching the ramen top before throwing it right back, waiting for it to return, "And she was a medic, so I guess she had medical secrets or something. I don't know. It was a while ago. She gave me that crystal necklace I always wear." He then started feeling around his chest and neck, letting his focus lapse and allowing the ramen top to bounce off of his head, "Damn. Where's my stuff I came here with?"

"Probably in the cabinet." Batsu wheeled his chair over to the cabinet by the door and opened it to pull out a bagged set of dirty, torn clothes and other things including Naruto's fighting gloves, "See?" He was preparing to toss the bag over when he heard Naruto's phone go off with a ringtone of American 80s metal, "Really why do you listen to this all the time? I can barely understand the lyrics."

"I'm American aren't I? Learn English." Naruto said, gesturing for Batsu to throw the bag to him. Catching it in one hand, Naruto used the other to fish his necklace from the bottom of the bag and his phone out of one of his pants pockets before flipping it open quickly, keeping the call from going to voice mail while he put his necklace back on, "Yo. This is the butcher, what's your beef?"

_"Naruto-san keep your stupid greetings to yourself right now, this is important! Sakura-san has been abducted by… I think it was Vega-san."_

"What? Vega? The jerk from the arena?" Naruto jumped out of bed, nearly ripping his connection to his morphine dispenser out of his arm. He tucked his phone by his neck and started pulling it out himself before digging into his bag for undergarments and pants, "How do you know? You saw them?"

_"He is getting off of the elevator on your floor any second. Stop him, I am heading towards the stairs as we speak."_

Quickly sliding his shinobi sandals on after hanging up, Naruto headed towards the door while Batsu rolled out into the hall after him, "Where's the fire?"

"Sakura got kidnapped. Get up and let's go!"

Immediately, Batsu jumped out of his wheelchair and pulled his hospital gown's back shut as tightly as he could, wishing that he could wear pants at the moment as he started running down the hall as well with something of a limp, "Fuck… it never fucking stops does it?"

In hindsight from the way he was lamely moving through the halls he probably did require the wheelchair to a certain extent.

Meanwhile, Naruto slid into a corner and turned it to run towards the elevators, gritting his teeth as he saw the doors close without anyone inside. That meant that whoever got out on this floor was still close and they had gone the other way. Speeding to the end of that hall, Naruto stopped and looked both ways to only see one man pushing a wheelchair with a brown braid.

He growled and clinched his fists before sprinting, planning on grabbing Vega and snapping his neck like a twig. Right before he planned on leaping at the bastard and wrapping his arms around his head, Vega swiveled himself around, sticking Sakura's unresponsive body between the attacking Naruto and himself as he ducked behind her.

Due to this, Naruto had to avert his jump to instead clear both Sakura and Vega, landing right behind them only to take a one-legged mule kick to his back that knocked him face-first, harshly into a supply closet door that his body knocked open with an audible smash.

"Hm." Vega looked at Naruto with a hint of satisfaction as he pulled himself up and started racing back down the hall, still pushing Sakura's chair. She would make good leverage for as long as he could hold onto her, "Hahahaha, keep up you ugly worm! At least make this fight more interesting than your revolting existence has been thus far!"

Naruto got up holding a newly formed knot on his forehead and seething in anger as he started pursuing Vega once again back down the hall, "Vega! Let Sakura-chan go!" Instead of getting Sakura, Naruto was given Vega's doctor's coat which was thrown at him.

He swatted it aside only to receive a kick right to the face from Vega who had stopped to place a white mask over his face and fight him with the opening he had created. Naruto steadied himself on the wall he almost slammed against after Vega's kick and turned to duck the slash of a claw on his adversary's hand that left a deep mark in the wall behind him. Two more slashes that Naruto had to jump away to dodge and he sincerely wished that he still had his weapons on him to fight fire with fire even a little bit.

After one of Vega's missed slashes that Naruto jumped out of the of, the blonde teen ran forward towards Vega, ducking a straight stabbing punch from the claw and sliding on the tiled floor directly beneath the Spaniard before posting up a kick that nailed him in the belly and shot him into the ceiling.

Vega smashed it with his body before falling back towards Naruto who then used both legs to time a kick that sent the vain noble flying backwards, rolling down the hall, banging into walls every which way with his lanky limbs.

Naruto sprang back to his feet from his successful maneuver to see Vega getting back up as well, and he had kicked him back towards Sakura damn it! He quickly made hand-seals as Vega drew his way behind the girl and her chair.

A small puff of smoke came from Sakura's wheelchair just as Vega made it behind it, holding his claw towards the person sitting there, "Don't do anything hasty Uzu-." He stopped talking when he saw Sakura's body on the floor where he thought Naruto would have been standing. The wrist of his claw had suddenly been grabbed and the back of the head of the person in the chair slammed into his masked face, sending him stumbling backwards.

Naruto's well timed Kawarimi no Jutsu opened up an opportunity for him that he took advantage of to deal Vega damage as he stood up out of the chair and kicked it back at the man. Unfortunately Vega was absurdly agile and limber, jumping over the chair and kicking off of the wall prior to launching at Naruto with a spinning slash of his claw, "Sky High Claw!"

Naruto fell back to the ground and let him pass over his body harmlessly before rolling backwards as Vega rolled forward out of his swan dive. Naruto got up and cocked his head back while making more hand-seals, "Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!" A small blue chakra projectile flew from Naruto's mouth but Vega ducked to the side towards another hallway corridor, making the attack miss and burst a hospital room door open.

Well hell. Why did all of his personal techniques have to cost so much chakra to perform? Two hours was not enough rest to replenish him as even the spitfire took too much despite its compact size. It was him brute forcing pure chakra out of his mouth so that it kept its form away from his body. Just letting the burst fly made his vision swim until he shook it off after almost stumbling into a wall.

Not about to let the hostage taking sack of crap get away so easily, Naruto let slip from his mind that Vega had gone back the way where he had substituted with Sakura and when he turned down the corridor as well he saw that Vega had picked the girl up and had taken off with her once again, this time carrying her over his shoulder.

'I knew he was a ninja!' Naruto screamed in his own mind. The way Vega ran, even while carrying someone was not conventional the way most people did. His body was as far forward as his balance would allow him to be to move at top speed and stay mobile. No one ran like that except for himself and those trained in this world's ninja arts, 'He can't be as fast as me in a run!'

But he seemed to be despite Naruto's belief to the contrary.

Still not accepting his own inability to save his friend, Naruto started pumping more and more energy to his legs, pushing past the screaming pain in his still tender body not two hours removed from abuse in combat in order to catch up.

"Sakura-chan wake up!" Naruto shouted, trying to awaken his friend who hadn't seemed to respond to anything the entire time. Where the hell were the orderlies or hospital security? True, it had only been two minutes since the ruckus truly began, but it never ceased to amaze Naruto just how powerless most of the peacekeeping forces of the common folk happened to be without vehicles or guns.

Still, he wished he had a gun right now… or even just something he could throw at Vega's legs to stop him or slow him down.

He made more hand-seals and shot off another spitfire, but it merely hit the ground instead of Vega's legs.

In response, Vega immediately stopped running down the hall in favor for turning sharply right where he dove straight through the window. A panicked Naruto immediately rushed to it and prepared to jump out to where he saw Vega had landed on an adjacent rooftop three stories below the sixth floor of the hospital Naruto was on.

If he thought he could just take Sakura and run away he had another thing coming. This was Naruto's mindset as his eyes started to bleed red, taking over the usual shining blues that had previously colored them. Jumping up onto the sill of the window was only a precursor for Naruto's monstrous leap straight out that passed clear over Vega's head, landing right in front of the aristocratic assassin.

Not bothered by being cut off by the young man that was originally his prey in the first place, Vega threw Sakura off of his shoulder at Naruto. As the blonde shifted his body to catch her and ensure no harm came to her, Vega moved within the blindspot that throwing the girl provided him with via compressing his body and rolling several times at an inhumanly rapid pace, reaching Naruto's side just as his arms extended to catch Sakura, "Rolling Crystal Flash!"

"Gah!" Naruto exclaimed as Vega uncoiled from his balled-up form and lashed out at Naruto with a direct straight stab of his claw. He gaffed Naruto in the side of the chest underneath his right arm, cutting him deeply and sending crimson splattering on the rooftop, but Naruto was still able to catch Sakura as he jumped away from the deadly claw that had already stricken him.

He wasn't worried about his own wound, despite the severity of it as it would only be a faint marking on his skin within thirty seconds, instead fretting over the fact that Sakura was still unconscious even with all of the rocking and falling and running. Something had to be wrong. He put his head to her chest and didn't hear a heartbeat for a long lapse before finally one was heard. He growled hatefully at Vega, standing up with his fists clinched tightly enough to draw blood with his ever-sharpening fingernails.

Vega chuckled to himself and merely licked Naruto's blood from off of his claw, delighting in causing harm to the secretive jinchuuriki who seemed to look even more loutish than he remembered from earlier that evening, and it wasn't just the bandages and other medical supplies on his face either.

"What did you do to her?" Naruto asked/demanded to know, setting Sakura down on the rooftop as Vega jumped his way up a nearby water tower and stood up its ledge ostentatiously, "Answer me damn it!"

"Don't take such a tone with me." Vega bit back frostily, eyes gleaming with malice from behind his white mask, "You should know your place, and you should have just taken the offer. Bison would have found you intriguing, and a ninja would have been perfect to run the day-to-day operations for the Dolls. But since you refused, there's no need for me to tolerate your hideousness and your previous insult by denying me so resolutely. The woman is just sleeping... she is very useful though. I've gotten several clean shots on you because of her. Some ninja you are."

"Shut up!" Naruto snapped at Vega before launching at him without warning, intent on punching him straight through that water tower.

A scoff came from Vega at Naruto's frontal attack before he dashed directly forward off of the water tower ledge, "You _do not_ attack an enemy with the high ground you fool." He said as he slipped behind Naruto and grabbed him around the waist before dropping him to the ground right on his shoulders and back, "Izuna Drop!" Vega then jumped away from Naruto and postured like a bullfighter that had just slain the animal of his title's namesake, "All that strength, and no grace or deliberation to your actions whatsoever."

Only Naruto wasn't unconscious or dead, and at the moment he was far more dangerous than some bull.

Standing up like the walking dead, Naruto's eyes seemed to be glaring hard enough to bore a hole through the back of his head, "Is that the best you've got?" He growled out, "You might look like a sissy but that doesn't mean you have to hit like one too."

Vega bristled at this and turned to see an orange aura radiating off of Naruto that got him to take a step back involuntarily, 'What is this, Psycho Power? That's impossible! The only people in the world with energy this dark are those touched by Master Bison!' It was just as dark and twisted as that power was, but there was something more feral to it, more akin to a beast. This was not a battle that Vega wanted to fight any longer, but he doubted that he could merely just leave after antagonizing Naruto to such a degree.

Naruto blurred out of Vega's sight with raw speed and in response he backflipped out of the way of a fist smashing into the top of the roof with enough speed himself that it formed an afterimage shadow of his movements. Still, Naruto's short distance speed was clearly superior and only the foresight of knowing how direct Naruto's attack would be kept him from being pounded into the rooftop.

And once again, things still fell into Vega's hands as with a few more nimble motions he positioned himself back by Sakura, pointing his claw down at the girl. There was no honor in something as ugly as defeat and death, and he had no qualms taking hostages to kill an opponent, "You might be nigh indestructible Uzumaki, but what about her? Do you really want to test how fast you are against me when all I have to do is move my arm to give the lovely Miss Kasugano here a new place to breathe from?"

Before he tried to take Vega's head off again, Naruto stopped, shaking in rage at Vega's cowardice. It seemed to know no depths, "I'm gonna kill you." He said plainly and simply. There was no further explanation or reasoning needed. He had never trusted anything about the man from first glance and this just confirmed that he was right on the money, "You're dead. I've never said that to anybody before, but you're dead you bastard!"

"It would pain me to kill someone with such potential for so much more beauty-." Vega continued, ignoring Naruto's threat. He was the one with all of the cards right now. Naruto would do well to remember that much. As an example of this he used his claw to hook the front of Sakura's hospital gown that he proceeded to cut open all the way down the front to expose her body to the elements, "-But it would be that easy for me to do it. Faster than you could break a mirror with your ugly face."

The only thing Naruto cared about breaking at the moment was Vega's neck. And _that_ break couldn't come fast enough for his tastes.

Still, he stood down, or at least refrained from making any moves as his chakra continued to radiate around him like a beacon in the dark night. No matter how fast he was, he'd have to be able to damn near teleport if he wished to safely retrieve Sakura in one move covering a distance of twenty meters, and with Vega's claw sitting right above her chest there would be no chance of him being able to even tighten his muscles without her life being forfeit.

Vega used his free hand to point at the rooftop beneath them, "Down. Get down, facedown. Right now. I don't want any tricks or stupid heroics out of you. I would much rather murder you and leave Miss Kasugano alive. She's not repugnant, nor has she offended me personally the way you have."

There wasn't a choice here. Naruto slowly started crouching down and leaned forward, placing his hands on the surface to begin lying down. His brain was working a mile a minute but he wasn't thinking of anything. He was going to die or Sakura was going to die. His hands were tied.

Wait, his hands.

Naruto's hospital gown had come loose enough during the fight and the chase for it to drape down over his arms when he placed his hands on the ground. Covering his hands and concealing them from view. It was a simple matter of core strength and sleight of hand that allowed Naruto to remove his hands from the sleeves of the gown without a single ruffle of the garment or alerting Vega to his intentions.

Biting his lip hard enough to draw blood with his sharpened canines, Naruto was officially choosing to cash in every bit of positive karma he had built up over the last few years because he had never needed any ungodly stroke of luck any more than he needed it right then and there, 'Please! Let this work! Give me just one opening, I don't care what it is! Just let me save Sakura-chan!'

The opening did indeed come.

It took the form of Vega's own arrogance and the feeling that despite Naruto's strange powers he had everything well in hand with his hostage. With that feeling of domination over such a clearly powerful creature one becomes drunk with authority, and even the best make amateur mistakes when under this influence.

Apparently not satisfied with how slowly Naruto was surrendering himself to a prone position on his belly, Vega decided to make a threat, to the wrong body, "Stop procrastinating! Get on the ground with your hands behind your head!" He snapped before making a grave mistake to a desperate, eagle-eyed Naruto. He pointed his claw up from Sakura at Naruto to accentuate his command.

By then, Naruto had set his hands back onto the ground as when using the Kyuubi's chakra Naruto always felt more comfortable moving on all fours instead of just trying to stay on his feet. The moment the claw took the slightest motion away from Sakura, Naruto pulled himself forward with his hands and pushed off with his feet hard enough to smash the portion of rooftop beneath him. From that point things might as well have been moving in slow motion for them both.

Flying at Vega like a bolt from a crossbow, Naruto snarled and drew his hand back, forming a Rasengan in his right hand without delay. By now Vega had realized that he had taken his threat of killing Sakura from Naruto's mind and knew that at this time even if he made good on said threat, Naruto would be upon him and would get an easy killing strike. Thus he instead chose to move his claw into position to impale Naruto before he could be reached.

Thin steel claws vs. Rasengan.

Rasengan wins.

Perfect.

The Kyuubi's chakra was not a factor in this equation whatsoever… it was a variable.

"I told you, you were dead! Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!" Naruto's Rasengan broke clear through Vega's claws and slammed right into his body, being driven with mal intent before Vega was propelled and rocketed off of the rooftop into the air. He was sent flying like a ragdoll before smashing through the windows of an office building across the main street from the hospital.

The complete carnage that sat across the street from Naruto filled something dark in the pit of his stomach with a sense of righteous satisfaction. As if that were the fool's just desserts for doing anything as idiotic as picking a fight with something as treacherous as its human representative that it currently had a hate-hate relationship with.

**"Yes… do you see now how much you need me? How things feel so right when you just stop thinking and let my instincts guide your hand? Without me you would never feel the desire and the satisfaction of obtaining your vengeance against your enemies. Embrace your true self Naruto, and you and I can have the world."**

A snarl tore itself from Naruto's mouth before he turned his attention back to his fallen friend where he fell to his knees by her side, checking her heartbeat to make sure that her condition didn't worsen from Vega's reckless drugging.

Her heartbeat was steadier than before. It was strong again, eliciting a sigh of relief from Naruto who fell onto his backside and cradled the immodestly dressed girl close to himself as his adrenaline high began to die down, 'Fox… I don't want the world. I don't want anything but to go home.' He thought to his all-powerful tenant.

**"You don't even want to go home. Don't lie to me."**

'Fine.' Naruto thought with a sigh, 'I don't. But I'm still going to find a way. I promised I would. Kyuubi, why do you have to destroy anything? That's not who I am.'

**"Still at war with yourself are you? Just like every other human… denying what you really have inside you. The things you really mean that you simply refuse to say aloud. One day you'll see. One day someone will push you too far, a time worse than today, and when you do you will entrust your heart to me. You'll do what you always do; you'll take that hate and you'll keep pushing it inside. And one day… you'll rely on me to deal with it."** At that point he could positively feel the Kyuubi's toothy grin from behind the bars of its cage, **"And I assure you, I will not let you down. I will do as you will desire. I'll destroy it all. I'll take all of your pain and rage away, along with everything else."**

'I won't.'

**"You can't stop me. All I have to do is just wait. This is the reason I'm the tool of you humans is it not? The reason I was desired so greatly and despised at the same time? But what do you know? You're still just a baby; making noise and moving around trying to figure things out. You don't even know what to do with yourself."**

The fact that the Kyuubi was starting to speak to him more frequently these days did not sit well with Naruto as looked up into the sky and saw many people on the hospital staff standing by the window on the sixth floor that he and Vega had burst out of, then over to the office building he had blasted the assassin into. He didn't have to be able to see inside to know that he was already gone.

After all, Naruto had traded his built up good fortune to save Sakura. No way Kami would spot him a two-for, that would make things too convenient for him.

Speaking of which, Sakura began to stir and wriggle around a bit in his arms, slowly opening her brown eyes to look up at him, still a bit disoriented but eventually getting enough of her whereabouts to focus in on the dangling crystal necklace in her face and then on the person wearing it, "Naruto?"

"Hey Sakura-chan." Naruto said, finally finding it in him to spare her a grin of comfort as he pat her bare back calmingly, "Just take it easy alright?"

It was of note that Naruto was very warm to Sakura, although that also could have been because it was winter and it was rather cold outside when one wasn't wearing clothes. Also something else very important to take note of that she addressed immediately, "…Why are we naked?"

Naruto blinked and then looked down at the two of them. Not even a tinge of red came to Naruto's cheeks as he responded in kind as he was far too relieved to feel shame. He was too mentally tired to. Physically he wasn't feeling that hot either. Tapping into the Kyuubi's chakra twice in one day after an entire day of abusing his chakra with energy-taxing ninjutsu and getting his butt kicked twice.

He hadn't had to run a marathon like that in a long time.

So no. He didn't particularly care that he was holding a girl sans clothing at the moment. If Jiraiya could see him now he would have smacked him one, "Well I'm not naked, I'm wearing pants. You're naked though."

"Okay."

"…"

"…Why am _I _naked then?"

That was a conversation that was best had when both of them were fully clothed, so Naruto walked over and grabbed his own bloodstained gown that other than the blood coating it was still intact. Sakura covered herself, not feeling the wet spot from the blood due to her own body being mostly numb, and used Naruto to stand as her body was still rather unresponsive due to the drugging.

After keeping Sakura upright, Naruto looked up at the window in the hospital sixth floor that had been broken open by Vega and himself and saw Karin and Batsu looking down with the two butlers of the blonde heiress standing behind them trying to get sight of the scene.

Naruto rolled his eyes and held one of Sakura's arms around his neck to help her stay on her feet, "Can we go home now?" This was why he hated hospitals. No weapons allowed, thin clothing with no padding or mesh armor that he liked, and sucky security that couldn't stop a nosebleed. He'd have been better off healing alone in his own house. And people thought he was crazy for feeling that way.

Karin just nodded silently and motioned for Ishizaki to prepare the chopper on the rooftop helipad for takeoff.

XxX

(With Vega – Daybreak)

Naruto had almost finished him off. That final attack, he had never seen it hit any living thing before. Vega could honestly say that he'd take getting hit by a mall car over taking another Rasengan. The impact was more or less the same, only a car would spread out the damage dealt more evenly. The point of contact with Naruto's Rasengan was relentless and it almost caved his chest in. More than half a dozen of his ribs were broken and from the blood that kept dripping from his mouth no matter how much he tried to keep down there was definitely something ruptured.

But he was able to make it out of the office building he had been shot into, killing an investigating security guard and taking his clothes and crawling through the shadows until he could reach a cab to take his private jet to leave the city and the country. Money was great for getting out of countries without having to sweat the small stuff.

Travel was not his overwhelming concern at the moment. He had been injured and badly. He couldn't explain how he hadn't died yet, and he'd require medical attention on the plane to survive, but other than that things were out of his hands.

The only thing he had to worry about was how he would explain the night's events to M. Bison. When the score would be tallied after everything being said and done his own defeat would be overlooked. It was largely inconsequential. Nothing he did that night threatened Shadaloo, same for Balrog despite his humiliating loss as well to a nameless young man that was actually public and televised unlike Vega's little deathmatch.

The truly important thing that would be taken from that night would be his report on the young man with talent, that was the only person at that tournament that caught his eye and then caught it again later with his absurd orange power of death.

At the sight of Vega's savage near-death experience, and after learning of just what Vega had to tell him after he recovered enough to speak forth his recount of the battle (not much of a battle when it came down to it after the cards had shifted to Naruto's hand), it would attract the attention of someone worse than the devil due to the boy's dark powers reminiscent of Vega's boss's own.

This was the worst revenge that Vega could begin to enact. It almost got him to smile a bloody grin just thinking about the Pandora's Box that he was about to open on the poor runt of a teenager.

After all, if the single man that could stand against the attention of M. Bison existed yet, he would have just been killed by now as well. A fate worse than this would obviously await Naruto sooner rather than later. And it would be absolutely sweet to be there to see what brought the repulsive blonde ninja to his knees.

He would dream about all of the possible ways to break Naruto's heart, his soul, his body, and then his will…

…While he slipped into something of an injury-induced coma from his wounds that the doctors he hired couldn't believe he had been crawling around with.

That angry red spiral mark on his chest that sat over his snake tattoo wouldn't be going anywhere for a long, long time.

XxX

(A Few Days Later)

"And you're sure about what you saw?" A man said, stepping outside of an airport gate after his plane had just landed in Tokyo. He hadn't planned on coming back nearly so soon to Japan, but there were some smatterings that he simply couldn't ignore.

A nod came from E Honda as he ignored his injured arms and offered to take the large duffel bag in his arriving friend's possession. Of course a glance at said arms with confusion then reminded the sumo of his own injury and he grinned sheepishly as they proceeded to walk through the rest of the airport to the ride outside, "Absolutely. You've seen the footage from the final fight. The proof is there." He gestured to his own arms as well, "He did this to me a few months back but he didn't fight like that. It was the most malevolent thing I've ever felt. You said you were looking for that weren't you?"

The man with E. Honda was a younger man with short brown hair wearing a white karate gi and a red headband around his head. It stuck out in an airport terminal to say the very least, but at least he was wearing shoes; red soft slide on shoes, but he had enough sense to not go barefoot everywhere. It wasn't like he was in a fight right then and there.

A chuckle from Honda got the younger man to look up and over at the larger fighter, getting him to elaborate, "I'm just wondering what it'll take to get you to wear normal clothes."

An eyebrow was raised in response, "I didn't know wearing a blue yukata everywhere qualified as normal clothes these days. I must have missed that." E. Honda let out another good-natured laugh at being more or less called a throwback. He wasn't really in the mood for joking though.

The last time he had come across a dark inner energy like the one E. Honda was alluding to, he had come into contact with the man that had killed his adopted father. He couldn't lay a hand on the perpetrator, bearing witness as the man smashed a deserted island with his fist alone.

Apparently within him there was the same power.

Even if this Naruto person didn't share in this curse, it was worth looking into, especially if this destructive fighter that had killed his adopted father got wind of Naruto's own abilities as well. It was too dangerous to simply let Naruto alone, even if he had no malevolent intentions at all with such a dark power.

From the sound of things E. Honda liked him very much even though his arms got busted up in battle against him, 'But the Satsui no Hadou (Surge of Murderous Intent) doesn't differentiate between those that try to be good or bad.'

An interruption then came to his thoughts, "He lives in Aohura City. There's also someone else there that wants to see you pretty badly, so if I were you I'd stay there for a bit even if you find him quickly." E. Honda said as they made it outside onto the street, "Do you know where that is? I could take you if you'd like Ryu. It's a pretty long way."

The man, identified as Ryu at this point just gave E. Honda a pleasant smile and shook his head, shifting his duffel bag over his shoulder for more comfortable carrying before he figured out which direction west was in and pointed, getting a nod for his trouble to tell him he was correct in getting the direction, "No thanks. I think I'll walk by myself."

With a confused look on his face, E. Honda shook his head as he watched Ryu walk off, not even bothering to try and hitchhike as he wandered down the road as if it were normal to walk everywhere, "You're a strange bastard, you know that?" He shouted down the street after the man, only getting a wave over his back in return.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright, first of all I've had some comments sent my way and decided to address it like this since I've heard it enough to do something about it (for those that said anything about these things you know who you are); first of all, how would Naruto have Sage Mode? Why would anyone even bring that up? When would he have learned it? He landed in the new place when he was 12 going on 13, before that everything that happened was canon. He never went back. He never even knew about Sage Mode at all at this point.<strong>

**Second of all, yes Odama Rasengan is strong. It's damnably strong. But once again those that say it should have cut through Sakura's Shinkuu Tengyou Hadoken obviously don't understand that the hyper technique aspect comes from the Street Fighter side of the crossover (it means that if this attack hits you you're going to sleep) and they don't know what that move looks like. For reference's sake it's bigger than Naruto's Odama Rasengan. It's bigger than his entire body as a matter of fact. It's her strongest move. Period.**

**This is Naruto at the start of Shippuden at best okay? He never trained with Jiraiya or anyone at all, he was responsible for himself for all of those years, teaching himself his own tricks and improving under his own watch and the watch of his friends.**

**And for the last time… these people _are not_ to be judged on the scale that someone would judge Naruto's world against normal people. At all. No one that will be spotlighted in this story is normal nor should they be thought of as unequal, they're superhuman. They're not stupid, they're not weak. They are strange people and will proceed to get stranger as more are introduced, they know how to fight, they've all been doing it for way longer than Naruto's even been a ninja. Just because they're not from Naruto's world doesn't mean he owns them all inherently.**

**Fact: Everyone in Street Fighter can destroy a car with their bare hands in under forty seconds max. (Ah, that's a good joke/reference)**

**Sakura trains harder and more regularly than even Naruto does and has been for four years straight. She's had interest in fighting since before she even met Naruto. She's strong. I wouldn't have written this if I just thought that he would murk everybody, I never do that. Even in the One Piece and Bleach stories where I gave him extra abilities I haven't. It might look like it at the start, but he hasn't fought the strongest in those universes yet either.**

**With that being said I've stated it before, I'll state it a million times more. I don't write these stories for you. It's for me. And if something makes sense to me with my hours and hours of research and effort put into this then that's all I need, otherwise I wouldn't write it or try to include it. I have a desperate need to make sense and make sure my bases are covered.**

**If you like it, that's cool and thanks for spending time reading. If you don't like it that's still cool and I'm sorry about wasting your time.**

**…Wah.**

**I didn't expect to have to rant about something today. I keep forgetting that not everyone reading has the same scope of knowledge on both subjects I write on when I do crossovers. I know TOO much about both since I'm trying to stay with the integrity of each side of my crosses. That's a good/bad habit to have by the way. It goes both ways.**

**Now after a long afternoon of doing good deeds for the youth of my childhood primary school I will be taking a long rest before I put my body back through training hell again tomorrow for my fight at the start of March. You ever volunteer for taking a part in an afterschool program? Those little kids are way too excitable. Later.**

**Kenchi out.**


	10. Antihero's Welcome

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. But when I become the master and the ruler of the world I'll technically own these things, so it'll be cool. Just wait. Within 15-20 years Kenchi618 will be your master and commander. And you will love it.

Or I'll have you sent to Siberia, old-school Soviet Union style.

**Chapter 10: Antihero's Welcome**

* * *

><p>BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BE-!<p>

"Die!"

CRUNCH!

And that was the end of Naruto's alarm clock as after smashing it off of the headboard of his bed he tossed it out of his bedroom door into the living room. Didn't that stupid piece of plastic crap know that he was choosing to skip school today? Even though it was a decision made the second he heard the first strains of his alarm the thing still should have known. Didn't it have any danger instincts? Machines were supposed to be superior weren't they?

It was Tuesday morning, three days after the end of the C9 Grand Ace Tournament, and Naruto hadn't been to school ever since the conclusion of the event. Instead of doing that, he had been going over his savings that he had compounded, savings that had taken another positive jump upwards with the dual benefit of Karin's payment for finishing the tournament and the prize money he split with Sakura.

Sakura must have really been still feeling the effects of her injuries because she hadn't been over to get him to go to school since their return. Maybe she was lucky enough to have her mother keep her home due to her poor condition?

Either way, Naruto simply lay back in his bed and covered his eyes with his forearm to keep from staring up at his boring white ceiling.

Shikamaru would be proud of how lazy he was being if the genius boy were there with him.

But being an indolent sack of useless blonde mass never paid his bills, put food on his table, or really benefitted him in any way. With that focus evident in his mind, Naruto rolled out of bed and begrudgingly made his way to his bathroom to get prepared for the day, taking a detour to the living room to punch on his stereo for background noise in his apartment.

Thirty minutes later and Naruto was dressed and tying his shoes that went with his school uniform, a piece of toast hanging out of his mouth. He had skipped Friday for the tournament, Saturday the day after the tournament, and Monday. There were probably a lot of pissed off friends that hadn't heard from him in those days and it was time to face that music.

It didn't take him long to face it either as the second he stepped outside of the door he found himself strung up in a spider web style trap with paints of several different colors dumped all over him after he was caught and stuck.

With his body suspended in the air in front of his doorway awkwardly, Naruto let out a sigh as paint dripped off of his entire body, "Oh. I forgot we were still playing that game." He commented to himself as he ejected a kunai into his hand from the sleeve of his uniform jacket to cut himself down, remembering his ongoing ninja war (a never ending series of pranks and traps) with the lovely teenage kunoichi Ibuki.

Once he cut himself free and his feet hit the ground, bombs burst around him covering his body in glitter.

Oh, that was just arbitrarily cruel.

"Okay… now I've got to go to school just to get her back."

After a shower and a change of clothes of course.

XxX

(One Hour Later – Tamagawa Minami High School)

"So glad you could join us this morning Uzumaki-san." The female teacher said as newly clothed Naruto sheepishly walked into class with faded blotches of paint still visible on his face and hands.

All Naruto did was shrug haplessly towards the teacher before beginning to walk back towards his normal seat. Next to it he could see Ibuki with a rather satisfied look of triumph on her face, letting him know that she was well aware that her prank/trap worked. Once he sat down her smile almost split her face it was so wide at that point, "Good morning Naruto. You look colorful today."

A few fake laughs came from Naruto as he looked her way with a twitching eye and a strained grin, "You know what? I'm actually glad you did that. I needed something to kick my butt back in gear after the tournament anyway."

"Oh stop fussing." Ibuki rolled her eyes at Naruto's 'intimidating' crazy eyes that he was trying to give her, "I was nice and used paint that you can wash out with a shower or two." She said, reaching over to rub Naruto's hair since she could see the glitter still caught in it. Ah, yes she got him so good. He was never going to get her back any better than that, "I set that trap days ago. Are you telling me you just walked into it this morning? I thought you'd disarmed it by now or something."

Naruto grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest, turning his body away from Ibuki's in his seat as the teacher kept up the homeroom activities with the remaining time, "I can't believe this is how you treat champions around here."

Running a hand through her long brown hair, Kei chose to chime in from her seat in front of Ibuki and merely pointed to Sakura's chair in front of Naruto where the girl was sleeping with her head on the desk, "No, _that's_ how we treat champions. So don't fall asleep in school, okay Naruto?"

Naruto leaned forward to get a peek and blocked a snicker when he saw the serenely slumbering female fighter with marker drawings on her face courtesy of either Ibuki or Kei, he couldn't tell. He shook his head and poked at the doodles on Sakura's upright cheek, getting her to shift a bit in her sleep without waking up.

"Aw, that's messed up…" Naruto said before an evil grin came over his face and he planted a very solid kiss on Sakura's cheek to test how deep her sleep was before holding out his hand towards Kei, "Give me a marker. It's my turn."

XxX

(Later That Day)

"You jackasses." Sakura muttered from behind a cloth that she was using to wipe the black markings off of her face, "Whoever wrote 'Sakura-chan loves Naruto' on my face, I'm getting you back the first chance I get." She lowered the cloth from her cleared off face and leveled a bit of a glare at Naruto, "Gee, I wonder who did that." She said sarcastically.

A grin was firmly planted on Naruto's face as he walked with Sakura, Kei, and Ibuki after school was let out. It took until gym when Sakura was able to see a mirror for her to realize she had been drawn on. The scream echoed from the girl's locker room into the boy's and Naruto burst out in immediate laughter, "It must have been someone that knows how much you love me deep down Sakura-chan."

"I swear I'll beat the whiskers off of your face."

"You mean like the last time?" Naruto replied before feigning surprise, "Oh wait, you didn't win last time either! That makes your lifetime average against me a big fat goose egg!" He threw his hands up as he walked down the street and got a high-five from a random passerby for his trouble, "I'm the greatest ninja walking the face of the planet and the Ace of Aohura City, dattebayo!"

Sakura was pondering the pros and cons of trying to grab Naruto in a headlock and noogie him into obedience or at least docility. She eventually decided against it as her body was still tired from the amount of energy she had to exert to keep pace with Naruto going all out and she was still sore.

Kei palmed her face, trying to make herself invisible in regards to the attention that Naruto was attracting. It was quite obvious that he was in pristine condition after the very violent events of last Friday night so there was no need to ever worry about him the way she had about both he and Sakura's health after what was shown on TV and from what Sakura told her happened later.

Ibuki on the other hand just felt like pointing something out, "Wait, you gave yourself a new title since the last time you yelled something like that out loud in public didn't you?" She asked Naruto curiously as she trotted up to his side and pulled one of his arms around her shoulders as he continued to be shown love from random folks on the street, not noticing how close she had gotten.

"Yeah, I added the 'Ace of Aohura City' since the last time." Naruto admitted shamelessly, chatting away with the kunoichi under his arm, "How's it testing? I might leave it in my normal introduction or take it out when I come up with something else." Ibuki nodded in understanding and Naruto finally realized the position the two were in, "Uh… why are you this close to me?"

"So you don't have enough space away from me to plot any ideas to get me back for the trap this morning."

"Oh, okay. But that isn't going to save you just so you know."

While the two ninja of different backgrounds continued to chatter to one another, Kei slipped by Sakura and pointed forward, "Okay, I know something's up here. Ibuki-chan's been acting totally different since those two went on that date a while back."

Sakura could see it, and had to admit that the excuse Naruto had just accepted as to why she had chosen to attach herself to him was utter bullcrap. Her eyes were still stuck on Ibuki clinging to Naruto's arm, "What are you telling me for? It's Naruto that needs to pick up on it already."

"What do you mean what am I telling you for?" Kei responded, keeping her voice down so that neither Naruto nor Ibuki felt their ears burning at the context of the conversation, "You know damn well why I'm telling you this." A raise of an eyebrow from Sakura indicated that she did not know what Kei was alluding to, "Ibuki-chan could take Naruto from you if you don't watch out."

Sakura's eyes widened and she tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, regaining her balance before Naruto or Ibuki could turn around to catch sight of her, "Naruto's not mine to lose." She said in return, shaking her head with a frown on her face, "If that was how things were going to end up we would have gotten together a long time ago. You should know that."

'What? You two were twelve when you met. You're both just a pair of stubborn asses.' Both Naruto and Sakura were closer than friends should have been. Still, for whatever reason they were stuck in this facet of their bond after four years. The romantic in Kei was going insane because of it, but it was what it was. Both of them were old enough to know what they wanted and that was all that mattered apparently, 'Hah… it's not my problem though.'

XxX

"Naruto-san you've been-."

"No."

"…No?

"No."

"What do you mean no? I am simply trying to inform you of your latest ranking."

That afternoon after school had let out and everyone had returned home, Naruto started getting to work cleaning the paint from Ibuki's trap off of the floor, door, and wall outside of his apartment. He was then located by Karin who had come all the way from her Aohura City property on the outskirts of town to say hello.

And to inform him of his progress when it came to the endeavor she had set him upon months ago.

Naruto looked up from where he was scrubbing the floor with a deadpan look on his face, "I know what you're trying to tell me, and I don't really care. You couldn't come over for anything but to tell me where I am on some internet ranking list?"

"It is very important." Karin insisted, standing over the hard-at-work Naruto with her hands on her hips, "How else will you know how well you are doing your job for me and when your assignment is complete?"

A grin crossed Naruto's face as he looked up, eyes twinkling with glee, "That's easy boss lady. Because you'll tell me when you challenge me to a fight." Karin puffed her cheeks out at being outfoxed in such a manner, "And I can check my own progress with my client list." He pulled out his business cell phone and scrolled through the numbers saved in it over the past few days, "I've got so many requests for jobs from towns all over I don't know what to do with it all. I've got clones handling the easier stuff all over Aohura City right now for pocket change."

What a rudimentary way of checking one's progress. The amount of business his actions generate for him reflects the amount of prestige he is held in. That was very simple business sense, and Karin wondered how someone like Naruto figured that out. Little did she know that this was what Naruto knew as the backbone of the hidden ninja village system in his own world. It worked just as well in this one.

Still, the website would have been easier. But Naruto would have still flipped out at some of the comments he would have read about himself, so admittedly this was a wiser method that also generated himself some revenue.

But if clones were handling his other jobs that still lent a question for Karin to ask, "But Naruto-san, why are you not using clones to clean up this mess instead of doing it yourself?" He had free labor at his beck and call and here he was on his knees working on his own.

A sigh came from Naruto as he continued working, "Because my clones get bored and then they start throwing buckets of water at each other and they make a bigger mess... and then they dispel so they don't get yelled at." Clone labor… you get what you pay for, "It's better if I do it myself."

A set of footsteps swiftly flew up the flight of stairs leading to Naruto's level of the apartment complex, revealing Sakura holding a bundle of clothes in her arms with a smile on her face, "Here you go Naruto; a paint-free uniform, all fluffy and fresh-smelling, straight out of the wash. Mom says hi by the wa-." She then noticed that Naruto wasn't alone, "Oh, hello Kanzuki-san."

"Sakura-san." Karin returned with a nod before the two locked eyes and Naruto stopped cleaning once he felt the lightning shooting between the gazes of the two.

'This is so stupid…' Naruto thought to himself when it came to Sakura and Karin's relationship. They fought, and now they apparently see each other every day or so. So why not just get over it already? Seriously, who holds a grudge for more than a year over something like a tournament fight? It was ridiculous, "I'm going to have to give you two some Kage Bunshin therapy aren't I?"

That was enough to get both girls to stop glaring at each other and turn their attention to him where Sakura chose to be the one of them to speak up, "I don't know what that means, but it sounds like something that a boy would get slapped over suggesting." Her face was red and once Karin caught on to what she was implying hers was as well.

"Oh whatever…" Naruto grumbled, a blush running over his face as well as he returned to work, "That's what I get for trying to help some friends out I guess…" He gestured his head towards the door for Sakura's benefit, "The door's open so you can drop my stuff there and you can head back home."

Sakura nodded and walked on through the front door to Naruto's apartment only to pause momentarily when she saw several of Naruto's clones splayed all over the living room working on homework while the TV was playing for their benefit.

"I thought you usually didn't do homework." Sakura commented as she went to drop his cleaned school uniform onto Naruto's bed.

"I don't. My clones do it." That response from the door got Sakura to roll her eyes as she headed towards the back of the apartment.

If there wasn't real work to be done that would require active movement and some excitement of some sort, give Naruto's clones a TV to watch and they were easier to deal with when given monotonous busywork to do. This was Kage Bunshin 101. When bored it didn't matter if it was an order or not, much like the original Naruto their attention spans were very limited and they would try to procrastinate and do other things that would usually end up with them dispelling, the job halfway done or not at all.

Sakura placed his clothing on Naruto's place of slumber and proceeded to head back outside to where Naruto was finishing up his work cleaning paint and Karin was still standing around watching him, "You have the weirdest abilities, I swear…"

Speaking of weird abilities, Karin raised an eyebrow and figured that she had her employee sufficiently cornered for one of the many questions she wished to find an answer to when it came to him. The most pressing of which was also the most recent that had surfaced in the Rubik's cube that was Uzumaki Naruto during the tournament, "True, you have many strange abilities. The one I'm most interested in is the one that produced that horrid energy of yours."

"Are you still on about that?"

"Of course."

Naruto stopped scrubbing the floor and looked up at the two girls with a frown on his face. What was he going to do, run away like a chicken? Yeah, you can't do that to people that you see every day/know where you live.

Still, the Kyuubi and the chakra it provided out of duress to Naruto during the final fight against Sakura was the elephant in the room that wasn't going to be forgotten by anyone who bore witness to it. He just needed to come up with an eloquent way to tell his friends that he had a monster in his belly made of walking energy and hatred, "Can you give me time to come up with a decent way to explain it first?" He asked, "If I just came out and said what it was you'd both freak out."

While not pleased by this request from Naruto, Karin still nodded, finding it an agreeable enough demand as long as he didn't use the time to come up with some half-assed lie.

But Sakura looked past the mere desire to get an explanation of some sort and flinched a bit at what she felt his request was suggesting as far as she went, "Naruto… do you really think that anything you could tell us would freak us out badly enough that you're scared to talk about it? I thought you knew me better than that."

'Sakura-chan you don't know…' Naruto thought to himself, understanding why she seemed to feel the way she did, but in the end this was something that she wouldn't be able to easily perceive or accept, "Come on, please. I wouldn't even ask if I wasn't sure that there was a reason for it. I promise I'll tell you."

Why did Naruto have to keep everything to himself? It was just maddening. What exactly did he think she would do if he told her anything? Nothing he would tell her in the end would really change anything between them since if there was anything like that it would have taken effect already.

And in the end it was probably the major reason that they had never gotten as close as Kei figured they should have been. It seemed like things about Naruto were open until a certain point and then an impenetrable wall went up that he wouldn't let anyone past. This orange power was just the latest thing in a string of other mysteries about him.

But at least he was trying to come up with a way to explain that much if nothing else.

Sakura just stared at Naruto with a blank expression on her face before choosing to turn and descend the apartment complex stairs to return home. She was frustrated enough that staying there any longer would have just exacerbated the whole situation altogether and that wouldn't have been good for anyone.

Some things just never seemed to change between them. It was like trying to file one's way through the steel bars of a jail cell.

All Naruto could do was let her go with a sigh, walking to the railing of his floor and watching his friend walk away on a sour note. He exhaled with a grunt and banged his head one time on the iron rail with a clang ringing out from the impact.

This was going to be hard. He never told anyone in Konoha about the Kyuubi before after he himself had found out about it. Either all of the adults already knew or with the kids his age he never had to say anything at all since it had never really come up. The only time he had really used any of the Kyuubi's chakra in front of others more important things took precedence which attracted attention away from how weird it was.

No such luck this time.

With his head still set on the railing and obscuring his vision, Karin clumsily rested a hand on his back in an attempt at a comforting manner. She was simply unused to trying to make others feel better, "Naruto-san… just do not worry about it. Simply get your story together and when you do I am certain that things between you and Sakura-san will be fine."

Man he sure hoped so.

But then again maybe this was better. If Sakura was mad at him and this wound up causing some kind of rift between them… well, maybe that would make it easier to leave when the time came. It might have been years upon years, but he couldn't just accept his fate to never see Konoha again. He promised himself he would find a way home, and if he couldn't keep a promise to himself every other promise he ever made was to anyone was useless.

"Thanks…" Naruto said in response to Karin trying to make him feel better. He knew she was a far nicer girl than she seemed to be on the surface. It just took some getting used to her, and he was at that point it seemed, "And I am going to tell you all just what the orange chakra was. I just need a bit of time first. It's not really easy to just come out and say."

"I know you will." Karin said, sparing him one last pat on the back before she decided it was time for her to go home as well. A smile crossed her face as she started descending the steps, not that Naruto could see it, "After all… you promised. And you are a man of your word if nothing else at all. This is an admirable trait that I respect about you."

Naruto spared a chuckle as Karin walked towards her vehicle where Shibazaki climbed out and opened the door for her before retaking his own place behind the wheel of the car, "You actually respect something about me?" He remarked quietly to himself, waving goodbye to the departing girl's ride before choosing to head to the roof. Maybe he could train and work some of this melancholy out of his system? It was completely out of his character, he hated being that way.

XxX

(The Next Day)

School was kind of tense as even though Naruto tried to put the discomfort from the day before with Sakura behind them, she couldn't let it drop. He could see why. He was keeping a secret from her like she was some kind of potential enemy and something like that would hurt him, he could imagine how she felt about it.

Either way, it led to a very uncomfortable atmosphere all the way through the day.

At least she bid him farewell for the day when he said goodbye to the group of girls that usually hung around him at school. There was that much to hang his hat on at least. And he couldn't dwell on something so personal when he had work to do.

For making such a grave mistake could equal death for a shinobi while on a life or death mission.

"Okay, let me get this straight." Naruto said, standing in the playground of an elementary school next to the rather attractive young woman that contacted him to be hired by the school, probably a teacher in a class, "You want me to get rid of all of them?"

The woman nodded before brushing her long dark hair behind her ear, "Yes. Every hornet's nest you can see out here."

Naruto audibly sucked his teeth as he counted them all out. There was one on a slide, one on the jungle gym, one underneath the rim of a basketball goal, one in the corner of a soccer goal… and in other places as well, "Now… when you hired me, you didn't say anything about there being like eight nests to take out." That was a lot of hornets, "Why didn't you hire an exterminator or something?"

"Because your rates are lower for this kind of work than an exterminator's Uzumaki-san."

Damn. He needed to start charging more since he was starting to get a reputation. But he was there now, he accepted the contract, and he couldn't just leave the hornets hanging around all of the kids. Him and his stupid hero complex.

"Alright." Naruto said in a dejected manner. This was not going to be fun, and clones couldn't handle hornet stings. Not as many as these hornets would be dealing out. He might be able to use this as some kind of training though if he were smart about it, "Just go on inside. I'll be back in your classroom when the job is done." If he didn't die from an exorbitant amount of stings beforehand of course.

The teacher gave him a smile and proceeded to do as Naruto requested while he looked around the playground and tried to figure out what he was going to do to get rid of all of these hornets. He crouched down in a relaxed position and ran his hands through his hair as he was at a loss. No matter what he did it was going to hurt. He wasn't fast enough to dodge hundreds of swarming hornets when he would be running towards them after destroying the first nest.

"You look like someone that could use some help."

Who in the world was insane enough to try and talk to him about helping with this? If it wasn't a licensed exterminator with the suits and the whole nine yards he could honestly say that he was about to send this person away.

And then he turned around and his eyes widened in pure shock, "Oh no way…"

XxX

(A Few Hours Later – Naruto and Sakura's Neighborhood)

"Thank you for paying for the food after your job was completed."

A grin crossed Naruto's face as he held his arms behind his neck and led the man walking with him through the quiet residential neighborhood where he resided, "Ah, that's not a big deal at all. You really saved my ass today. If you hadn't showed up I was about to just do something really painful. And hey, since you're here you can meet my friend really quick." Maybe that would get Sakura to not be so upset with him?

"Of course, but after this we can talk correct? I have something really important to speak with you about."

"Yeah." Naruto replied with a shrug. He didn't really care, "If you want we can talk about if after I have you meet Sakura-chan." And speaking of which, "Oh, we're here. Can you do me a favor and stay out of sight until I call you? This is going to be funny." A stiff nod was the answer as Naruto held up a finger and jumped up onto the wooden fence that isolated Sakura's backyard from the rest of the world.

And as he expected by now she was busy training herself, but not in the fun way that Naruto usually resorted to in order to improve. She was sitting in her mother's garden just meditating until she seemed to notice his presence crouching up in the tree by her fence when she cracked an eye open to confirm it was him.

A frown came over her face, but she still got up off of the ground to walk over to him with a sigh, "Naruto. What's up? You didn't say that you were going to stop by on your way home after your mission."

"Well that was before I found something cool that you might like." For some reason Naruto seemed very pleased with himself, and not in the 'I-am-about-to-screw-you-over-so-bad-right-now' kind of way. But that was weird. He knew how tense things were between the two of them since yesterday, but a mere twenty-four hours later and he seemed to be happy to see her again.

No, they hadn't gotten into any kind of fight over the whole thing. Nor was she being petty by giving him the silent treatment, something that Naruto would find torture on his emotions and she wasn't going to do that just for some secret he was playing close to the vest. Still though, didn't he know how things were supposed to work when a relationship of any sort was going over the rocks? You keep a safe distance until it starts feeling more natural to come back together again. It was day-one stuff.

Sakura merely gestured that she was ready to see whatever it was that Naruto was so excited to show her and he merely kept his eyes on her, still grinning as he seemed to gesture to someone behind the fence to come on up and over so that she could see them.

After a second nothing happened and Naruto's grin dropped as he turned around in his tree to find nothing waiting for him on the other side of the fence. He let out a surprised squawk and turned back around to face Sakura who was still waiting on him to show her whatever he was there to show, "I-I… Hold on Sakura-chan." He said before turning around fully and standing up straight, scratching his head in curiosity, "…I told him to wait right there. He wouldn't have just run away. He wanted to talk about something before we got here." Naruto quietly reasoned to himself.

"Sakura!" The matriarch of the Kasugano household yelled out from the backdoor of their home, "I found someone outside that says he's here to see you. I'm sending him out since he looks like one of those fighters you seem to spend so much time around."

A sigh escaped Sakura's lips as she turned towards the backdoor this time and waited, hoping that whatever this was would have a quicker payoff than Naruto's guarantee of something interesting.

And then when the red headband and white gi-clad figure walked out into her backyard her jaw went slack for a few seconds. She let out a very uncharacteristic high-pitched squeal that surprised Naruto enough to get him to fall out of his tree and back over the fence to the sidewalk and the street below.

She pointed at him and fought the urge to just stammer dumbly before taking a moment to recompose herself. This was certainly not a cool way to present herself to someone like this, so she cleared her throat and chose to start over, "Ryu. Hello. I-I don't know if you remember me from a few years ago because I'm sure you get that kind of thing all the time-."

"Kasugano Sakura." Ryu said, identifying her easily much to her surprise and delight. Of course this was mostly because Naruto kept bringing up the girl and the last meeting that the two had when she met Ryu at the age of 14, "You seem like a confident fighter now. You grew stronger just like you said you would didn't you?" He asked, eliciting a blush from the girl. Of course this moment was cut short.

"What the hell Ryu?" Naruto asked as he clawed his way over the fence and landed on the ground, walking up to the pair, "I told you to wait for me to call you over so I could get a look at Sakura-chan's face when she first saw you. I was going to take a picture of it…" He whined, holding up his phone desperately.

At that point Sakura slipped behind Naruto and grabbed a hold of one of his cheeks which was seemingly her favorite way to physically pick with her friend, "You found Ryu and brought him to me? Aw, Naruto that's so sweet. Just so you and I could be okay with each other again?"

Naruto rolled his eyes but he let her keep on tugging at his cheek, "You really think I could find him in one day without any clues at all? I might be good-, hell I'm the best in the world…" He boasted, getting a sharper pull on his cheek for his superciliousness, "Ow, okay. But I'm not that good. He found me at the job and I took him here. You're welcome by the way."

"Thank you." Sakura said, letting go of his cheek with a pat before walking over to Ryu again, "So… since you're here would you like to spar? You know, to see how much better I really am?"

The stoic expression on Ryu's face regarded the girl for a moment as he hated to place something that could easily be done on the backburner. The reason being that his purpose for being there was quite serious to him, "I would, but I'm afraid the reason I've come to Aohura City is your friend here." He said, pointing at Naruto, "I've got something I need to talk to him about. Alone as I believe it will be rather personal."

Sakura visibly deflated at that and this didn't really sit well with Naruto, 'Man… it really is kind of like Sasuke and Sakura again. It's just that Ryu is just nicer about it.' Naruto thought to himself as the situation continued to play itself out in front of him, "Fine, we can talk here then. Sakura-chan is my best friend… and I'm trying to stop keeping secrets from her, so she's in." If he was going to work up the nerve to talk about the Kyuubi he had to start somewhere.

While he didn't seem to like the idea of it, Ryu did chose to nod and walked over to the tree, sitting under it as Naruto and Sakura both sat in front of him against the trunk.

It seemed like he was trying to pick his words carefully, as if he didn't know how to express what he wished to say. Something about this felt a little familiar to Naruto, like it was something he had felt like not too long ago. Sakura on the other hand was simply wondering what the apparent best fighter in the world had to say that was so hard to get out in the first place.

"I only really know how to be direct." Ryu admitted, sitting cross-legged on the ground as he addressed the two young teens, "Trying to dance around what I'm trying to say isn't my strong suit. So I guess I'll just come out and say it." His eyes sharpened on Naruto's, "I've come about the strange energy that emitted from your body during the finals of the tournament you fought in."

Naruto paled and cursed inwardly. So not only did he release the Kyuubi's chakra in a building full of people that would obviously put such a thing on the internet, he also did it on live TV. Fantastic.

Well the truth was coming out one way or another, and from the amount of attention being paid by Sakura it was clear that his answers to his questions would be very important to her, "Well… what do you want to know?"

"What caused you to draw upon the power?" Ryu already knew the answer to this, but Naruto's response would show him something.

Scratching his scalp nervously, Naruto spared Sakura a glance before answering, "Well sometimes when I get really angry or when I'm hurt badly it'll come out on its own. I wasn't mad this time though. Sakura-chan was scrambling my brains and it just kicked in. It's like a defense mechanism or something too. It's hard to explain."

"That's it?" Ryu asked with a hint of confusion in his tone, "You didn't have any overwhelming desire to win? You weren't angry with her that you were close to being defeated?" He seemed to have some kind of idea what he was talking about, "But then again you did fight the power off in the end… so you held yourself back."

"I would never use that power against Sakura-chan!" Naruto asserted with a narrowing of his eyes and something of a snarl, "That's not something I'll ever use on purpose unless it's to protect my precious people or if I don't have any other options before I die."

"It's not something you can control that easily. You have to give yourself to the power, to the dark desire to kill any foe strong enough to pull it out of you or else it will drive you insane."

"What do you even know about it? Why are we talking about this?"

That got Ryu to stop for a moment before he shut his eyes tightly and formed a fist that he pressed against his heart intently, "I know because… I suffer from a curse akin to your own." He admitted, getting a gasp out of Sakura and a wild-eyed look from Naruto.

There was absolutely no way that was possible, 'There's no way he's got a demon inside of him too.' Naruto thought to himself, 'What's he playing at? There's no one in this world that knows the first thing about sealing away a demon anywhere.' He clinched his fists tightly as he believed that Ryu was playing at some kind of scheme or game of some sort.

Sakura pointed at Ryu with her other hand covering her mouth, "You can do what Naruto does? You have the orange power inside of you too?"

Ryu nodded gravely as he continued, "My power isn't orange though. It's a sick, dark red." That got Naruto to lose his growing anger at Ryu's attempt to make a fool of him. When he started tapping into more than his normal amount of the Kyuubi's chakra it also turned dark red, "In case you were unaware of what it was Naruto, it is called the Satsui no Hadou (Surge of Murderous Intent)."

"No it isn't."

Naruto's dry and unexpectedly calm and understanding reaction got Ryu to stare at the young man strangely as he blinked his blue eyes with a somewhat puzzled look on his own whisker-marked visage, "What do you mean? Unless you've named it yourself, this is the name of the dark power inside of you that is born of your own intensity and desire to win."

Once again, Naruto shook his head and denied this vehemently, "No. You had me until just right now. The weird energy doesn't really come from me, it comes from something that's trapped inside of my body. It's called the Kyuubi, not the Satsui-whatever. I can control myself when I use some of it, but the more I use the harder it gets… and I can kill people without even meaning to. That's why I fought it back down when I was fighting against Sakura-chan in the tournament; because I could have killed her by accident."

Until Vega, Naruto hadn't consciously drawn from dark pools of the Kyuubi's chakra since he had arrived in Japan. It was just a testament to how bad he wanted that bastard to pay for trying to kidnap Sakura to use against him in their duel.

"You mean you intentionally use a power like that?" Ryu stated with a guarded tone, 'He isn't like Akuma at all though. How could he possibly use it and keep his humanity?' After his run-in two years ago with Akuma he most certainly did not see anything positive about such dark abilities.

Naruto just shrugged his shoulders, "I don't use that much." He then chose to lift his shirt and channel chakra, revealing a distinct marking right around his navel, "You see this? The Kyuubi is a powerful beast that could only be stopped by cooping it up inside of a person. I was the lucky baby that they chose to stick it into." He turned towards Sakura with a sorrowful look on his face, "That's why I didn't tell you anything before. Would you really believe that I have a demon sealed inside of me?"

To be honest she didn't really believe him now. But then Sakura realized that Naruto had indeed never lied to her, even when the truth meant he'd get into trouble… like the time she caught him hiding in the women's locker room taking pictures for a 'client'.

"I don't really have a choice but to believe you." Sakura said, somewhat bewildered at the idea of what she had just been told, "But it's not like there's anything different right? You're still Naruto, nothing's changed. You just have a freaky-strong living power source inside of you." Ugh, that sounded wrong and weird.

But Ryu was still dwelling on what Naruto had said before. It thoroughly shocked him, "You can use that power without losing yourself? How is that even possible?" He almost killed Sagat the one time he drew upon the power of the Satsui no Hadou, and here this boy that, no offense intended, had far less discipline than himself and could _control_ such force to hold himself back?

"Like I said; I don't use that much of it. The Kyuubi doesn't like giving me much chakra unless I'm about to die from my injuries." Naruto said, patting his stomach down, "It's hard to take anymore than what I use to cover my body like what everyone's seen. The only time I've ever really taken more… well someone shoved their hand right through my chest before I could even get to it." He could still remember the bite of pain before he went numb from Sasuke's Chidori all those years ago, "I needed it to stay alive."

He 'needed' it? There was no one in the world that ever needed dark powers. It was a slippery slope. If Ryu had this mindset and embraced the Satsui no Hadou in a similar manner he would become no better than the man that killed his master, 'I can't let myself become like Akuma. And I can't let this boy Naruto go down that path either.'

As far as Sakura was concerned, that was all she needed to hear. If it was something that let Naruto survive someone punching a hole through his chest (And why in the world had she never heard of this from him before then either?) it was a good thing. And she could also see why he had been hiding it. Some things were just too strange to freely share with others.

Before she could apologize for how she acted the other day about him not telling her or Karin about the Kyuubi, Ryu spoke up though, "Naruto…you shouldn't just accept such a curse that sits within your body." He knew that he himself wished every day that he could simply expel his own from within him, but all he could try to do was keep himself composed and never allow himself to become obsessed while in battle, "If you embrace it there will come a time where you will hurt someone you care about. Power like this is never something that comes casually."

A serious look came over Naruto's face as he stared down the world-class fighter without fear, "I used to see the Kyuubi as a curse. Having it inside of my body, just having it exist period made my life more difficult by a hundred times than it would have been without it. But that's not fair. It's a part of me, it always has been, and I accept it entirely."

'He accepts it?' The concept was foreign to Ryu who had seen what a person that embraced the pure malevolence inside himself would become in Akuma. To accept something that had the potential to turn one into a being that was more beast than human? It was implausible.

Naruto stood up from where he had been sitting and leaned against the tree with his arm out as he continued speaking, "Ryu, you might want to just ignore the Satsui no Hadou inside of you, but that's not the way I am. Ignoring something like that doesn't make you a stronger person than if you tried using it just because it's bad." He made a fist and struck the tree solidly, "Even if I don't choose to take the Kyuubi's chakra, it's still there inside me. It's still a living thing like me, and denying its existence as the only person that can acknowledge it… would be worse than ending its existence altogether. My power is an actual creature, and I can't and won't just refuse to accept it."

That was merely a cruelty that he wouldn't give even a being like the Kyuubi. To pretend as if it didn't exist; as a living, thinking individual. It would be the same as what the villagers did to him as a child. It would actually be worse since there would be no one else at all.

And with that mindset Naruto made a conscientious decision, '…I'm sorry.' He thought loudly so that the Kyuubi wouldn't be able to miss what he had just done. He had just chosen to apologize, 'I'm sorry. Ever since day one when I found out about you I've been treating you like some burden. Even if you're stuck inside of me, and even if you may have changed the entire way my life has gone so far… we're in this together. You can keep on hating me, I can't make you stop doing that, but I just want you to know that in the end we're all alone in this world together.'

'You are my comrade from Konoha. The only one I have.'

Aside from a gruff snort that echoed inside of his head, Naruto got no response from the great chakra beast. He never really expected one, but he got what he needed to say off of his chest and he intended to do right by those words no matter what it took in the end.

"**No matter what humans say it always belies what they really mean. You won't be any different Naruto. You have too much hate in your heart that you refuse to accept to ever begin to earn my trust. And you say that you 'accept' me? There are several laughable examples to put up against this."**

'I said I accepted you, I never said I liked you. You hate me and want me out of the way? Well I still don't trust you either. I can try though, and I'm going to. So you can be all snarky and huffy, but I'm telling you what's going to happen here.'

Naruto had to snap out of his conversation that couldn't have lasted any longer than a second in the real world when Sakura shook his shoulder after noticing his glazed look from where she had been sitting, "Naruto are you alright?"

"Yeah." He replied with a small smile, "It's just the Kyuubi. I can talk to it from time to time when it wants to. It's been doing that a lot more over the last few months."

From where Ryu was sitting it seemed like he had made a mistake when it came to labeling Naruto's power. Unlike himself he didn't seem alarmed by what lay within him. Naruto even seemed familiar with it to an extent. It was cognizant and could converse with him from within which meant that _it _had some kind of control. The Satsui no Hadou within himself… he had no semblance of control over it. If he let it take over he would change right down to the fundamental qualities that made him who he was.

But the most incredible thing about it was that Naruto seemed to recognize the right of this aspect of himself to exist, no matter its derivation or true intent within him. Instead of fearing it or what it could represent for himself in the future he was merely content with it resting within him. As far as the boy knew there was nothing he could do about it other than live, and Naruto seemed oddly content with this.

"I want to fight you Naruto."

That got both Naruto and Sakura to recoil in surprise at the sudden request from Ryu and the very stern expression on his face as he said this, "W-What? Why do you want to fight me? Sakura-chan is the one that wants to spar with you to see if you think she's gotten stronger. Why don't you fight her?"

Ryu stood up from the ground and tightened his black belt around his waist as well as his red headband on his head, "Naruto you and I both have very dark and powerful energies within us, energies that have the potential to hurt many, many people… maybe even kill them if we are to let our control and focus slip during duress. However our philosophies on how to deal with these things are markedly different. I simply want to see which of the two of us are correct in our approach."

"Hey, just because we do things differently doesn't mean one of us is right or wrong." Naruto insisted in return as he didn't even pretend to know what Ryu's own problems with his power happened to be. All he could do was speak from his own experiences with the Kyuubi, "A fight wouldn't prove that anyway. I don't even have a reason to fight you, I won't get anything out of it."

A hand was then placed on his shoulder by Sakura, "Naruto… you should just fight Ryu. For some reason I think this is important to him. More important than some silly spar with me. I… I think you're the only person he's met since the last time I saw him that could give him some clarity with the problem he was having." She turned to Ryu and spoke to him, "This Satsui no Hadou that you were talking about… this is what you were so stressed out about two years ago isn't it?"

It wasn't something he wished to admit, as the less people affected in any way by his power the better, but still Sakura hit the nail on the head. Ryu was forced to nod in confirmation, "To see someone else that isn't letting such a thing consume them in darkness like another I've met, but someone like Naruto who seems to be at peace… I want to understand how he can feel that way and the answer lies in the heart of battle."

'When two powerful people cross fists… they don't need words to understand one another.' This thought was in Naruto's mind from his final battle against Sasuke prior to his deposition into this world. And here he could see where Ryu was coming from. Nothing either of them could say would work in this instance. They needed to express themselves through actions, and the most straightforward way to do that was to engage in battle.

"Alright…" Naruto eventually conceded, taking off the top to his school uniform to keep it from getting ruined as he also rolled up his pant legs for a similar purpose, "I'll show you why I'm the way I am about this Ryu. So pay attention because you're only gonna see it once!"

Ryu slid into his trademark fighting stance, letting a ghost of a smile pass over his face before a stoic look of focus took its place in preparation for the forthcoming fight against Naruto, "Of course."

Sakura let herself push down the feelings of being set aside when she came to a realization, 'Even if I have gotten stronger, Naruto is infinitely more confident than I am.' Here she had been asking for a mere spar when Naruto saw nothing wrong with taking on the most powerful fighting champion in Japan. He somehow saw himself as something of an equal when Sakura still saw herself as beneath Ryu, 'A fight against him the way I am now… it still wouldn't have proven anything at all.'

The thought of a fight between herself and Ryu made her heart pump faster, faster than it usually would have for a street fight against anyone she could have possibly faced. She would not have been even-tempered and level-headed. But Naruto looked just as relaxed as he would have looked preparing to go against anyone else. It was as if he wasn't even fighting someone incredible like Ryu, it looked the same as if he were about to face off with local thug Kazama Daigo, as if he never felt out of his element at all.

'No screwing around here!' Naruto thought to himself as three clones popped into existence at his side and immediately engaged Ryu directly to test his capabilities. All Naruto really knew about him was that Sakura had based her own fighting style on his, and while that gave him some insight into what he could expect, it still never hurt to send in the decoys first.

He was kind of right when it came to Ryu's skills. He fought a style that was cleaner than Sakura's but with similar habits, only he had the size and strength to impose his will quicker. His kicks came with more of a snap than Sakura's did as evident from a spin kick that would have broken his jaw had it not been a clone to take the hit. Right out of the kick he immediately was able to jump away from a second clone's dive at his legs.

Not a bit of wasted motion to capitalize on if one was in Naruto's corner to win the fight.

Ryu landed on the diving clone with one knee that dispelled it and looked up to see the last one preparing a Rasengan to attack with, but Ryu stood right up from his kneeling position and lashed out in kind with his signature attack, "Hadoken (Surge Fist)!"

Unlike Sakura's Hadoken, Ryu's was controlled and compact to the size of his head, where Sakura's would usually be larger due to her habit of charging it. Where Sakura would charge her Hadoken before firing it, Ryu's release time was almost instant. And where even Sakura's least charged Hadoken would only go so far before dissipating, Ryu's would not.

There was also the fact that he could also aim it and no speed was sacrificed whatsoever.

And Naruto's clone felt the pain.

But as Ryu was quick to discover, taking one's attention off of Naruto to deal with his clones could be a costly mistake of its own. The man's eyes widened when he realized that Naruto was no longer anywhere in sight. Not under the tree where he was standing when the fight began, or anywhere that he could see. The only other person in the backyard with him was Sakura who was still looking intently at the battle, though she also seemed confused about Naruto's whereabouts.

Remembering what the rumors and reports on Naruto said when it came to his own fancying as a ninja, Ryu was inclined to believe that information as his eyes darted about and he moved himself closer to the fence of Sakura's yard to take away an avenue of attack from Naruto, forcing him to come at him from the front.

Although as he moved by Sakura he didn't notice the very un-Sakura like smirk that adorned her features when he moved past her and gave her his back.

'Sakura' quickly leapt at Ryu's back intending to render him unconscious with a single strike to the head or neck, but Ryu's reaction time was well honed from his entire life being trained in his fighting style by his deceased master.

The strike was slipped and Ryu threw his attacker over his shoulder in a judo toss that hurled his adversary at the wooden wall. As the body made contact it disappeared in a puff of smoke just like Naruto's clones from before.

Unknown to Ryu though, Naruto was hiding with the real Sakura held close to him, a hand over her mouth to keep her from crying out when he suddenly snatched her up from her original place where his Henged clone had stood in at. Both of them were hiding over the side of the roof of Sakura's home that was unable to be seen from Ryu's angle in the backyard as Naruto inwardly cursed at his clone's failed sneak attack, 'Damn! I was really hoping he wouldn't have good instincts like that.'

Naruto then had to choke back a cry of pain as by now Sakura had gotten more than tired of Naruto holding his hand over her mouth and had opted to bite his finger to get him to let go, "Gah!" He hissed in a whisper as he shook out his bitten hand, "Why?"

"Because licking the palm of your hand didn't work." Sakura defended before pointing to where Ryu was, "Now go fight him already. He's going to think you ran away."

"I don't retreat, I just withdraw from combat tactically, dattebayo." Naruto stated proudly before sticking his thumb into his own chest, "This is my house-."

"No, this is _my_ house."

"Whatever. Like I was saying, -This is my house and I don't run from anybody." Naruto boasted, seeming to gain more confidence the longer he was allowed to talk, "Hell, I'll be David, and Ryu can be my Goliath… and my slingshot is the almighty power of Uzumaki Naruto's pure, concentrated awesome!"

"There you are!"

Naruto cringed when he realized that he had stood up dramatically to pose with his arm and a finger towards the sky during his monologue to Sakura that had gotten progressively louder. Without missing a beat, Ryu sprang onto Sakura's rooftop as well and began engaging Naruto with hand-to-hand.

Both male fighters traded punches, blocks, and parries until Ryu chose to go low and sweep at Naruto's legs. It was a pattern that Naruto was too used to by way of Sakura's own usage of the move. Thus he had already established a counter for it. Naruto hopped slightly over the kick, just enough for his feet to leave the ground as he quickly pumped his legs directly up and down to attack Ryu with a propelled ax kick that he barely got his arms over his head to block.

The force of the kick elicited a thump on the roof that got Sakura to cringe, remembering that these two were very physically strong and random bouts of property destruction were commonplace in fights involving Naruto anyway when he _didn't_ have a skilled opponent to deal with, "Okay, please get off my roof now before you two cave it in!"

Naruto didn't need to be told twice, because if the roof broke he would obviously be the one fixing it for free, and as the more nimble of the two currently fighting competitors he leapt off of Sakura's roof and landed on the tall wooden wall that fenced off her family's backyard property which was the unofficial border for the fight to take place within. He would not fall back any further than that point.

The two stared each other down before both of them slowly started crouching down in their prospective positions, planning on jumping at each other directly in order to attack, and they would have had they not been interrupted by a pan being thrown and connecting off of Naruto's head, knocking him off of the wooden wall like a yowling stray cat in the dead of night.

"No fighting in my yard!" Sakura's mother demanded, glaring at where she had seen Naruto fall from before walking outside and turning her heated gaze to Ryu, brandishing another piece of cookware to throw his was should he refuse to comply, "Naruto's supposed to know that much since he and Sakura keep tearing this place apart, but I expected better from an adult Ryu-san."

A sheepish-looking Ryu held his hands up defensively and along with Sakura they both jumped down from the roof while Naruto clawed his way back over the fence. The fight was over… for now at least.

"This is the second time someone made me fall over this thing in the last thirty minutes…" Naruto grumbled, holding on to Sakura's mother's pan as well as he looked at her and blinked, "How'd you even hit me with this thing? I was all hyper aware from the fight and you hit me with a pan? Ow…"

He was a trained killer and some housewife hit him with a pan. That was a career killer if anyone else ever found out about that one, and he didn't even know how she did it. If he had a mother he'd probably know why, but for now it was a mystery.

"My pan hones in on misbehaving children Naruto." Sakura's mother warned him, giving him an evil glance that got him to duck back down behind the wall before she spared Ryu and Sakura an equally chilling look, "Do not do any of your little street fighting matches around my home." She warned as she went back inside, "…The chances of property damage are too high."

XxX

(Later That Evening – Naruto's Apartment)

"Hah…" Sakura sighed in disappointment, "Not only did I _not_ get to show Ryu how much stronger I am now, you two didn't even get to finish your match." And it was just getting started too. What a letdown, "And he's already on his way to the airport to leave the country again."

Both Naruto and Sakura returned to his home after Ryu bid them farewell, telling Naruto that he would meet up with him again sometime soon so that they could finish their previous engagement against one another. From there the two just sat on his couch and watched some TV while the day's events rolled through their minds.

"You know…" Naruto started to say, at this point thoroughly bored by the crappy game show they were watching, "I was planning a trip, to search for something important. You want to come with?"

"What about school?" Sakura returned, because it was quite obvious he was not going to wait until the summer to go on said trip.

Instead of blurting out what he wished to say, which would have been a loud and vehement 'who cares?', Naruto quickly pasted together a sensible enough idea, "Well… I have clones. So I was just going to ask the teacher for the entire workload to do and all of the exams they had planned in front of her. You can cheat off of the homework my clones do Sakura-chan."

To be quite honest it was tempting. Very tempting, "Are you sure?" Sakura asked. Even though she admittedly wanted to be more involved with her best friend and his personal affairs, she was balancing the positives and negatives of choosing to get involved in one of Naruto's misadventures. Even the domestic ones involved lots of violence and trouble. This one was going to be international.

It was kind of scary to think about Naruto globetrotting.

"Yeah! Definitely!" Naruto exclaimed, jumping up out of his seat to stand in front of the TV to ensure he kept her attention, "Sakura-chan, this is why I've been saving so much money for all of these years. I've been waiting until I had enough to go and do something like this. I've got enough to fund a trip twenty times over now! Karin's money and the tournament winnings we split put me over the top, so put some of your tournament money to use and come with me! You know you want to."

"Well…" It was a seriously tempting offer. And Sakura did have plenty of money from not only the C9 Grand Ace Tournament, but also from what she had won from Karin's little tournament over a year and a half ago, "I don't know."

Oh Naruto knew she wanted to go, it was all over her face and she was just finding reasons in her head not to go at this point. So all he had to do was push her over the top, and he had two ways of doing that. The most fun version being the one that would probably rile her up, which was the one he chose to go with, "Okay, that's alright. Well I'm pretty sure if I tell Karin what I'm doing she'll want to go with me. And hey, I won't have to pay for anything that way."

"I'm going."

"*laughs* I knew you would. I'm still telling Karin though."

"Please don't."

"Boss lady needs to know what I'm doing. Sorry."

"You don't sound sorry."

"That's because I'm not."

"…I swear I hate you sometimes."

"Aw… but I love you _all_ the time Sakura-chan."

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Naruto's Revenge<span>

(Sometime Later After Meeting Ryu)

After school had let out for the day, Naruto had been called out to one of his usual hangout places; the arcade. His intention was to blow off some steam, either by way of abusing the video game systems or by physically abusing some of the delinquents that would oftentimes pick fights with him in the downtown Aohura City area because of who he was.

The reason he needed to blow off some steam was also right there with him, finding no reason to cut her fun short to go home so quickly. Thus Ibuki was standing behind Naruto as he did his best to ignore her, instead focusing on a giant destructive robot game based on Gundam.

He wished he had a giant robot to step on someone very close to him at the moment, but alas… the technology did not exist.

Damn it, he missed being able to summon Gamabunta. Nothing says stop picking with me like a gigantic toad with a pipe and a tanto.

"Naruto, you still have some glitter in your hair." Ibuki commented, mussing with his spiky locks with a bit of a laugh as he steadily tried to ignore her. She had to say, his patience was better than she had expected it to be because she had been lording his springing of her trap, "Maybe you'll get it all out if you shave your head?"

This continued for a few minutes until Naruto received a cell phone call on his personal phone that wound up with him losing his last life and ending the game. Just as well because whatever the short conversation was about prompted him to immediately leave the arcade with an at ease look on his face.

Ibuki followed him out and walked alongside him, wondering just what happened over the course of a few seconds to change Naruto's mood so well, "What's going on? You're being too quiet." A quiet Naruto was never a good Naruto for those around him. The louder he was, the safer the general populace would be. This was common knowledge.

"I don't have anything to say Ibuki." Naruto replied in a calmly chipper manner. He stopped to pay for a newspaper and skimmed through the pages as he kept walking.

She opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment her cell phone went off to which she quickly answered pleasantly, "Hello?"

"_Marry me!"_

Ibuki recoiled away from the phone in surprise and Naruto started snickering as they continued to walk. The kunoichi quickly regained her composure and decided to end the conversation there, "Okay crazy guy… whatever you say. Please don't call this number again or I'll find you and hurt you." With that she ended the call, but just like that another call went through to her, "*sigh* Hello?"

"_Uh, hey there. Your voice is just as pretty as I thought it would be. So you're single aren't you?"_

Without a word and with a twitching eye, Ibuki ended that call as well and noticed that Naruto was still trying as hard as he could to hold back his laughter, "What did you do?" She asked him in a deadpan tone of voice. In response all Naruto did was point directly up at a billboard that they were passing by, something she usually ignored. Not today though, as her eyes widened and her jaw dropped, "Oh, you are just…some kind of evil."

On the billboard was a blown up picture of Ibuki that had been taken during gym in school during the day that they were doing aerobics, with her in a tight white shirt and small tight red shorts. Right there on the billboard was her cell phone number and for further enticement, as if the picture were not enough to ensure that some creepy random people would be calling her, her measurements of 32-22-32 sat there for the world to burn to memory if they so chose.

"Oh stop fussing." Naruto said, chuckling freely at this point at the deep red blush on her face as she continued to walk with him down the street. He went through his own phone to the pictures and showed her another one, "I was nice… I could have used this picture instead." If Ibuki's blush had been deep before, by this point it was atomic-red, "It's my favorite though. No one else is seeing this one." He quipped before cackling and jumping off of surfaces to take to the rooftops in order to beat a hasty retreat in case she was angry with him.

"You're gonna want to change your number now! Later Ibuki!"

As far as Naruto was concerned he had gotten her back in a major way. Part of him dreaded just what would be next from his fellow ninja in retaliation for this stunt, but the other part of him just wanted to bask in the glowing high of his temporary victory and hope that he was not about to catch a well-deserved level-5 angry female beatdown.

Chasing after Naruto to try and administer a righteous beating was not on her mind however.

The first thought that was running through Ibuki's head happened to be her wondering how in the hell he got her measurements in the first place. And her second question was something a bit more personal, "He said the other picture was his favorite… does that mean he thinks I'm attractive?"

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Ryu  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 25 (July 21)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'10/176 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> O  
><span>Likes:<span> General martial arts, grapes, mizuyokan, meatloaf, pushups, helping people with problems.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Spiders, materialistic people, ridiculous things, becoming evil.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Hitchhiking, sleeping anywhere.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Akuma, Sagat, E. Honda (friendly), Sakura Kasugano (friendly), Ken Masters (friendly), Naruto Uzumaki (friendly)  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Martial art rooted in Ansatsuken.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Hadoken (Surge Fist), Shoryuuken (Rising Dragon Fist), Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (Tornado Whirlwind Leg).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Shinkuu Hadoken (Vacuum Surge Fist), Metsu Hadoken (Destroying Surge Fist), Metsu Shoryuuken (Destroying Rising Dragon Fist).  
><span>Background:<span> A humble, silent, serious individual, Ryu was orphaned as a young child with no memory of his parents. He was adopted and raised by a man named Gouken in a secluded dojo where he was also trained in the martial arts. He is a friendly if not aloof young man dedicated to mastering his fighting style, driven by a desire to be the very best no matter the cost. At the age of 23, Ryu began journeying around the world to test and hone his skills against the greatest fighters in the world which led to him entering and winning the World Warrior Tournament hosted by Sagat. This episode, in a near catastrophic episode of defeat, led to Ryu first awakening the dark and powerful Satsui no Hadou when he became enraged by his own desire to win and be the strongest in order to eke out the victory in the end. He continues to travel and train, trying to find some way to understand and eventually rid himself of the influence of the Satsui no Hadou, which has the potential to strip his very humanity away from him for the sake of power and being the strongest.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter complete. I'm really getting into this story. I didn't even think I'd like writing it nearly as much as I do. What a pleasant surprise.<strong>

**And soon there will be some intercontinental hijinks, further plot development, and more character introductions galore. And what's this? Naruto accepts the Kyuubi as an necessary part of himself that he will always have. **

**True, at the moment it's only because of the fact that truthfully they are the only thing from their own world that they have. Naruto earnestly finds himself sickened by the fact that he had done the Kyuubi the same disservice that had been done to him as a child, only worse, and the Kyuubi still detests Naruto's very existence, but Rome was not built in a day. I'm trying to go for some dynamic relationship building here people!**

**Ryu has an interest of his own in Naruto due to the fact that Naruto's take on his own inner turmoil is far different from his own personal hatred of the evil of the Satsui no Hadou (more on that later for those that know nothing of it) and what it could turn him into if he allows it to consume him.**

**As a quick oversight though, the Satsui no Hadou is a power that can only be triggered when a special and powerful fighter trained in Ryu's kind of style is so consumed with victory and being the best, enraged at the very prospect of defeat, that they are actually willing to massacre a foe in cold blood without rightful reason to win a fight.**

**Hence why Akuma is… well, Akuma.**

**But enough about that, I'm out of here. When I get back later from training I'll work on some other stories and maybe with a pair of sleepless nights I'll come up with a chapter of a different story by the end of the weekend. Maybe. **

**Later, Kenchi out.**


	11. Hope For the Best

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I have several different kinds of punching bags in my house with headshots of Kishimoto and various other creators of things I don't own taped to the fronts of them so that I never forget this and can vent in some sort of way.

The scary thing is that this statement is entirely within the realm of possibility. It's hard to tell if I'm joking or being serious.

**Chapter 11: Hope For the Best**

* * *

><p>With a map sprawled out upon a great table, Naruto began marking it up fervently with a huge grin on his face as he did so, "Alright, I know geography isn't everyone here's strongest subject, but check this out." He said as he began to show the start of his work in progress of planning out his massive trip.<p>

On this day, Naruto, Sakura, and Ibuki went over to the home of Naruto's benefactor Karin so that he could tell her his plan that he would be enacting at the soonest convenience to his person. Batsu eventually joined the party as well since he wanted to see if Naruto was really going through with such a crazy idea.

He also used this time as a platform to tell his closest friends about the secret within him.

Now either they didn't grasp the brevity of just what the Kyuubi represented (And how could they? It had never attacked their homes) or they didn't understand that it was much more than just a freaky orange power boost, but for the most part other than a few strange looks until it was clear that he was being quite serious, Naruto's friends did not really push the issue much further than that. Maybe they didn't believe him, and it was admittedly very farfetched for what was even considered extraordinary in this world, but it was left at that.

"It's funny that you're talking about geography not being everyone here's strongest subject…" Batsu remarked as he sat back lazily in his chair, "Do you even have any strong subjects… and gym doesn't count." He found a small measure of victory in Naruto's momentary glare before he ignored him in favor of the map.

Sakura was looking over the places on the map where Naruto happened to be circling and seemed to get a little excited herself at how energetic he seemed to be about this, even by his standards, "Actually, Naruto's good at history and geography for some reason. It's the only class he doesn't blatantly cheat in."

Mostly because he had been planning out how this trip was going to go for the better part of four years. How was he going to go around in a strange world to look for something when he didn't know the first thing about it? Luckily for Naruto it didn't require him to study constantly. General world history and geography was something pretty easy to retain. No wonder Iruka-sensei always bitched him out when he failed it. All he had to remember was that this dead guy did something relatively interesting at some place during this numbered year.

And since most of history was just people kicking the hell out of each other it made it interesting. Why didn't he start learning this crap in the Academy in Konoha? Could he have acted like he was smart too if he had done that?

Ibuki, still in school clothes as she detested wearing her ninja garb, peeked over Naruto's shoulder as he was busy labeling and designating which places he would travel to all along the world map, "Wow… do you even know how to speak the languages in half of these countries Naruto?"

"I can speak English." Naruto said with a shrug, "Anyone I need to talk to would probably know it, right? I can speak some Mandarin too for when I go to Hong Kong."

"How much?" The nosy kunoichi asked with a sly grin on her face as she rested her chin on Naruto's shoulder to keep looking over the map a bit more comfortably.

"Enough to get me out of jail." He replied before taking a moment to think about it, "Or get me thrown into jail… it's not much of a difference really." He knew enough to know when he was in trouble and in Naruto's mind that was all that anyone needed to learn of any language. Not exactly the best for international travel, but then again how much did he really know about that? In the Elemental Nations everyone spoke the same language.

Sakura grabbed for the map and scanned over it before asking the question that everyone had neglected to comment on since learning of the trip in the first place, "Naruto why are you even going on the trip? There's got to be a real reason you're doing this."

"I told you already that I'm looking for something." Naruto's answer didn't seem to please Sakura as she narrowed her eyes at him and sternly crossed her arms over his chest, "One secret at a time… because you really won't believe this one." He grumbled before rolling his eyes, "If you're going with me like you say you are then you'll find out what I'm going for when I find it, so just chill out."

Well that was enough to accept for the moment. He was right. She w_as_ going, so that meant that she was going to find out what about this she needed to know. She could be patient until the trip started. Naruto's secrets weren't something that one could just simply comprehend easily if the Kyuubi revelation had been any indication, "So who else is going besides you and me?"

"I can't…" Ibuki sighed desperately, "Sanjou-sensei and master don't even like me coming to school. I'll ask, but there's no way I can get them to let me go all over the place for something that's not a mission." She said, dejectedly setting her chin on Naruto's shoulder and setting the side of her head against his.

A tick mark formed on Sakura's head at the rather intimate gesture that Naruto obviously didn't comprehend as such, but it wasn't any of her business in the end. Naruto was basically an adult, having lived alone for as long as she knew him, and he could do what he wanted… or have happen to him whatever may come his way.

But as Naruto was used to Ibuki's antics by now and saw nothing strange or really intimate about how close the two of them were since he had been doing things akin to that with Sakura for four years, he simply let it be and offered a helpful solution, "Well, maybe you can let me talk to them. There's a chance I can talk them into letting you go."

"You aren't allowed in my village Naruto…" Ibuki deadpanned in return, cheek still sitting against his in a familiar manner despite her tone, "They let you go scot free last time because you really don't know where it is. I had to blindfold your clone when I took him there to stand in for me during our date. If I hadn't they would have started sending assassins after you or would have made me do it myself." She got no response from him and figured that he was thinking about something until she turned her head and found that instead of Naruto her cheek was sitting against the cheek of a scarecrow, as Naruto had moved all the way across the table next to Sakura, "Oh come on!"

Naruto was leaning against Sakura, his head on her shoulder with his eyes wide while she had him in a hug and was patting his shoulder, "She would have turned it down right? Ibuki wouldn't accept a job to kill me, right?"

For some reason the involuntary twitch in Ibuki's eye made it hard for Sakura to fight down the smirk that her feminine instincts told her happened to be appropriate for her victory as a woman when Naruto chose to come to her for some semblance of safety and comfort.

There was also an unexplainable need within her to fan the flames of Naruto's mounting paranoia, "It's okay Naruto. She wouldn't have said it if she would have accepted it… even though it sounds really suspicious to bring up. I mean, what do _I_ know about it? Come to think of it, what would most ninja do in a similar situation?"

'Oh Sakura-chan…' Ibuki thought with a tick in her jaw at watching Naruto freak out even more in Sakura's grasp. Apparently despite not belonging to any village Naruto knew that a ninja that was a friend would still kill him if the order was given to do so, 'That was just… so unfair. Playing on Naruto's background to get him away from me.' That wasn't even the hard-to-believe thing about it though since she would have done it too if given the opportunity, 'Wait! She doesn't even like him that way!'

Yes, Sakura was aware that it was rather unfair to pull Naruto out of a situation she was uncomfortable with him being in, even if he himself had no problems with it. But it was her duty as his best friend to protect his innocence and screen any women that would endeavor to be with him. From personal time spent with Ibuki it was evident that she was a little boy-crazy, concerning herself often with cool, handsome guys in their conversations.

No… her best friend deserved someone that could find something more substantial in him than that, even though the number of women in the world that could deal with the particular brand of insanity that Naruto's life brought forth had to be under one-hundred in a full population of over six billion.

Besides, he was like a puppy or something. Sakura could easily see why Ibuki was glaring daggers at her due to the fact that she had 'rescued' Naruto from her tender mercies only for him to find himself in Sakura's own.

But the fact of the matter was that she had been doing this stuff with him for years and Ibuki wasn't going to take her spot in the physical comfort department without a fight. And damn that made it sound like Naruto was her boyfriend. So with that, she let him go so that he could get back to planning his trip.

Meanwhile Batsu just took notice of the whole scene that in real-time couldn't have taken any longer than thirty seconds and determined to slap Naruto across the head later and not tell him why. If he was that thick in the head an explanation wouldn't have gotten through anyway, "…Well I'm definitely going. How many times in someone's life do they get a chance to go all over the place and raise hell?"

"No hell's going to be raised." Naruto replied to his closest male friend, "I told you, I'm just going around to look for something a bit out of the norm. Why do you think that would that end up with any trouble?"

"Because it's you that's doing it." Batsu asserted with a raised eyebrow. Once again, he figured that Naruto should have realized this by now, "Getting on the first fucking flight with you out of the country is probably gonna be a story I can tell my grandchildren one day."

Nothing he did was simple or easy, even chores and everyday errands. Case in point; Karin had paid him for a mission to retrieve her dry cleaning a number of months ago. It ended with an entire block of delinquent gangsters that figured they had a vulnerable Naruto to take advantage of being lain to waste in the streets and on the sidewalks, and a full wing of the local hospital being filled.

How did people learn of this? The local evening news of course… because they were live and on the scene as it was happening.

Naruto opened his mouth to respond and begin an argument about the fact that he was exaggerating and that there wasn't enough evidence to suggest that he was right about what he was saying (an argument that he would have lost within three minutes), when a loud shout echoed out from another room from deep within the corridors of Karin's Aohura City residence.

"THAT IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE! WHO DO THIS LOT THINK THEY ARE TRYING TO MAKE DEMANDS OF? I WILL TAKE THEIR HEADS MYSELF!"

This was followed by the loud sounds of stomping that got ever closer and more intense as Karin returned to the room with all of the others. Sakura by this point had put as much distance between herself and the doorway to the room as possible in case Karin was in the need to vent whatever frustrations she had on the person she deemed as her chief rival; which was Sakura.

However Karin just stomped past the room and for the second that she was visible in a fuming blur of red and blonde had a very heated look on her face. It was the first time that any of them had legitimately seen her angry before. There were times when she had been mildly agitated by the things going on around her, slightly irritated, but never angry.

It didn't take much longer than that for her skinny, glasses-wearing steward Shibazaki to enter the room and adjust his glasses before addressing the teens, "It seems that Kanzuki-sama is suffering some confidential familial matters. I'm afraid I will have to ask you all to leave. It's a personal matter that she wishes to deal with on her own."

The loud series of crashes from deeper within the residence more than likely indicated that this would have been the best option available for those that were visiting.

XxX

Karin's personal training room, complete with combat droids to practice fighting enemies, a large screen to watch available footage on certain fighters, and all sorts of other state-of-the-art equipment currently happened to be inhabited by the owner of these things looking to blow off some steam in a semi-productive manner.

The Kanzuki Dynasty heiress was busy kicking away at a very advanced heavy bag with the density of a person suspended between the floor and the ceiling with a memory material that would stay indented with the impact of her last kick until she attacked it again, a method of measuring the damage that she could inflict.

A whistle caught her attention and kept her from continuing to do her best to wreck her own equipment with brute force, "I guess you do train your butt off even if you are waiting on me to be the best fighter in the world."

"I would like you to leave Naruto-san." Karin said stiffly before she got right back to kicking the bag once more, "I am quite certain that this is not the mood one would wish to have me in for a social gathering."

From elsewhere in the room where Naruto was pretty impressed at the fact that Karin could seemingly lift three times her own body weight as evident by the weights still on the bar from her last use. He could only imagine what her leg strength just so happened to be, because if that bag was supposed to simulate the makeup of a human body it looked like she'd be bruising spines with the kicks she was throwing from the front.

"Yeah, well you're not going to get out of that mood unless you vent." Naruto commented to her, moving past her numerous strength training devices to walk closer to her and her striking technique tools, "Trust me, I know about being mad. And kicking that bag isn't going to do it unless it's the thing you're mad at and you can make it scream in pain."

Karin stopped kicking and turned around, radiating anger for some reason, but since Naruto didn't feel killing intent it wasn't directed at him… yet, "Am I to understand that you are volunteering for this service?"

Naruto took a step back and held his hands up, "I was just thinking something along the lines of a light spar. Just some going-through-the-motions stuff, and you can tell me what's wrong. I'll listen." He noticed her glowering darkly at him and added something, Uh we _are_ friends, right?"

Karin's brown eyes kept up a glare for a moment before she huffed and relented, looking away as she flipped her blonde curls over her shoulder, "Yes… I suppose we are. And this is what friends are for are they not? To listen to the problems of others?" Naruto grinned and nodded in return, getting her to motion for him to follow her to a sparring ring where she usually fought very expensive combat droids to test her technique in actual combat, "Very well. I guess we can go slowly through our kata as I speak."

Both of them fell into fighting stances within reach of the other and slowly began working through the choreographed motions of their respective moves, both defensively and offensively, "So." Naruto started as Karin practiced the motions of a combination of hers while Naruto made the moves to defend technically in return, "Tell me what's wrong. I might be able to help you out you know."

"You think that you can assist me?" Karin asked in a disbelieving tone of voice as she stopped her offensive kata and switched to a defensive one in return, "And what in the world makes you believe that you can help?"

"Because I'm a ninja with superpowers that does weird stuff for money."

"Oh yes. Of course."

The girl seemed honestly embarrassed that she had seemed to forget about that fact and seemed to parlay this by badly botching her following martial arts motions, getting a few snickers out of Naruto until a rather sharp jab indicated that she was still not in the frame of mind to be joked around with. Hence she continued the explanation of her woes, "My family is being threatened. There is an organization known as Shadaloo that is requesting many unreasonable demands from my father's resources or else."

"Or else what?" Naruto asked, wondering just what this 'Shadaloo' group figured they could do to a family that could buy an entire country just for the standing armed force in it. In other words threats were not the wisest course of action when it came to persuading the Kanzuki Dynasty.

"They plan on dealing great damage to my family's holdings." Karin had a pronounced frown on her face as she kept working out her stress and aggressions in a reserved manner with Naruto, "They have already done something to send a message, infiltrating and sabotaging the assets to one of my father's more prevalent businesses based out of Tokyo. It is going bankrupt… and it will cost us millions. It was merely a warning though."

Naruto nodded and tested to see how much of a spot this held in her mind, quickly shifting from a high attack to a low sweeping kick that would have knocked her down had they been fighting at a higher speed. Karin acknowledged her lack of attentiveness and they reset themselves to go again, "So is your dad going to play ball?"

"Of course not." Karin replied with a bit of pride, "As if the Kanzuki Family would acquiesce to the demands of a group of thugs and criminals too worthless to make their own fortune in this world. It is merely the audacity of these nothings that incenses me so greatly." The strength and intent behind her attacks seemed to ramp up slightly, increasing the pace a bit as she began to think about it, "I want to find these fools and punish them for their insolence."

"You can come with me on my trip."

Hearing that got Karin to slip and actually punch Naruto in the face for real, getting him to clutch at his nose and pat it down for blood. Flinching as this was not Karin's aim whatsoever, she fell out of her stance and decided to draw attention away from what had just happened, "You… you are serious about that offer, aren't you?"

"Yeah." Naruto said, tilting his head back as he continued to hold his nose, "You might as well. I'm going all over the place. I'm pretty sure with your connections you can dredge something up somewhere about these Shadaloo people if you're really looking for a way to get them off of your family's back."

As she had been taught from childhood to do whenever presented with a purely beneficial offer from someone, Karin observed Naruto closely for any sign of deceit or ulterior motive in inviting her along only to find nothing, 'Of course I found nothing. Naruto-san is an earnest figure.'

Too earnest to be a mercenary ninja, but there was something nice about that.

"If you are indeed offering me such a thing then what kind of friend would I be to decline?" Karin said with a secure and prim look returned in full to her face and body language, "If I did indeed refuse to accompany you it would be quite clear that you would be suffering a supreme lack of worthwhile companionship."

Naruto deadpanned a look at her as by then the Kyuubi had long since stopped the bleeding from his nose, "…Sakura-chan and Batsu were going to go even if you didn't."

"I stand by my previous observation."

"Of course you do…"

XxX

(Sometime Later – Tamagawa Minami High School)

"Commander Bison we are in position to begin the operation." A female's voice stated in an almost robotic manner with a German accent. In a place overlooking much of the nearby high school's campus a pair of young women were observing the vicinity, one with chin-length brown hair through a pair of binoculars while the other with short orange hair was in short-wave contact with their superior, "Preparing to secure high-priority target now."

The pair of attractive young women both wore tight-fitting black bodysuits that covered their entire bodies and over them wore tight black long-sleeved, legless turtleneck leotards with shoulder pads, black military caps, and short yellow ties along with pairs of red mechanical-looking gauntlets that went up to their elbows, brown bands around their left biceps, and black boots.

"_Juni. You and Juli are only meant to procure the target… alive. I require her alive. _Do not_ kill her or allow her to die or the mission is a failure. This is why I have dispatched you two to take care of this instead of Killer Bee."_

"But you have still dispatched Killer Bee… in the same place Commander." Juni returned still in the same dull and lifeless tone of voice as before, "Would it not be better for us to assist her with her mission and have her assist us with ours thereafter?"

"_I'm amazed… *laughs* that even after the years of training and work put into you that you would still have an innate instinct to question my orders."_

"I apologize Commander Bison." Juni said given the first opportunity to do so, "I did not mean to speak out of turn to you. You clearly have reasons for such that I clearly cannot comprehend."

"_It is simple. From what Vega has told me, Killer Bee is the only one out of all of The Dolls that can stand against this opponent. Even if they were not busy keeping guard over me and I sent the other eleven of you to combat him together there would be a great chance that you would all be defeated were he to unleash the power that Vega spoke of him using. Killer Bee is superior to you all, thus she is the only one capable of combating this Uzumaki Naruto child."_

Juni merely nodded, not feeling offense or any other emotion at Bison's outright slight of the skills of her and her partner, "Understood. Are we cleared to begin?"

"_You are. Do not fail."_

The transmission ended and Juni turned towards her brown-haired partner Juli who looked at her and held up a detonator, "The charges were set earlier this morning and have been armed." She said in an equally emotionless German-accented voice, "Detonating." She then pressed the button on the detonator and both of them began to move from their vantage point towards the school.

XxX

It had been a week and Sakura still wasn't used to what had befallen her. Naruto seemed to be mostly okay with it, as did the rest of her friends but there was just something grinding her gears that she would simply have to get used to.

Apparently the earlier remark that had been made by Karin months ago to switch schools to Naruto's was not empty… because she was right there in their class. Right there in their class, right between the lot of them in herself, Naruto, Ibuki, and Kei, sitting at her own personal desk brought in and transported from class to class simply for her complete with comfortably cushioned seats and leisure compartments.

Oh, and the students seemed to be falling over themselves to listen to everything she said, whether they were in the same class, same grade, or not. As if she needed another servant there… because she had also brought her own in that department as well.

"I can't believe how absurd my luck is." Sakura said to herself during the second-to-last class of the day while busy doing bookwork, "I mean, how in the world do people that we've met outside of school manage to transfer here and make it into our class _inside of school_ without fail? First Ibuki-chan, now Kanzuki-san."

Ibuki looked up from her own work and smiled at Sakura before responding, "Well I just went to the principal and said that the only person I knew in the city was Naruto. He didn't really like that, but he said I was cute… so I took advantage of that."

'Dirty old man…' Sakura thought to herself with a roll of her eyes, "What's Kanzuki-san's excuse?"

Karin at least acted like a regular student as she was diligently doing her work until she noticed Sakura's question. At that point she merely smirked and made a hand motion of her thumb, index, and middle fingers rubbing together. The thump of Sakura's head off of her desk let the heiress know that her unspoken statement was understood, "Naruto could at least act like he cares." Sakura remarked, pointing behind herself to where Naruto was asleep, head down on the desk.

"That's not even Naruto." Kei explained much to Sakura's surprise, "Naruto hasn't been around since lunch. That's a clone. You can tell because during gym class it didn't play dodgeball. It acted like it was, but then slipped away while they were picking teams."

"He still does that?" Sakura commented, poking at the sleeping clone's head that was using a book as a pillow getting it to shift around but not to awaken, "Come on, he didn't even do his classwork in here today."

Ibuki raised a finger to get everyone else's attention before speaking, "Actually he did. He already had the answers somehow and then he went to sleep. You just can't see it because he's sleeping on it." He was probably drooling on it too, but points weren't taken away for a little drool, "How does he keep doing that? I have to cheat the old fashioned way." She then noticed the teacher delivering a sharp look her way and straightened her posture out, "I mean; I never cheat! I'm a model upstanding student that does not want to be kicked out of school sensei!"

A yawn came from Kei, the same as many of the students in the class who were doing the same as the long brown-haired girl set her own head on her desk and started shutting her eyes, "All I know is that he's making that look really good right now."

And in fact Naruto's sleeping did seem to be catching on with the rest of the class. Everyone started feeling drowsy inexplicably, even the teacher who had taken a seat at her desk, not able to stand anymore without risking falling out on the floor.

Something was wrong. But by then it was too late. No one that had the power to solve the problem could do so any longer. As amazing as the fighters of the class were, they were still human, and breathing in the gas that was being pumped into the building was enough to render them unconscious.

The entire school was dead silent due to the fact that the main ventilation system had been lined with charges set to release the gas into every room and hallway without fail; gas that put every single person that had breathed it in right to sleep where they sat or stood.

And a trio of figures made their way through the halls straight to the classroom where Naruto, Sakura, Karin, Ibuki, and Kei were. Juli and Juni walked into the classroom, looking around and making sure that there wasn't a single figure stirring before nodding to each other and proceeding to scan over the students, "Target identified." Juli stated as she walked over to Karin's unconscious form and hefted the girl over her shoulder, "Kanzuki Karin, direct heiress to the Kanzuki Zaibatsu."

Juni confirmed this in their target information that seemed to be accurate; the classroom and time on her schedule synched up, it was a girl that had the same appearance listed. Yes, this was the right person, "Mission complete. Move to extraction."

As the two girls exited the classroom they momentarily moved aside to allow a third young woman to enter as they were leaving.

This girl was blonde and wore her long hair in a pair of twin braids going down her back with a pair of bangs framing her face that had a thin scar on her left cheek. She wore red mechanical-looking gauntlets like the other Dolls Juni and Juli, but her uniform was different. Her tight long-sleeved, legless leotard was light blue in color instead of black, as was the military hat she wore on her head. Unlike the other two girls she wore no form fitting bodysuit underneath it, exposing her bare legs all the way to the top of her thighs which were painted with two diagonal blue lightning bolt patterns per leg. She had red gauntlets like the others and a similar band around her left bicep only it was grey instead of brown.

"Killer Bee." Juli said, gesturing into the classroom and pointing at the sleeping Naruto, "Your target is there. He doesn't seem very powerful."

The blonde girl in the special uniform, codenamed Killer Bee, walked calmly into the classroom as she approached the sleeping Naruto's desk, "Powerful or not… Commander Bison would not have sent me after him if he were not worth the resource." Not taking any chances she crept quietly towards Naruto's back even though he was sleeping before lunging towards him and quickly grabbing his head and neck to break it in one swift move, "Target termin-."

And then Naruto's body dispelled in a puff of smoke.

XxX

(Moments Ago – With Naruto – On the Roof of the School)

'Okay Kyuubi…' Naruto thought to himself, deciding that since he was skipping and wasn't really planning on doing anything other than skip class he would try to converse with the biju that made him special, 'Let's chat.' He thought aloud intentionally as he lay on the roof, staring up at the blue sky and the clouds, 'Come on. There's got to be something you want to say.'

"**Oh, and what would you like to talk about? Or what do you expect me to speak of? Maybe you would like to hear about the pattern that I figured the drips of water in the sewer of your mind. Sixteen years of drip… drip… drip, drip, drip… drip. Yes… I have so many topical things to talk to you about."**

A deadpan expression came over Naruto's face, but he kept his cool. He had to think of this from the Kyuubi's side of things. It had been imprisoned for over a decade and a half inside of his body, it obviously wouldn't want to be cordial to the 'warden' because he wouldn't have been if he had been in the same situation, 'Alright then. I'll start. We made it here four years ago and I can't remember what the hell did it. All I know is that it happened during the fight with Sasuke. Why can't I remember the exact points of the battle?'

It should have been something he could dredge up on command. Fighting Sasuke was the very last thing he did in the Elemental Nations before being sent to this world. You would think that one would easily remember something like that.

"**This is understandable. Your 'friend' set your body on fire and drove you headfirst off of a cliff into rocks before I chose to give you more power than usual to deal with the trauma done to your spine."** The Kyuubi had no qualms when it came to answering this at least, **"You were still aware of your goals in that battle, but your methods of achieving it became clouded due to the intensity of my chakra. You can remember bits and pieces as if they were blurs yes?"** Naruto nodded in the real world and then scowled at Kyuubi's next words, **"I can't see you nod from inside your body stupid."**

'So do you know how the whole thing ended? Because I can't for the life of me.' Naruto continued from his previous point, ignoring the Kyuubi's jab at his intelligence, 'I remember a freaky-looking Sasuke with wings or something sticking out of his back and then it gets all hazy.'

"…**You don't honestly just expect me to give you the answer so easily do you?"** Kyuubi chuckled as it could just feel the scowl forming on Naruto's face. Pushing this kid's buttons happened to be its only source of entertainment in its prison, **"Not when I get nothing out of it. Like I said; I'm not some tool to make your life easier, no matter what that insufferable bastard Yondaime Hokage would have liked to believe I could have been. You will get nothing from me for free unless I find some value in assisting you. And I see absolutely nothing worthwhile in telling you what you want to know right now."**

Naruto sucked his teeth, but figured there was nothing he could do about that. The ending to his little duel at the Valley of the End against Sasuke had been weighing on his mind for years as he never knew just how it had ended, 'Whatever.' He said to himself, loosely stroking the crystal necklace that sat underneath the dark blue uniform shirt he wore to school, 'So when we leave, which country do you think we should go to first to search for answers on how to maybe get home?'

"**Whichever country you would prefer to release me in."**

'Yeah… I don't think the North Pole or Antarctica are countries, and those are the only places I'd even consider letting you go if I was that crazy.'

Dark chuckles emitted from inside of Naruto once again, getting him to roll his eyes, **"You keep forgetting the fact that I don't want to go… 'home'. I like it here. No way to enslave me the way I was in the Elemental Nations… this would be a dream world for me if I were to finally get free."**

'I don't want you to be a slave, but I can't let you go.' Naruto thought with a frown. The Kyuubi really hated the people in the Elemental Nations, 'Well can you at least tell me why you don't want to go home so much? You sound like this problem of yours goes way before you were sealed inside of-.' He stopped when he felt the sensation of a sharp jolt in his neck. But nothing had happened to him directly, he was just lying down. It had to be his clone.

But that wasn't a playful attack from a friend. No friend would attack his neck hard enough to dispel a clone.

Getting up, Naruto felt a sinking sense of dread in his belly and ran towards the side of the building where the window to his classroom of that period was. With a practiced ease he contorted himself over the ledge and slid his way down the wall using chakra to keep from outright falling until he stopped himself with the ledge of the intended window he originally intended to observe through.

There he saw the entire classroom unconscious with one lone person standing over his desk, the smoke that signified the defeat of his Kage Bunshin still wafting up towards the ceiling. Casting a scrutinizing gaze on the person in the room he saw it was a girl. She was a rather shamelessly dressed girl in a blue leotard that exposed all of her legs, with blonde hair in two braids down her back. From the thin scar on her cheek she was definitely someone that had run into her touch of trouble in life for sure, and she had perhaps the coldest look in her blue/green eyes that he'd ever seen on a person.

Colder than even Orochimaru's who still held the title for scariest person that Naruto had ever met in his entire life. But at least Orochimaru's eyes showed life, however twisted the intent behind his gaze seemed to be. This girl, her eyes were dull and listless… like a doll's.

The two of them had something of a stare-off until she picked up the empty desk that had inhabited his dearly departed clone and threw it right at the window Naruto was crouching behind. Naruto managed to jump over it as the furniture crashed through the glass pane, allowing him quick entry where he stopped to stare at the girl that was standing in the middle of the classroom's rows of desks.

"Who are you supposed to be?" Naruto asked with narrowed eyes, only to see the girl set herself in a fighting stance, 'Ugh. Why does this crap keep happening to me?' Another assassin? Really? He didn't get this much trouble when he was actually a ninja, "Get out of my school and my town before you wind up getting your ass kicked. I don't like fighting girls, but most of them can kill me so I'm not holding back on you."

"The current standing mission of operative 'Killer Bee' is to kill Naruto Uzumaki." The girl said in English in a robotic, emotionless tone of voice, "Commander Bison's orders are not to be disavowed. You will die here and your body will be recovered to study the strange power within you. Running is useless."

Oh, so it was indeed an assassin after him. At least this one was better looking than the last person that tried to kill him, and she didn't have a stupid claw on her hand.

However she was also not one to play around either, because she came right towards him, weaving through the desks filled with the unconscious students to reach him and begin fighting him.

'Fast!' Gritting his teeth, Naruto leaned back out of the way of a swinging front kick aimed at his head that he couldn't believe this girl actually managed to get that high considering the difference in height between the two of them. That was some serious flexibility.

Before Naruto could lash out with a punch and retaliate, the girl used a hand-springing flip in conjunction with her first kick to evade Naruto's move by using the back of one of the slumbering students as a base to escape him with. He would do nothing that would harm anyone in this classroom, and while Killer Bee wouldn't kill them she was not above using them to assist her in this fight.

At this point, Naruto figured that she was just going to keep dancing and weaving in and out of the student body in order to keep him from attacking her to the best of his ability. As long as they fought in the classroom he was screwed, but jumping out the window was a bad idea as they were five stories up and to leave the class alone with this person who would do who knew what to them if he tried to change things with a retreat was not the best idea.

Luckily Naruto always carried weapons on him. He didn't have to get close to change the scope of the battle as long as he had shuriken handy, and his aim wasn't nearly terrible enough to hit any of the sleeping students.

Naruto let fly with a few of the metal throwing stars and managed to corral Killer Bee away closer towards the door to the classroom that was still open from her entry. Her eyes stayed on him but had to stray away for a moment in order to locate the small projectiles that had been thrown at her so that she could dodge them. It was for just a moment, but when she turned back to Naruto she didn't see him, only a desk sitting in the place where he had been.

Using a Kawarimi, Naruto switched himself into a crouch in front of Killer Bee just out of her field of vision. But her reflexes were grand and she already had her hands up defensively to circumvent the impact from the bull rush of a punch that Naruto had planned on delivering to her upper body. Still it was enough to send the petite assassin back through the door until she used the doorframe to stop herself from going any further.

A still advancing Naruto wound up eating a kick to the face for his troubles due to this and let out a growl, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Three clones popped into existence and went right at the girl who chose to beat a hasty retreat into the hallway as she was quickly pursued.

Naruto took a moment to check his friends over only to notice that Karin and Ibuki were missing from their seats. He quickly pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number, hoping that he had been bought some time. He didn't have a lot of it to dwell on that though, because the girl in the hall was no joke whatsoever, able to avoid the spitfire attacks from his clones with her speed before taking them out systematically.

In the open hall he'd have a better set of openings to get at her and he had to press his advantage while he had one since this girl was seemingly aiming to take his life.

XxX

(Elsewhere on Campus)

Juni and Juni were both moving on their way out of the school, walking through the quad that separated the gym from the main building towards the back gate of the school where deliveries were made and where faculty would park. First however they had to make it through the outdoors area where many of the students chose to eat lunch during their allotted time.

Juni carried an unconscious Karin over her shoulder as the two silently and robotically made their way through the grassy, foliage-filled area. It was a very popular place for students to hang out during the summer months during breaks in class, which meant that some would know it like the backs of their hands.

Most of those people _didn't_ have the ability to hide and ambush opponents with alarming efficiency even from an area they knew nothing about.

From one of the trees in the area of the quad, a silent figure dropped down from the leaves and directly attempted an attack from behind on the two kidnappers, only for them to notice the approach coming at them, both Juli and Juni turning to defend themselves.

However as both girls struck out with sharp knife-handed attacks to kill their attacker in one move, all they hit was a short-range generated afterimage instead of a person, and Karin who had been over Juni's shoulder was now gone and replaced with a large wooden tanuki statue.

A sigh of relief came from behind them and they turned to see Ibuki wearing her brown ninja-garb complete with the pants that revealed the outsides of the upper portion of her thighs and her bandage-wrapped feet that she fought battles in. She currently had Karin over her shoulders, having used her afterimage technique Kasumi Gake (The Haze) to create an opening to get the red-clad blonde student away from them.

"Sorry." Ibuki said, pointing at her black facemask that was pulled up over the bottom half of her face, "But I wear this mask as a part of my bodysuit underneath my school uniform for functionality. Even though I hate my ninja clothes I have to _wear_ something from it at all times in case I get attacked. It does more than just protects my vital areas from sharp objects, it filtered out your knockout gas through the fabric. I just acted like I was asleep until I could figure out what you two wanted."

If Kei hadn't informed her that Naruto's clone was actually the one in his seat she would have blown her cover in the classroom to protect him, but since he was indeed a clone she used it as a diversion to slip past the third blonde assassin and beat the two others outside to shadow them and wait for an opening to get Karin back.

The two emotionless young women looked at each other before turning their attention back to Ibuki, "Killing this girl is not a mission objective." Juli said in English despite her German accent shining through.

A nod came from Juni as the two set themselves in similar fighting stances facing Ibuki with their backs to each other, "However she is standing in the way of us procuring what _is_ our mission objective. I do not believe she'll move aside without application of force. This is grounds for termination."

Ibuki could understand English just fine and had prepared for a fight ever since she had set Karin down against the trunk of a nearby tree, 'There's something dangerous about these two… you know, aside from the whole 'assassin and kidnapper' thing.' Looking into an opponent's eyes she could normally figure the pace that they would try to set in battle.

Naruto was a fast starter and would try to overwhelm you quickly from the outset.

Her sensei Sanjou was a wait-and-see type, at least when it came to sparring with her as he would not make any attacking move until he was certain that Ibuki's own attacks against him would fail, even when he was striking first in battle.

Fighting against the other ninja students in her village it was something she had come to use to size an enemy up the first time she fought against them, but it wasn't working here. There were no tells in the eyes of these girls, not in the orange-haired one or the brown-haired one.

"Spiral Arc!" Juni started first with an aggressive attack that had her diving at Ibuki's legs with a dropkick as if she were sliding on air.

Ibuki hand-sprang out of the way only to get attacked next by Juli who came directly at her. She was fast enough to get her feet back under her to defend herself against a pair of knife-handed strokes aimed at her neck before she missed a kick as the second assassin jumped right back away from her, allowing Juni the room and freedom to close the distance once again and attack.

Choosing to dodge and find a better circumstance to fight the two off with, Ibuki chose to jump out of the line of fire from the advancing Juni, but the girl showed that she was able to leap in a similar manner, "Cannon Spike!" In the middle of her jump, Juni aimed a single leg upward at the kunoichi for a kick while Ibuki blocked.

The kick pushed her away, but the flexible female ninja quickly retaliated accordingly, reaching for every single weapon she had on her. If she could defeat or kill one of them she could definitely beat the other on her own, "Kazumi Suzaku (Mist Vermillion Sparrow)!" Flipping back to disguise her coming movement, Ibuki began throwing swift barrages of kunai at Juni. She wasn't going to dodge them all.

Not on her own at least.

But she didn't have to as Juli dove into the scene and tackled her orange-haired partner out of the way of Ibuki's attack before throwing her right into the air at their enemy.

Ibuki scoffed to herself as Juni sailed over her head. She had used everything she had in the arsenal she carried to school with her, intent on taking at least one of them down and defeating the other simply with unarmed fighting.

Juni's missing of a second Cannon Spike courtesy of Juli's assistance allowed Ibuki another opening to try and fight one of them alone for a moment. She ran at Juli as quickly as she could, not bothering to try and disguise her movement as she was on the clock to deal some significant and possible fight ending damage to one of the girls before the other stepped back in to double team her again.

Juli seemed ready for her, but Ibuki was done being passive and quickly assaulted her with a trio of sharp spinning-heel kicks, "Tsumuji!" The latter two of which smashed Juli's body through her guard. Ibuki followed up with a vicious jumping punch that snapped the Shadaloo operative's head to the side with a little blood drawn for good measure of her efforts.

Another punch was blocked and a kick was caught, but Ibuki simply backflipped and got herself free as Juli ran towards her to try and get her pound of flesh back in return for the smashing attacks that had been landed on her person, but right before she was going to step into another up-close battle, the brown haired German girl simply jumped back instead of continuing forward.

Nonplussed at the sudden breaking away of her most opponent, Ibuki was almost caught off-guard by Juni's sideways approach and barely got her arms up in time to block a power shot directed at her head.

She went sliding across the grass until she was able to regain her footing where she saw Juni rushing directly at her again, seemingly preparing an attack until the girl seemed to blur directly out of her path, allowing Juli to use her feint as a shadow to cover a second attack, "Sniping Arrow!" A fast flying kick that made Juli seem as if she were gliding across the air like a javelin drove into Ibuki's stomach and propelled her back to the ground.

As Juni moved in to finish her while she was down, Ibuki spun around on her back, using her legs like the propeller of a helicopter to kick her away and get back up, glaring at the two who stood back to back staring her down again. At the moment she was really yearning for the days when she had to deal with the faceless Geki ninja clan members sent after her as opposed to these two, 'Ugh. I really hope that Naruto's having better luck with the girl that killed his clone than I am with these two.'

XxX

(Inside the School Hallways – Naruto vs. Killer Bee)

Well, Naruto had figured that once the fight got into truly more open space he would have had a marked advantage when it came to sheer volume of attacking as was his way. But this girl was ridiculous.

She was like a leopard or something. She had to have cornered the market on soldier pills or whatever the hell people in this world used when they wanted to run faster, jump higher, or whatever (He didn't watch much TV, especially commercials, so sue him) because her lateral movements were the fastest he'd ever seen. Even faster than Vega's.

While Vega was still speedy, he wasn't overwhelmingly so since he had dangerous reach with his claw and anyone that could deal with his speed still had to get past that thing if they wanted to feel safe. This was nothing like that. She was a purely close-range fighter because of her lack of reach.

And man, it was like she was absolutely fearless.

Hopping back to gain some distance, Naruto found that his short-range backstep evasion wasn't good enough for this girl who seemed to be like a blur. If he weren't moving at a similar speed he might have not seen her at all. But he had, and he felt he was getting her timing down. He had the advantage even if she could match speed with him. He still had the numbers advantage.

His fingers subtly formed his signature hand-seal for barely a moment. It was all he really needed really; a product of years of practice and use of the jutsu. On cue, a surprise close sprang into sight with the predetermined strategy of taking the quick girl's beautiful legs out. It hurt him deeply to have to do something to visible appendages so pretty, but he couldn't just stop and ogle someone that was trying to kill him.

The moment it sprang into existence, the clone already had forward momentum and used it to slide along the shiny tile floors on its back to bowl her over. One of Naruto's favorite surprise maneuvers.

But those robotic eyes of hers might as well have belonged to an actual machine because she didn't waste a single movement, hopping off of the ground towards the original Naruto just high enough to avoid his clone. Before she stepped a single foot back onto the ground she spun through and slammed a glowing blue elbow into his chest prior to knocking him backwards with a backfist, "Axle Spin Knuckle!"

Either there was some serious energy thrown into that punch, or those gauntlets were made of something way harder than good old-fashioned flesh and bone because Naruto stumbled back sucking wind the entire time with blood coming from his busted lip, 'How did that little lady put that much power into one move? It felt like a battering ram!'

Killer Bee's attempts at a follow-up attack were dashed. Naruto's clone had not been dealt with, and it was fortunate for his own physical well-being that this was not the case as the chakra-constructed doppelganger saved him from a second attack by throwing a kunai at the back of the emotionless blonde teen girl's head.

With her back still partially turned from the backfist strike she had hit Naruto with just a second ago, she was able to see the weapon thrown at her head, getting her to lift her red gauntlets and block, deflecting the projectile away.

Of course, a little burning feeling of pain in the pit of his chest never stopped Naruto from taking advantage of an opening when he saw one. Still clutching at his torso, Naruto jumped at Killer Bee and kicked the poor girl in the back of the head.

A victorious feeling washed over him when he looked forward to see his lone Kage Bunshin preparing to spike her with a Rasengan, but that feeling of victory turned to one of horror when, being propelled forward, Killer Bee hand-flipped forward into a leg vice around the clone's neck and threw him directly at Naruto.

Naruto had to roll to the side to dodge his clone's body, dispelling as it hit the ground and amazing Naruto at her reflexes to counter what would have had to have been the coup de grace of the fight. His evasive move to avoid being hit with the 150-plus pounds of clone left himself wide open to a counterattack from a ruthless enemy that had him targeted all the way.

"**Stupid brat, can't you feel that energy she's charging up? MOVE!"**

The authoritative and frantic bark of an order from the Kyuubi inside of him forced Naruto to do as instructed out of sheer shock and fear of the power behind it. It had been a quiet spectator throughout the fight thus far, only choosing to interject right at that moment.

It was a good thing that it had too.

"Spiral Arrow!"

Because Naruto would not have spotted Killer Bee hurtling at him with her fastest attack, legs and body straight as she corkscrewed through the air like a drill. Her legs were pushing a barrier of some sort of strange energy around the soles of her boots where her attack was focused.

And when Naruto dodged he found out just what it did. Her point of impact against the lockers on the wall compressed and crushed them inwards as if they had been hit by a car. Not just the two she landed on, but a shockwave of energy expanded out on impact and coursed through the other lockers nearby, either busting them open or denting them up something fierce as well.

"Holy shit!" Naruto exclaimed upon seeing the damage that would have happened even if he had been laying against a locker when Killer Bee's attack him. There was a massive crack on the wall behind the lockers and he could see bits of it chipping off, "What the hell was that? That wasn't chakra/ki!" Whatever that was, when it had exploded outward from her body after delivering that screw kick he had managed to feel it.

There had been a marked difference from what he had become accustomed to as far as chakra or 'ki' as it was called in this world went. There was always some kind of a feeling of warmth from chakra, and that chakra turned to a feeling of heat the more intense it was, the most intense chakra he had ever personally felt being that of the Kyuubi when he had fought Sasuke, having grown so intense that his left arm had been rendered worthless.

That little bit from the battle he could recall, because when he woke up in America he couldn't move his fingers and could barely lift his arm at all even though he had been healed.

But whatever power this was, it felt cold. Like a chill had flown up instead of a wave of warmer air that he usually associated with shockwaves and energy backlash.

"**If I were you I would start worrying about what else she can do with that power instead of why it doesn't feel like normal chakra."** The Kyuubi warned, trying to sound nonchalant despite the urgency in its tone just moments ago, **"If that last move had hit you the paramedics would be sifting through the slush that remained of your internal organs."**

'Exaggerating…' Naruto thought to himself as he warily faced down the operative Killer Bee once again, 'A Rasengan wouldn't even do anything like that to me.'

He could almost feel the vulpine-based biju roll its eyes in his head, **"And how exactly would you know? You're telling me you've hit yourself with that accursed Yondaime technique before? If you wanted to kill yourself that badly you could have simply told me so. At least I'd have enjoyed it."**

'I haven't hit myself with it before…' Naruto thought dryly before he wound up being kicked in the face by the girl he had momentarily taken his full attention off of, 'Gah! Thanks for the warning, but if you're not going to help again could you shut up and let me focus?' He finished yelling inside of his mind as a second kick was shoved right into his belly, "Oof!"

"My mission is to destroy you Naruto Uzumaki." The Killer Bee girl said to him in English before jumping into the air and flipping forward with a forceful driving kick in mind, "Cannon Strike!"

Naruto was able to dodge, again taking notice as one of this girl's attacks hit the ground with the force of a pavement-busting jackhammer from whatever power she could temporarily generate to fuel her special techniques, and quickly formed another clone to take advantage of this.

It ran at her, and Killer Bee, expecting it to simply attack her from the front as she had studied information on Naruto that told her this was his main habit in using clones, lashed out with a kick. This was a mistake, as Naruto's clone jumped clear over her and bounced off of the ceiling before using its body and the crown of its head to dive at her like a human missile. A missile that drilled her right in the face.

"Whoo! How do you like that?" So he might have stolen the basis of that combination from E. Honda. So what? At least the part where he rose up into the air was faster than the sumo wrestler's own version… though that was probably because of the ceiling that he used for momentum. Either way he needed to come up with a name for the rebounding-missile-suicide-Kage-Bunshin attack because it was a keeper, "Go to sleep angel-face!"

She did not go to sleep. As a matter of fact she sat right back up. She stood right back up. She got right back into her fighting stance and didn't even flinch despite the horrible black eye she was sporting and the deep bruise on the right side of her face from where Naruto's clone had driven its skull into her.

And if the lockers weren't already mangled he might have taken that moment to bang his head into one.

What was it with his life? Why did every ultra-cute girl he wound up meeting always end up wanting to at some point inflict varying degrees of bodily harm on him? Why was every girl he met in any significant manner more than capable of ending his life either purposely with their own hands or inadvertently by their own personal baggage that was out of their control and would spill over to him? Why couldn't one just want to date him for once? How about that? That would be a fucking refreshing change of pace… a date instead of possible death or permanent disfigurement.

But no. Here he was once again, fighting perhaps the most attractive woman he had met since winding up in this world (It probably had something to do with a combination of her uniform and the fact that he didn't often see European or American women, because that was what he guessed she was), and guess what?

She wanted to kill him.

A marked step up from simply wanting to kick his ass as other females did; but the same principle concept applied, which was rather simple. It was merely a hot girl, and said hot girl wishing to hurt him.

And apparently she had concrete in her skull or something, because his divebombing clone took her head out but didn't put her lights out, so also going along with the running theme of Naruto's current life she was also one seriously tough cookie to boot. And it didn't look like she was going to show that she had felt it at all. He couldn't see any pain in those eyes, or anger, or peril… or anything really. It was weird.

"What the hell did I do to this 'Byron' guy or whatever his name is?" Naruto asked, speaking English since that was what Killer Bee had chosen to converse with him in during the few times she chose to speak, "I don't even know anyone like that."

"Commander Bison." Killer Bee said as if she were correcting him, "Shadaloo had interest in you. You turned down Vega's offer to work for the commander, but he discovered something interesting inside of you; your strange power. I am to retrieve your body so that it can be studied."

She had watched all available footage on Naruto in preparation for her mission and had noted that thus far in their fight he hadn't used the red energy that he had shown during the tournament or that Vega had reported had almost killed him in the hospital afterwards, 'What is he waiting on? Perhaps he can use it in specific bursts of attack the way Commander Bison can use his Psycho Power to keep opponents privy to it from adjusting accordingly to fighting him on those terms.'

So this girl was with the same people that Vega worked for? And they were Shadaloo, the same people trying to extort Karin's family?

Wait, why the hell was this chick just after him then? Karin went to the damn school too and she should have been _way _more important to a group like that than just offing little old him for some prospective power they knew nothing about. Ninja Etiquette 101 states that battles should be fought only in the instance of greater gain.

Now he had failed Ninja Etiquette 101 several times in the past, but some of that crap sticks the third time around and it stuck with him to this day.

And in the stupid list of overlapping priorities securing VIPs came first before exterminating targets. Acquisition before demolition. That was day one stuff.

"**Your bossy blonde employer wasn't in the classroom with you when the fight began genius. She **_**did **_**come first. Who says this woman did all of this by herself? She could have killed her and moved the body before attacking your Kage Bunshin thinking it was you."**

Naruto's blood ran cold for a second at that thought, but swallowed the lump in his throat as the two combatants stood at a standoff against one another, waiting to engage in another burst of offense, "What happened to Karin? She wasn't there when we started fighting."

"She is currently being escorted off of the grounds by other operatives." Killer Bee said in her monotone, seeing no harm in doing so as Naruto was about to die by her hand anyway, "But this is of no concern to you." With that, the small talk was over in her mind and she went forward to attack again.

"The hell it isn't." Naruto said, dropping a smoke bomb from an inside supply pocket of his school uniform that filled the hallway. Killer Bee stopped short of the smoke and prepared for Naruto to counter while she couldn't see him, but nothing occurred for a few seconds until she heard a loud shattering of glass from down the hall and around a corner.

The blonde emotionless assassin followed Naruto's trail and saw that the window had been broken through and Naruto had escaped and had formed multiple clones that were scampering all about the premises.

Was he really going to try and chase after Juli and Juni? He was in the middle of a fight to the death and he cut loose and simply ran away, not to save himself but to attempt to rescue another. Was he even aware of how far Juni and Juli could have gotten in the short amount of time they had been fighting even if he knew where they were? He would never catch them.

XxX

(Moments Prior – Outside of the School – Quad Area – Ibuki vs Juli/Juni)

Okay, this was not turning out for the best as far as Ibuki went. Blowing her entire payload on Kazumi Suzaku was not the best idea, but she never believed that she would miss as she had Juni dead-to-rights with the move.

With nothing to keep the two girls at range eventually they both closed in on her and started kicking her around with their two-on-one advantage. Their teamwork was impeccable. Once the two girls got rolling they didn't miss a beat and she was tiring. She sincerely wished that whatever they did to Karin would wear off so she would wake up. Juli and Juni were beating her all over the place and she could definitely have done with the help.

Juni rushed Ibuki's way and while she was prepared to defend herself she was not prepared for Juli to pull her attacker back, swinging her around once to give added momentum to a kick. Ibuki avoided this, but the two seamlessly transitioned into a rolling attack with both of their bodies that carried them right in front of her before one of them freed their legs and gave her an upwards mule kick to the face, "Psycho Roll!"

'I can't take much more of this…' Ibuki thought groggily to herself backstepping away from the advancing pair until they pincered her off again and forced her to flip out of their frontal and rear assault, 'I can't hit them with my best moves. One is always keeping the other from getting hurt. I can't finish.'

And while they had been picking her apart over time she didn't have that luxury. She had to defeat one of them quickly before they wore her down, and that point was nigh.

"Ah! Stop this if you can!" Finally she was given an opening and went for the kill when Juni attempted a wide open punch that Ibuki managed to block by grabbing the hand at the wrist, throwing it back to break her posture and allowing her to place her own fist against the orange-haired girl's stomach, but not for a punch, "My strongest personal technique! Yoroitoshi (Armor Piercer)!"

She charged up her special ki attack Raida in the fist and released it in a concussive blast that sent a charge of lightning-like energy right through Juni's body. That was just to soften up the final point of attack as she seamlessly charged up ki in her opposite elbow in a similar manner for the real pointed sure-fire kill shot.

But as Juli came up behind her she was forced to waste the finish of her technique on stopping her. She darted away from where she had Juni to where Juli was about to break her neck with a double sledgehammer shot and shoved an elbow strike into her torso before releasing her second ki burst on her instead, delivering the same effects as the first punching blast to her partner.

Both moves took just over a second to complete, but even then Ibuki's mind moved fast enough to know that this was not enough to win. She had hit her opponents enough to know by then that they were wearing very sturdy uniforms that were made to resist things that could pierce them, hence the use of her technique named 'Armor Piercer' to kill one. But without landing both of her attacks on one person both moves had the same effect as a normal Raida.

And one Raida by itself used as a standalone wouldn't kill anyone wearing body armor. It simply wouldn't generate enough internal trauma to ensure a victory if that were the case. The normal Raida portion of the combo was meant to stir up and soften up the intended space of damage for the immediate follow-up elbow blast that would be stronger and would already have ample opportunity to negate armor due to the first move.

All it really did was send both of them flying away from her, but both girls came right back at her from opposite sides, neither of them showing that the very destructive attacks even caused them any bodily harm. No facial expressions whatsoever. Like machines in human form.

This time though on the approach towards her, contrary to what Ibuki had come to expect in their attack pattern, Juni did not reach her first, stopping short when she saw Ibuki turn to face her and defend herself. The turning of Ibuki's back for the momentary action of fending off Juni who did not attack let Juli finish getting within range.

A desperation spin kick to try and react to Juli getting within her personal space only resulted in the girl ducking under and switching sides before delivering a hard sliding backhand strike that hit home right in Ibuki's stomach. The short jab was used to hold the swift ninja in place while Juni's short-range speed got her behind Ibuki on the other side, trapping her completely between the two of them.

Caught between the two girls, Ibuki suffered through a hellish barrage of punches and kicks that were well-aimed at her hardest to protect areas that she couldn't cover while being beaten by two people. They really did fight like assassins of the highest caliber. A knee to the back from Juni preceded a hard punch to the stomach from Juli before the two backed off a step and used twin Sniping Arrow flying kicks to drive into her chest and back, the same focal point on opposite sides, "Death Cross Dance!" Both trained killers cried out at once.

Ibuki went ramrod straight, her head turning up to the air to let out a deep gasp from behind her facemask as the two jumped away from her and let her sink to her knees. She had ribs that were absolutely shattered in both her front and back and felt air crushingly difficult to come by from that point forward.

Juni and Juli walked up to her and stood over her fallen body, noting that she was still alive and breathing, though it was coming in a clearly belabored manner, "You were foolish to interject yourself into something you had no business with." She said as she grabbed Ibuki and picked her up by one of her arms to prepare to deliver a killing strike, "All enemies of Shadaloo will be killed indiscriminately."

"Ibuki!"

Before this could be done, Naruto rushed into the area running at top speed, catching sight of his friend at the mercy of two other women different from the one he had fought inside before he chose to take a deep breath and fire an attack, "Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!"

The attack went towards Juni and she dodged before moving forward to take care of the nuisance before her, "Spiral Arrow!" Her version of the corkscrew driving kick was far slower than Killer Bee's in comparison, but it was fast enough to hit a bull-rushing Naruto.

And dispel him in a puff of smoke.

Juni got up from her dive and looked around in what would have been a curious fashion if her eyes could have portrayed any feelings, "I thought that the Naruto Uzumaki boy was to be taken care of by Killer Bee. Was she unable to locate and kill the real-?"

"Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

While she was looking around curiously after defeating Naruto's clone, her partner was left alone. The defeat of the clone gave Naruto all the information he needed including the location of the trouble and the current situation at hand. This allowed him to prepare a Rasengan well in advance and blindside Juli with it, forcing her to relinquish her grasp on Ibuki and go flying until her body smacked off of the side of the gymnasium building with a resounding smack of body meeting brick hard enough to crack it.

With blood from his rapidly pumping heart pulsing beats in his ears, Naruto cradled Ibuki up gingerly as his eyes surveyed the scene and located Karin. With a sneer on his face he quickly made his way to her location still safely underneath a tree and prepared to defend the two girls from the last remaining assassin. Luckily he had left that 'Killer Bee' girl in the dust inside when he made his escape and began his search for Karin.

He looked down when he heard Ibuki gasping and coughing in his arms and pulled down her facemask in case it was adhering her breathing process in any way. From the hold he had on her he could feel the copious amount of broken ribs that she had.

But before he could set her down and prepare to defeat Juni in quick order the way he had just finished off Juli, Killer Bee made her presence known once more, carrying Juli over to Juni who addressed her fellow femme fatale upon her arrival, "Killer Bee. Is Juli dead?"

"No." Killer Bee said calmly, unloading the burden onto Juni before setting herself back in a stance to fight Naruto, "Naruto Uzumaki has inflicted grave injuries on her, but she is not going to die. We should reach the extraction point in well enough time to prevent that. Now stay back. You'll only be in the way."

Gritting his teeth and judging his options here, Naruto was cursing his fortune or lack thereof until the faintest sounds of sirens could be heard.

This was noticed by the persistent and dogged team of assassins standing against him, as Killer Bee narrowed her blue/green eyes at him, "What have you done?"

"I called the police when you left the classroom to run from my clones into the hallway." Naruto said, not letting any relief settle over himself yet. But seriously, he made that call fifteen minutes ago on a whim, not because he thought they would actually help him. Now he was grateful for the foresight to do so, "You should run now unless you want to be around here to fight off half of Aohura City's police force. They think you're terrorists after what I told them about everyone in school being unconscious."

This was not amusing in the least to either Juni or Killer Bee, but Naruto had a point. They needed to reach their extraction point without the monstrous heat that would come with being seen as terrorists on them, and that would be difficult enough with Juli being unable to move, fight, or run. They didn't need to add on the factor of letting the police get a good leg up on catching them by sticking around to fight and kill Naruto or take Karin from him.

Who knew how long either of those things would take? And each second was precious in this case.

Both girls wordlessly disengaged and began to flee the scene with their wounded comrade in tow while Naruto glared at them heatedly to see them off in case one of them decided to come back and try their luck.

Neither did, and as he heard the sounds of tires coming to a stop in the parking lot near the back gate he sank to the ground with Ibuki still in his arms. It was obvious that every time her lungs expanded and retracted in her chest it came with the feeling of being jabbed in said organ. For all he knew she might have had a torn or ruptured lung. And he didn't have any healing skills nor any way to keep her comfortable.

Naruto really hoped that some ambulances came with those cop cars. They should have because when he told the emergency call that the students were unconscious he never said they were asleep. He didn't have the time to explain much about the situation other than the important parts, "You're gonna be alright Ibuki." He told her, "The hospital isn't that far from here, we'll get you there in no time."

In return, Ibuki let out a pained cough, staining her lips red with her own blood, but she still mustered a weak smile for his benefit, "I guess sensei was right… I do need to start training harder huh?"

They both sat there for a while before Naruto sighed and made a clone to watch over Karin until she had awoken while he himself got up and started heading for the hospital. The police weren't worried about going over there rather than clearing the school buildings and checking to make sure everyone inside was alright. It would be faster if he took Ibuki to the emergency room himself.

All he knew was that an enemy had definitely been made that day for Shadaloo. He had faces that he could put with the name of the organization when it came to Vega and the Killer Bee girl… and he also had a name that had yet to have a face. He had never had a group that wished his death before... but it seemed that even in this world there were people that wanted his life and wanted to figure out a way to use the power of the Kyuubi, even when they didn't know what it was.

Only here Naruto wasn't some kid without the means to defend himself from his foes. What he couldn't figure out himself that was what the technology of this world and his connections were for.

Here Naruto wasn't going to be stuck waiting around for his enemies to find some way to get at him properly, he could go looking for them himself. He definitely had the money to do so, he'd been stockpiling it for his own reasons for years doing jobs of vary difficulties and pay-grades.

He wasn't going to let the bad guys hurt his friends that did nothing to them in the first place just because they could.

Maybe... maybe for once he actually could be the hero he always figured a ninja could be when he was a kid? He didn't know. He was definitely sure of one thing for certain though.

"Whoever this Bison guy is, he better hope I never find out where he is."

XxX

In the back of a large transport vehicle, trucking its way down the highway out of Aohura City, the three female killers sent to accomplish their missions were in the midst of debriefing their master. Two of them were at least. Juli was laying on an observation table being checked over by an on-site Shadaloo medic.

"The mission was a failure commander." Killer Bee said, her face already sporting bandages covering her nasty bruises and a salve for her black eye suffered from Naruto, "I was unable to assassinate my target. Along with that both Juli and Juni were kept from their objective by a female ninja and Naruto Uzumaki."

Juni followed up immediately through the vehicle's comm. device, "Our apologies. Instead of simply fighting, Naruto Uzumaki called the local police at the first opportunity and only acted to keep Killer Bee occupied until they arrived. Once he discovered that they were not alone he chose to rescue the Kanzuki heiress and interceded on our assignment."

The two heard nothing but silence as the medic continued to work on the injured Juli. While the females in the vehicle might not have felt such, he did in fact feel fear and the silence of one M. Bison in response to being told of a failed mission struck fear in his heart. Perhaps the man would kill him and the driver to take out his rage? He definitely wouldn't kill one of the Dolls as they were too valuable to do such a thing to out of petty anger.

However Bison merely began laughing in a frighteningly booming manner that got the medic to shake in place, _"Hahahahaha! Even with your failure, there is still success. The Kanzuki Dynasty will see this as a show of evidence that Shadaloo is serious about carrying out its threats against them should they not comply with my demands. This is the original intent of your mission Juni. However Killer Bee… you failed. You did not kill the boy. You did not retrieve anything from him worthwhile. Upon your return you will be punished."_

Killer Bee merely nodded to herself, prepared to accept her fate but feeling the need to explain herself nonetheless, "He was more skilled than my collected data led me to believe commander. Instead of adhering to most of the patterns seen on record he seemed to create several new ways to attack me that I have never seen-."

The oppressively booming voice of Bison fired right back, not even letting his emotionless warrior finish speaking, _"No excuses! Failure is failure and I do not accept failure in direct missions for me!"_

Well hell, if these crazy Dolls weren't going to feel fear or show any intimidation, the medic would just have to do it for all of them wouldn't he? Hence why he stammered his way through a defense for the blonde killer, "Actually Master Bison, the girl Juli, she has a very particular friction burn on her skin from an attack dealt to her by Killer Bee's target. There is still some residual power on her skin in the wound that I've managed to contain. It isn't much, but it is something. And Killer Bee has the boy's blood on one of her gauntlets."

"_I see. This is good. Well then Killer Bee, count yourself lucky that even in failure you've managed to succeed. But the next time I order someone's death, it had better be carried out at all costs. Am I understood?"_

"Yes commander." She replied automatically as the transmission shut out. Killer Bee then turned towards the doctor who was still sweating at the conference with Bison, "Why did you say anything to the commander? If what you had to say wasn't to his liking he would have punished you as well." More than likely he would have had the man killed… probably by her just for the hell of it.

The medic just shook his head and wiped the perspiration from his brow, "You Dolls… when he broke you of your free will Commander Bison also took away your ability to think outside of the box." She herself could have come up with that excuse to save herself from Bison's wrath if she took the time to think about more than what she was supposed to do, "Even in fights against your enemy you don't do it. I saw it just now. When you fought the boy you didn't adjust the way he did. Even if you are the more technically skilled fighter against an opponent like him you weren't ready for the strange things he tried when his normal methods didn't work."

Naruto fought like a lunatic as far as Killer Bee was concerned. If the fight had carried on he wouldn't have survived. She was certain that she would have killed him like all the rest. Anyone else wouldn't have had the dense mindset to even try half of the dumbass things that he did to attack her or defend himself with. Dumb they were, but in the end she was unable to kill him, and it wasn't him that was going to be walking around with a reminder of the fight on his face for the next week.

She didn't understand him. The way he fought, the way he carried himself despite how skilled he clearly showed himself to be, his actions in certain situations, nothing. For the first time she could rightly remember she was truly confused by Naruto Uzumaki.

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Juli  
><span>Nationality:<span> Germany  
><span>Gender:<span> Female  
><span>Age:<span> 16  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'4/108 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> N/A  
><span>Likes:<span> M. Bison, World Domination (for Bison), Juni.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> N/A  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Missions for Shadaloo.  
><span>Rivals:<span> All who would stand against Bison.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Puppet Style  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Sniping Arrow, Cannon Spike, Axle Spin Knuckle, Reverse Shaft Breaker, Spin Drive Smasher.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Psycho Charge, Psycho Roll, Death Cross Dance (with Juni).  
><span>Background:<span> Formerly a young girl named Julia captured years ago from a family of doctors assisting a Mexican Native American tribe, Juli was brainwashed and conditioned to become one of 13 assassins for Shadaloo known collectively as The Dolls. Due to M. Bison's conditioning The Dolls are all emotionless and loyal killers. Bodyguards that follow his every order akin to robots. In the criminal organization hierarchy they are high ranking members only standing beneath Bison himself and his right hand men (such as Vega and Balrog). This is merely because they possess no leadership skills or free will. Between herself and Juni she is apt to delivering finishing blows, usually using Juni as a distraction to set up powerful moves. Her codename is German for the month of July.

Name: Juni  
><span>Nationality:<span> Germany  
><span>Gender:<span> Female  
><span>Age:<span> 16 (June 10)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'3/101 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> N/A  
><span>Likes:<span> World domination (for Bison), M. Bison, Juli.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> N/A  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Missions for Shadaloo.  
><span>Rivals:<span> All who would stand against Bison.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Puppet Style  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Spiral Arc, Cannon Spike, Mach Slide, Cannon Strike, Hooligan Combination, Earth Direct, Psycho Streak, Spin Drive Smasher.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Psycho Charge, Psycho Roll, Death Cross Dance (with Juli)  
><span>Background:<span> Juni is another of the kidnapped young girls trained to be soulless assassins for Shadaloo. German in nationality, she is emotionless and is only concerned with following the orders dealt to her by her superiors, same as the other Dolls. Much like her partner Juli and her superior 'sister' Killer Bee, Juni chooses to engage in hand-to-hand combat unlike the majority of The Dolls who specialize in the use of some sort of weapon. Between herself and Juli she is the faster of the two, usually choosing to fight an opponent directly to give Juli openings for a blindsided double team attack. Her codename is German for the month of June.

Name: Killer Bee (Cammy)  
><span>Nationality:<span> United Kingdom  
><span>Gender:<span> Female  
><span>Age:<span> 16 (January 6)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'4½/101 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> B  
><span>Likes:<span> Collecting fighting data, M. Bison.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Sympathy towards her from her targets.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Assassination missions for Shadaloo.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Naruto Uzumaki  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Shadaloo assassination techniques  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Spiral Arrow, Cannon Spike, Axle Spin Knuckle, Hooligan Combination, Cannon Strike, Spin Drive Smasher, Cannon Revenge, Reverse Shaft Breaker.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Gyro Drive Smasher, Killer Bee Assault.  
><span>Background:<span> The most imposing of the Shadaloo assassination squad The Dolls, Killer Bee is the most powerful of the available female assassins. Unlike the other Dolls there is no knowledge of her background prior to her work in Shadaloo and she often works assignments alone, choosing to kill her targets with her specialty of hand-to-hand combat in direct conflict whenever possible. She differs greatly from the other Dolls aside from her lack of known origin however, as she shows a more in-depth mastery of the assassination hand-to-hand fighting style and even a spark of M. Bison's Psycho Power within her to power her more potent techniques. This makes her far more dangerous than any of the others as even with the few shared attacks between them Killer Bee's techniques are far superior in sheer raw power. This is why she is only used for missions that require the complete touch against targets that need to be disposed of.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright. Chapter done… *ahem* now I'm going to go back to playing UFC Undisputed 3. I won't stop until I'm top 500 in the world just like I used to be in the last installment of that game. I'm a champion!<strong>

**I'm actually writing chapters for a couple different stories at the moment too... heh, I really only updated this one in particular today because a story based on characters in a video game is the easiest thing that springs to mind to write while I'm multitasking by abusing my hand-eye coordination with the use of my Playstation… It's been that way since '96 man. **

**I swear, Sony was _this_ close to making me unathletic in my teen years because it was more fun to hit a button and make a guy on a screen run than to go outside and run myself for health purposes. Thank God for sports and physical competition because my need to dominate my fellow man outweighed my desire to dominate a glorified computer.  
><strong>

**Yep, video games: single-handedly responsible for making the outdoors obsolete for children since 1972.**

**Kenchi out.**


	12. Pick Your Battles

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. Even if I did I'd probably be the least splendiferous rich person that ever lived… because I don't want any material possessions. Money can't buy what I want, I'd just use it to ensure that I lived normally without struggle. I'd probably give most of the rest to charity and stuff as long as I could pay for a decent house and fuel and whatnot.

No, what I want… what I truly want in my life… you've gotta earn what I want with blood!

Blood and tears! More one than the other depending on how tough you are or how good at fighting you are.

**Chapter 12: Pick Your Battles**

* * *

><p>"You've got to calm down teme." Batsu tried to tell Naruto as the two of them walked around Aohura City one day after school. As it usually had for the last week and a half, it fell on mostly deaf ears as Naruto continued stomping around, radiating an aura that kept people from choosing to get close. Even when passing the gangs in town they had refrained from making eye contact with him when they felt the underlying killing intent permeating from him.<p>

He probably didn't even know that he was being that scary, which was weird because usually nobody was scared of Naruto, period.

"I'm calm." Naruto said in response, though this had to be the most blatant lie he had ever told. Even he was well aware of how bad it was because of how his temper was messing with him, "Can't I be mad about something? This is the second time Shadaloo did something to my friends like this. I get pissed off for real too."

Ever since the attack on his high school Naruto had been in a rather foul mood of sorts. It hadn't really started to manifest as anger until Ibuki had been taken back to her village for the duration of her recovery period. She would not be allowed to leave, and Naruto still didn't know where the village was, thus he and his friends couldn't visit her and find out how she was.

With no injured friend to focus on in a caring and empathetic manner that accentuated how powerless he felt to help during the actual incident that hurt her, he turned to the next best thing available to alleviate his internal tension; aggression.

"You're one guy." Batsu asserted as a point, "Shadaloo? That's an entire organization of criminals that you don't know a damn thing about. They're not even from Japan from what you told me, and JSDF can't go internationally so let Interpol handle it. Did you ever stop to think that we're just a bunch of kids? What the hell can we do in the end?"

"Well fuck Interpol, I'll say that much." Naruto bluntly replied aloud with a dry look on his face, "They didn't catch Vega after I fought him in a hospital and shot him across a main street in Tokyo through an office building, and those girls got away last week too without a peep after trying to kidnap the richest girl in Asia."

His friend had a point though. In the end they were just a couple of kids… even though one of those kids could buy a small country if she wished, another contained within him the power to end all existence in a slow-burning, chakra-induced Armageddon, and every last one of them could tear through an entire city of local tough guys in a day. Still his stance on law enforcement stood. If you want something done right you've got to do it yourself. Unfortunately for Naruto he didn't know how to do it right either so he had no room to talk, but he would not admit that aloud.

All Batsu could do was stand by as he watched his friend vent, clicking his tongue in a chiding manner, "Wow, you really are pissed. I've never seen you this mad about anything for this long before. But I guess trying to kill you twice and hurting your friends would do that to you."

A stiff nod came from Naruto as apparently Batsu was finally starting to see his point of view, "Damn right. Now let's go order the plane tickets already. Staying in Japan just sitting on my hands is making me crazy. It's time to get this show on the road." While Naruto had mostly outgrown his desire for adventure that had been stoked thoroughly after he was a fresh genin, he still couldn't help the little jolt in his chest that came with the thought of travelling the world.

Part of that could have been the anger though.

Oh well. He couldn't really complain in the end about anything that had happened to him really. This was the life he chose to live even as a kid. If he didn't want trouble and if he didn't want to put himself in mortal danger then he should have chosen to be a tailor or an accountant, something nice and safe. Pain and death were required to be endured during the life of a ninja.

The two kept walking through the streets, heading towards the nearest travel agency that they knew of to book themselves a rather long trip for themselves and two other people. Eventually though, they came along a building that got them to stop in their tracks and stare at the loud and flashy words emblazoned upon the glass windows that let them see inside clearly.

**Hibiki Dan's Saikou-Ryuu Ultimate Dojo of Supremacy!**

**3395 yen per month and you too can be a finely honed machine of martial arts skill!**

**Branch no. 17**

And as they looked inside, the place was filled with teens that seemed enthusiastic to be in there. They were all lined up doing punching drills under the watchful eye of Dan himself, pink gi and all. He seemed to know what he was doing as far as this went, but Kami help those poor students when or if he started teaching the 'worthy' ones ki techniques.

But really, both Naruto and Batsu were stunned at just what had fallen into their quaint little city, "He actually built a gym here?" Naruto said in a bit of disbelief, "And people actually go to it? How long has this been here?"

"Fuck that. That's not the important thing about it." Batsu interrupted before pointing at the small ID number underneath the gym, "This is gym number 17… so that means he has 16 other gyms somewhere else." The implications of this were staggering to Batsu, "That means he made enough money with 16other gyms somewhere else that he decided it was a good investment to make another one here."

That was terrifying. And in addition to that, every fiber of their being told them to just walk away and forget all about it.

Still, how could you just walk away from something like that? You didn't. And neither did they as both the blonde and dark-haired teens of the spiky variety ventured inside to get an in-depth look at just what that place was all about.

Upon entering, Naruto immediately received sight of something annoying. In the back of the dojo by the door they had entered through there were a few trophies that Dan had won, and behind them there was a blown up still-shot of him landing a very good punch on Naruto during their previous run-in in combat. The only good hit he landed in that fight.

'Why am I the one in the gigantic picture?' Naruto thought to himself before he heard Dan's voice from the front of the dojo where his students were with him.

"Well look who it is!" Dan stated, pointing towards the back where Naruto and Batsu were. All of his students followed his finger and sighted the two young men as well, "My greatest rival of all; the master of every dirty trick in the book himself, Uzumaki Naruto… and his friend."

Naruto just stuck up a middle finger in response while Batsu strangely enough didn't do anything, "You know, the fact that he doesn't know my name actually makes me feel better about this whole thing. Just a bit though." Batsu said with a grin.

However Dan wasn't through yet. He was just getting started on his tirade, "I see you've come to sabotage the opening of my newest gym. Well it's too late for that. I've had plenty of time to show my students that my teachings do equal success, so you can't turn them against me now!"

Naruto looked around at all of the students that were standing firmly behind their sensei and felt a bit out of place to say the least, "…Uh, I wasn't going to." What did he care if these guys wanted to pay Dan to teach them how to fight? It wasn't his problem… it wasn't really a problem at all. But they were all looking prepared to give him a beatdown, and that was a problem, "Can we leave?"

"Not until I prove my style is the strongest in the world." Dan chuckled, with a lot of his students laughing along with him.

"Oh… I get it." Batsu said, pounding his fist into the palm of his other hand, "They want to kick your ass." He explained to Naruto who already knew that much.

Looking around the room, Naruto shrugged and pointed around the room, "Okay, we can either fight one at a time, or all together!" He was looking for something to vent a bit on anyway. Someone trying to beat him up was perfect; it gave him an excuse to project some anger elsewhere.

XxX

(Thirty Minutes Later – Sakura's House)

"I feel way better now." Naruto said with a sigh as he sat on the couch in Sakura's living room. He got a hit to the head for his troubles that had been meant to scold more than to hurt, "They started it. And it was Hibiki Dan."

Sakura shook her head at him and plopped down on the sofa next to him, "You did 400 thousand yen worth of damage to that dojo Naruto." She said, fixing her eyes on the TV in front of them similar to the way Naruto had been, "You're lucky that a dojo has insurance for that kind of thing."

He probably gave Dan's dojo some good publicity, showing that his dojo was where all the action was once she thought about it. And again, it wasn't really his fault because Dan was the one that kept sending his students after Naruto and Batsu in waves like some kind of kung fu movie.

"Don't talk like I just walked in there and tore it apart all by myself." Replied Naruto before pointing off elsewhere in the house to wherever the bathroom was, "Batsu did some of that too. Why do you think he's in your bathroom washing blood off of his hands and uniform right now?"

Letting out a groan, Sakura covered her face with a couch pillow before shoving it in Naruto's face, "You two didn't even set up the trip to leave did you? You completely forgot what you told me you were going to do after school! And now it's closed!" She complained as she tried to get him to eat the couch pillow, "I knew I should have gone with you, but nooooo. You were all like, 'I'm not ten years old Sakura-chan. Me and Batsu can get tickets Sakura-chan. This is my trip, I should be the one to handle all of this stuff Sakura-chan.'" She finished, trying to lower her voice to mimic Naruto's way of speaking.

Sputtering once he was finally able to garner enough room to breathe again, Naruto managed to fight back in his own way via getting his hands in Sakura's face to push her back, "Damn it Sakura-chan…" He grit out as the two shoved each other's faces competitively, "I know what I'm doing. I can book a traveling trip, I'm not stu-. Ow!" Naruto exclaimed when Sakura bit his fingers after they got too close to her mouth.

The two continued to scuffle until they fell off of the couch with a resounding thud onto the floor where neither of them let up, as Sakura had landed upright on Naruto and wasn't about to let him go so easily. As a countermeasure, Naruto quickly stuck his own finger in his mouth before jamming it in Sakura's ear, getting her to recoil and put some distance between him.

A grinning Naruto leaned up and smacked Sakura across the face with the pillow she had earlier been trying to teach him a lesson with. She almost looked shocked at first before she switched to glaring at him, her short brown hair all sorts of messed up from their scuffle, "I'm going to give you a chance to apologize for that." And in response, Naruto hit her in a similarly hard manner with the pillow thrice more.

Sakura then proceeded to tackle him again and began the disturbance anew.

This continued for several minutes until Batsu made it out of the bathroom, fretting because his mom was going to let him have it for getting into fights with people in public again and messing up his uniform to boot.

He returned to the living room to see the bout between Naruto and Sakura having degenerated to a point where Sakura had trapped Naruto's head between the couch and the wall. With her knees pinning his arms to the ground in a manner similar to the way she had when they had fought during the tournament she hovered over him and threatened him with a dangling spit instead of punches this time.

Batsu walked over to another chair in the room where he saw Sakura's little brother, a younger boy with messy brown hair wearing a soccer uniform as he sat and watched his sister and her friend fight in his house, calmly sipping at his juice box the entire time, "Who you got your money on kid?" Batsu asked, leaning against the chair as it had the best view of what was going on, "I think teme just ups and quits in about ten seconds."

As if responding to his comment, Naruto desperately wiggled underneath Sakura, "Come on, get off already!"

"Oh you are so lucky I drank milk today." Sakura replied carefully so as not to end the torture, refusing to acquiesce to Naruto's demand.

Sakura's little brother Tsukushi just waited a moment as he took another sip from his juice box, "Nah. They've done this like a million times since I was five. This happened like six times before. Watch. Naruto's about to do something to get back up before it's too late." Twenty seconds passed and this didn't occur, "…I think." He then chose to call out to Naruto who was losing in his eyes. That just wouldn't do, he wanted Naruto to win, "Hey Naruto, from the way you're stuck there you'd think you actually like Sakura sitting on your chest!"

The comment from the peanut gallery that consisted of Sakura's nine year old little brother got her to freeze and stiffen up in embarrassment as Batsu laughed at the way that sounded coming from the kid who seemed confused as to why that was funny.

A ring of the doorbell attracted attention as Sakura saw that as a good enough reason as any to get off of Naruto without anymore awkwardness, allowing Naruto to sit up and crack his neck after having it stuck at an angle for quite a while, "I didn't quit and she didn't spit on me so I didn't lose."

Batsu snickered and shook his head, "No that's not why. You didn't lose because you got to see up Sakura's-." He stopped when he ducked a punch from Naruto and circled away from him, "Oi!"

Tsukushi rolled his eyes and got up from his seat, walking past Naruto and thunking him in the side as he moved by him to go upstairs to his room, "Why didn't you fight like _that_ when you were wrestling with Sakura. Letting a girl pin you like that… it's embarrassing Naruto." The concept of play-fighting apparently didn't mean much to that kid.

"You won't be thinking that in like three years." Naruto muttered to himself before watching Sakura walk back into the room, "Who's at the door?"

Sakura's face was in a monotone expression as she stared Naruto down and blinked a few times for added effect, "That was Shibazaki. Apparently since you can't be counted on to get tickets without starting World War III in town, Karin handled the travel arrangements for us."

"Cool."

"No… not cool. That means we owe her now."

"Not really. I saved her ass last week so if anything we're even now."

XxX

(A Few Days Later – East China Sea – Onboard the Queen of Victory)

As they had been travelling north away from Aohura City to the shore in order to board Karin's directed method of transportation to begin the trip, Sakura was about to complain about how since Karin was dictating the travelling things would be bothersome.

Hell, if they were using a method of travel like hers to reach the mainland she could be as bothersome as she wanted to be as far as Naruto was concerned.

A gigantic giga yacht, the 'Queen of Victory' was actually the same yacht that Karin had used during a day trip sailing about with Naruto as her bodyguard. It was how they planned to travel to their first foreign destination. It sure beat the hell out of a plane ride that was for sure. A spacious yacht was way more fun than a cramped plane first of all, even if it would take a bit longer.

The damn thing even had a helipad with an actual helicopter on it and a submarine attached as well as other smaller speed boats to boot. It was like the ultimate hotel on water with all of the live-in servants and crew running the vessel on the Kanzuki payroll.

But at the moment, Naruto wasn't choosing to indulge in the luxuries onboard. There would be plenty of time for that later. For now he had to work on getting stronger, to deal with what was more than likely to come soon.

The blonde girl he fought inside of his school almost two weeks ago was very strong despite his feelings that he would have won had they continued to fight, but she was merely an operative. If Shadaloo still wanted a piece of him, or of Karin, they'd either send someone stronger to strike next time or bring more numbers.

Wearing his orange and baggy one-piece hooded fighting suit with the blue supply belt around his waist and sandals on his feet, Naruto sat at the rear deck by a very large pool, but his attention wasn't on swimming or needlessly tanning. Instead he sat cross-legged on the deck facing out towards the ocean with his eyes closed, 'Okay, give it to me straight fox. How strong am I?'

He'd been wondering this for quite some time. It had been eating at him for years, but he kept refusing to think about it. It had never been an issue, of how strong he was. There was no Akatsuki here, there was no one to protect here. All that mattered was that he had the ability to help himself, and he felt that he had cultivated that ability and had grown steadily as a ninja, creating several new techniques all on his own and getting faster and stronger with no end in sight.

He had yet to be thoroughly outclassed in battle. If he found something wrong with the way he had handled an opponent he simply went back and solved it. At first the stronger ki manipulating fighters in Aohura City could give him fits but that was only at first when he started living in Japan.

Now of the Aohura City-based fighters only Batsu, Karin, and Sakura had progressed enough to the point that they were still able to run up against him. The only ones with ambition to improve beyond what they had as natural ability. Along with them, Ibuki was another person that Naruto had deemed very strong, someone he could trust his life to when it came down to it.

But Ibuki was down and hurt now, and it wasn't just a matter of training to get by easier until he could find his way back to his world. Now he had a friend in dire straits due to criminals and the same criminals wished him dead for turning down their invitation to join them. He wasn't strong enough to keep one friend safe when she needed him, well he couldn't let that happen again.

A rousing growl within Naruto's head let him know that his perpetual watcher was indeed paying attention and had heard his question, **"What does it matter when you're not as strong as me?"** The attempt to get under Naruto's skin at the slight at his abilities failed as it seemed Naruto was being dead serious, **"I don't know. I don't know the strength of those in charge of the organization after you or your 'friend' so I can't tell you. Until we learn more, I can't give you a good opinion."**

"Until 'we' learn more?" Naruto repeated a small grin climbing to his face as he did so, "Does that mean you're starting to see us as partners now?"

"**Not. Even. Close. If you learn something that will mean that I'll learn it too since I'm here stupid… unless I find what you're doing to be too boring and I fall asleep. For the most part your life has a tendency to be very boring to me. This goes for back in the Elemental Nations as well."**

Kyuubi had a point though. The world was very big, and Naruto had only been in Japan thus far. He was about to enter the proverbial uncharted waters as he started moving between countries. Who knew what or who he would find out there?

"You must be quite bored if you find it entertaining to look out at the ocean Naruto-san. I apologize that my family's yacht is not as entertaining as you had hoped it would be this time around."

Naruto's attention was brought away from his internal conversation back to the real world as he turned around and saw Karin submerged up to her neck in the spacious pool that he had chosen to take a moment of personal inflection by, "No, I'm not bored." Naruto responded, scooting towards the edge of the pool where he continued to sit cross-legged as Karin swam towards him, "I'm training." He asserted, leaning forward to get a bit closer without falling in.

"Training usually involves getting up and moving just so you know." Karin replied with a smirk as she continued to keep herself upright in the water, "I chose to spoke to you after fifteen minutes of swimming and watching you do nothing. Are you seriously telling me that you failed to notice me here for that long?" She questioned, raising an eyebrow on her delicately soaked features.

Well that was embarrassing, and Ishizaki was there as well, holding a towel and refreshments for when she chose to get out of the pool. Had it really been fifteen minutes? At times when he spoke to the Kyuubi it seemed like a second hadn't even passed and at other times he lost track of time altogether like right then.

But in order to save face he needed an excuse and he actually had one handy that wasn't 100% fabrication, "Well I guess it's because I don't sense any killing intent from you. You and Ishizaki never want to hurt me I guess." Shibazaki on the other hand, he could feel the skinny steward of the Kanzuki heiress coming from a mile away sometimes. Luckily the man was not on this trip or it would have gotten annoying.

"Of course I don't wish to hurt you." It sounded as if Karin was almost offended at Naruto's apparent observation of her behavior, "No matter how things appear between you and I or between myself and the others I don't wish harm upon you. You've done nothing to me to warrant such. You have always been a respectable… friend. And I appreciate this."

Appreciated what? The trip? There wasn't much to appreciate from her end towards Naruto anyway, "Why? I didn't do anything. You're the one that's working everything out. This is your yacht, and if we have to travel somewhere further than the yacht can take us fast enough you said we'd be using your family's jet. If anything I should be the one saying that."

And there Naruto went again, not accepting thanks for doing something for a friend. While it was pretty noble, it could get annoying at times when one actually wished to thank someone like that, "You righteous fool." Karin stated as she reached towards the ledge of the pool and began to climb out by Naruto, "Do you really believe the travel arrangements are a problem for me? I could fund thousands and thousands of trips around the entire world, not just what we're doing now."

Naruto didn't answer at first, choosing to burn the sight of Karin's well sculpted sixteen year old body and her very flattering black bikini with the gold rings holding it closed in strategic areas into his mind. If she did indeed happen to be the living incarnation of the devil's seed in human form as he often joked aloud then he had to say that if nothing else the devil looked good. The devil looked _damn_ good. It took every bit of willpower he had to try and refrain from ogling her enough to estimate her measurements.

Having much to her delight aptly stunned him into silence with her beauty, Karin carried on with the point she was previously trying to make, "The thing that I appreciate is that you have chosen to aid me with my family's problem. Honestly, if I were to even locate anything to do with Shadaloo I would be very hard-pressed to do anything about them on my own. The ability to gather information is useless without possessing what is necessary to act upon it." She said as she began to dry herself with a towel from Ishizaki, "I never even discussed what I would pay you for this."

"I don't want money for this." Naruto opposed with a frown on his face, "This is actually important. It isn't some small crap like what you've been paying me for. It actually involves someone getting hurt and lives getting ruined."

It wasn't even just for Karin really even though he probably would have felt the same way if it were. The thing about it was that the businesses that Karin's father owned actually rounded out to millions of employees. If that empire was wrecked entirely like the one business in Tokyo was just because Shadaloo wanted an exorbitant, unreasonable amount of their money for funding then too many people would lose their jobs from it whether they paid or not.

Not to mention the fact that he wasn't about to let a group of criminals start targeting him again. This time he didn't have Jiraiya to watch over him and save his ass, he had to do it himself, which meant he would be handling his own problem directly come hell or high water.

Karin made a sound of contemplation at Naruto's reasoning as she dried herself off, "You really are an interesting person Naruto-san. And you're certain that your loyalty to me is not merely because I am your benefactor?" There was a teasing tone to the statement made by the prim blonde and there was a mischievous glint in her eye as she did so.

"Nope." Naruto replied with a wide grin. He was catching on to the development of a bit of banter between them, but he still had no idea where it was actually going, "You being my vain, prissy boss lady doesn't have anything to do with it."

"I see." With a thoughtful tone, Karin handed her towel back to Ishizaki before she turned to the man and took the prepared drink from him that had been presented on a tray, "Ishizaki, call Shibazaki and make sure he knows that Naruto-san is to be marked down as number 3859."

A confused expression crossed Naruto's face at his new identification as a seemingly random number, "What?" He asked, tilting his head to the side, "Number 3859 of what?"

"Of the world's gentlemen I have managed to charm." Karin stated as if it were obvious, ignoring the stunned look on Naruto's face, "Your actions both qualify you as a sort of gentleman and shows that you've clearly fallen for me. Do not try to refute it. Your words will only prove that you are in denial." The matter-of-fact method of speaking she used showed that she actually believed this to be fact.

Naruto's stunned look turned into one of general apathy as Karin calmly sipped at her beverage with an air of victory surrounding her, "Okay I won't say anything." He then used one hand to shove her right back into the pool, drink and all, eliciting a yelp of surprise from the girl, "Actions speak louder than words anyway, dattebayo."

As the triumphant ninja-for-hire started to walk the length of the pool to head back inside before Karin got out and perhaps started to chase him (He didn't know what she would do if she were actually angry), she resurfaced, sputtering before slapping the water at Naruto to try and splash him. This only got him to laugh as he started to run away.

Once again she climbed out of the pool, glaring at the path Naruto had taken to run away as if she could will it to burst into flames with enough willpower as Ishizaki gave her a fresh towel to dry herself with once more, "Ishizaki… please have the cooks strike the choice of ramen from the menu for the remainder of our trip."

XxX

(Two Days Later – Hong Kong Interpol HQ)

Inside of a busy office with many cubicles and multiple agents working on their own cases at their desks one particular young woman sat at her own, leaning forward with one hand in her cheek as her other hand steadily tapped a solid piece of metal on the surface of her table.

She wore a blue unitard with yellow lines going down the sides that did next to nothing to hide her beautiful figure, as well as yellow and blue athletic shoes, studded wristbands, and a yellow embroidered blue vest over the upper body of the unitard. Her hair was brown and done up in a pair of 'ox-horns', a pair of buns on both sides of her head held with two yellow ribbons.

Her brown eyes were locked firmly on the piece of metal in her hand, ceasing to tap it on the desk in order to look at it intently. It was a small bronze pair of wings with a skull in the middle that had a lightning bolt on its forehead; Shadaloo's insignia.

She let out a sigh just as a series of files were dropped on her desk along with a flash drive. Turning around to the agent that delivered these things to her they just shrugged in response to her raised eyebrow, "Don't blame me. This is supposed to be your investigation, well you have to see everything that goes with it."

Great, more paperwork.

With a pointed look, she took the flash drive and stuck it into her desktop computer, turning back around in her chair, "This is maddening." The woman said to her fellow agent who by now had leaned against the edge of her cubicle to make a bit of conversation, "It's been two years and I don't feel like I've gotten any closer to bringing that bastard down yet."

"No one knows where Shadaloo operates out of." The agent said, "That's why this is so difficult. They don't focus themselves in one particular area. It's like they have a finger in some part of every relevant country's military. Probably ours too. You're killing yourself over this whole thing, it's not healthy you know."

"Neither is letting a drug dealing, genocidal megalomaniac have his run of the world."

"It's enough to drive you to drinking isn't it Chun-Li?"

The woman's lips quirked upwards slightly in response, "Absolutely." With that she decided that there wasn't anything else going on while she waited for that AWOL U.S. Air Force lieutenant to show himself to her to help out, thus she was on her own for the time being and didn't want to be the one that brought nothing to their eventual meeting. Maybe there would be something in here that would lead to more than just a wild goose chase this time, "Alright, thanks. I've got to get to work on this."

"Good luck." The man said as he walked off to get to his own neglected workload.

Chun-Li started perusing through the files on her desk with the first paper being a copy of a passport for one Uzumaki Naruto; a blonde haired, blue eyed teenager from Japan, 'He's just a kid. What in the world does this have to do with anything?' As she waited for the computer to finish scanning the flash drive for viruses and to finish installing what was needed to recognize it she kept going through the file.

No relatives, guardians, or licensed/legal accounted for means of support.

No background prior to four years ago.

A rather well known mercenary throughout much of southern Japan, though usually affiliated with the Kanzuki Zaibatsu running odd jobs for their heiress.

Not to mention eyewitness reports of his strange abilities in combat along with some oppressive energy originating from his body. There was something very familiar to Chun-Li about that, and not in a good way either.

He had even taken part in a destructive episode outside of a Tokyo hospital with another noted yet unproven Shadaloo associate in Vega after a tournament in which yet another Shadaloo enforcer, Balrog, had fought in. His high school had been attacked two weeks ago in a calculated effort to kidnap the daughter of Daikenjuro Kanzuki, the Kanzuki Zaibatsu's head, and while he was not listed as a suspect for the attempted kidnapping of the girl Karin it was still something to look at.

These things didn't mean much as far as any sort of guilt or association went, but it was also too suspicious to ignore when there were no other leads at all to partake in. The nose of her investigation had been left out in the cold for too long for her to not even give this a try.

And he was in the country as of two hours ago, hence the copy of his passport being sent to her by whoever minded the fence about this sort of thing. Anything Shadaloo-related in any way was sent to her since anything could help. And once the flash drive finished installing on her computer she bore witness to a recording of the end of Naruto's battle against Sakura during a tournament match in Japan, 'That power…'

With that, she stood up and decided to try and pay this boy a visit. His means of entering Hong Kong were also listed, being by a yacht that was docked in the southern harbor so she'd start by heading in that direction.

XxX

(Sundown – Elsewhere in Hong Kong – Southern District – Aberdeen Square)

The first and most important thing to Naruto at the moment was to find his clues on anything that could return him home. The thing about it though, was that he didn't know the first place to look. How could he? And whenever he needed to find out anything in the past in large places like Tokyo or Hong Kong there was only one thing to do.

Hop on down to the most hustling, bustling place he could find and put his ear straight to the ground to listen for any inkling of info he could find. In his experience, the more farfetched and outlandish something seemed the more likely it was to be true if someone had the gall to say it out loud.

After they had been cleared to enter the city from the place where the yacht had docked, Naruto had wasted no time in making his way to the largest shopping area he could find in the area.

All he needed was to get his foot in the door of the underground somehow, and to do that he didn't need any of his friends around. They all would have just been out of place and that wouldn't have helped him at all. He was sure he'd get an earful from everyone when he showed back up though; the reason being that he for all intents and purposes ditched them after the plan of action was deemed to be that they would wait until first light tomorrow to begin exploring Hong Kong.

Yeah, he wasn't into that plan of action. What kind of shady information would he ever get walking around in broad daylight with two girls that insisted on wearing their schoolgirl uniforms even while out on this trip? Not the kind of shady information he was hoping for, that was for sure… especially on something as weird as what he was endeavoring to find.

He might have been able to pull it off with Batsu, but Batsu's complete lack of knowledge on the clandestine activities of the underworld would have negated any minor street punk advantage that bringing him along would have held.

So flying solo, at least during this try, was the approved method of action in Naruto's book of operating.

Everything he tried though was for naught. He went to the most back-alley, creepiest places that sold arcane artifacts or traded in the black magics of the region just trying to pick up some sort of trail. After the sun started setting and many places started closing he was just about to give up for the day. He would try one more time when night fell, if there was any place open after dark he'd start there, but he wasn't holding out hope here.

But since he was getting bored just hanging out by one of the large ornate gates leading into the shopping center maybe he'd go look for a ramen stand in the meantime. There had to be one in a place as big as Hong Kong right? Damn Karin, she hit him right in the stomach for shoving her into the pool a few days ago… literally.

Patting his stomach that he mentally apologized to for depriving it of the greatest food in the world for something he thought was funny, he noticed the presence of a woman he didn't know walking up to him to lean against one of the pillars of the gate nearby him.

She was well aware of the fact that he was wary of her company, and that went right along with the fact that he was a dead ringer for the kid she was supposed to be looking for. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and an orange outfit that a local wouldn't wear; check, check, and check.

On the other hand, Naruto felt that this woman was a fighter of some sort. She had to be, with thighs that muscular that were clearly visible in the clothes she chose to wear. The question was though, what did she want?

Deciding not to beat around the bush with him any longer, Chun-Li walked towards him and held up a badge, "Naruto Uzumaki? I'd like you to come with me. I think you've got some things that I want to know." She barely finished her question before Naruto took off running. She watched for a moment in shock as he ran into the square before she let out a grunt, "Damn… I scared him. Well I didn't really play that one cool."

In her defense she didn't think he spoke very good Mandarin if any at all which was why she spoke slowly and deliberately to get her words across, he was just a kid four years younger than her after all. Well she was wrong. He could speak it. He was better at it than he ever thought he was.

Naruto was weaving through the people in the crowd finishing up their shopping or leaving to head home after their shifts at work, not turning around to face the woman that had tried to 'question' him. For someone like him a strange, powerful-looking woman in a foreign country that wished to bring him in for questioning could not equal anything good. He wasn't about to wind up tied to a chair in a basement somewhere being tormented for info he didn't have for anyone.

Turning his head, he let out a panicked gasp when he saw that the woman was keeping up with him. Was she that fast? No way. Well it didn't matter because a street was coming with busy traffic and they weren't going to suddenly stop for a pedestrian running out without any warning. That was cool with him. He had the right of way no matter what, stop for him or not.

Naruto started preparing to cross the road by jumping up onto a low hanging streetlight that allowed him to begin skipping and running on the power lines until he was able to use that height to launch himself clear across the street, landing across it and over a chain-link fence cleanly.

He looked back to make sure he lost his pursuer and was treated to the sight of her jumping off of the roofs of the moving cars with light-as-a-feather touches, as if her toes were barely touching them. This culminated with her jumping and landing on the gate he had just cleared, as if she were a cat without any effort spent at all, "You done running yet?" Chun-Li asked Naruto with a stern look on her face that showed she wasn't chasing him for fun.

Naruto had been thinking of a snippy response as he placed his fingers in the form of his cross hand-seal but held his tongue when he realized that just making clones to cover his escape wouldn't do anything. He was in an alley and any halfway decent combatant could dust his clones as they tried to hold her back and cover his own escape. It was a narrow alleyway and she could just cut a path through them if she was really good. It happened more than he banked on.

No, he needed her eyes off of him and then he'd get away clean, so he'd have to keep running and then he'd Henge himself to escape, "I'm not going anywhere with anybody I don't know lady."

Rolling her eyes, Chun-Li reached into her vest and pulled out her credentials to show Naruto, "My name is Chun-Li, I'm an agent of Interpol. Is that enough to get you to come with me or not?"

For a moment, Naruto was about to say yes and go with her, but at the last second he just narrowed his eyes at her, "No…" He stated flatly. He wasn't going anywhere even if she was Interpol, "I didn't do anything. Go catch a real criminal."

"I'm trying to if you'd just come with me." Stupid brat. Why did kids like him have to be so difficult about everything, "Come on kid. Come with me and tell me everything you know about Shadaloo. I know you've had some dealings with them."

Dealings? So this chick thought he was in with those clods? That was an insult to his character if Naruto ever heard one, and he was not about to let that one slide, "Oh that's all you want?" He said in a dangerously edged voice, "Okay, I'll tell you something. I'll tell you that you're wasting my damn time chasing me down over this. I'll tell you that you can't find Shadaloo because Interpol can't find their own ass with both hands and a map. Is that good enough or do you want any more?"

Chun-Li bristled at Naruto's barbed remarks at her investigative agency but quickly calmed herself down. He was just some punk with a smart mouth, "Okay then… this is why fighting ability is important after all." She said, punching into her other palm as she looked down at Naruto from her perch on the fence, "…Handcuffs and a badge can only get you so far."

"Is that a threat?"

"Are you going to keep being a little punk-ass?"

In a perfect world they wouldn't have fought.

In a perfect world Naruto would have been able to evenly regulate his completely understandable paranoia and allocate it correctly, thus bestowing some sort of trust and respect onto the international law enforcement figure in Chun-Li despite their short chase episode. The two of them would have put their heads together and would have found out that even then they still didn't know anything about Shadaloo, at which point they would exchange contact information and would thank each other for trying to help, promising to do so in the future if anything ever came up.

In a perfect world due to the fact that she had a file on him, Chun-Li would have been somewhat understanding of Naruto's lack of faith in law enforcement due to the fact that they were unable to do a single thing for him or his friends in the very recent past. The reason being that three of his associates not including himself nearly got killed by Shadaloo operatives with not a peep coming from Interpol or anyone even when Naruto managed to more or less gift wrap four of them on separate occasions. She would have worked to assuage this and eventually she would have managed to coax him into peacefully helping her.

Yeah… the world wasn't perfect.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Side-Streets of Aberdeen, Hong Kong)

Naruto's plan to investigate things on his own managed to backfire a bit.

Yes, he was able to slip away from the Queen of Victory easily enough for hours while everyone else was content with waiting until the next day to begin their exploration of the massive city. But once it was confirmed that he was indeed not on the ship and that he wasn't answering his phone it would be obvious that his friends would go and look for him.

Because Naruto by himself in Hong Kong spelled nothing but trouble if past experience everywhere else he had ever been was anything to go off of.

So now Sakura, Batsu, and Karin were searching for their wayward blonde compatriot before he wound up setting off some sort of international incident. As much as that sounded like a joke there was an entirely realistic possibility of that occurring and they all knew it.

Luckily for them, Naruto had an app in his phone that let another phone that was registered with his own track him GPS-style. It just so happened that Batsu had a compatible phone since they both bought the same model at the same time. So as long as Naruto's phone was on, and it was because every call rang a few times before going to voicemail, they could locate him and were in the midst of doing so right then.

"I'm going to pull Naruto's ear off dragging him back to the yacht when we find him." Sakura fumed slightly as Batsu led the way, pinpointing Naruto's location, "Maybe that'll jumpstart some brain cells. Who just leaves without telling anyone? That's dangerous." Although she did figure that Naruto never got the parental lecture to tell people where you were going before you left, so there was that to consider as well.

"Just calm down." Batsu said as he continued to lead the girls along in the direction of Naruto, "He isn't moving anywhere so unless he dropped his phone we're going to get to him soon. He's just a few blocks away." The phone then started beeping as Naruto's signal began to quickly move away from both where it had been and from them as well, "…And now he's moving. Damn it!"

A fast moving Naruto was an extremely hard to keep up with Naruto, especially when they didn't have eyes on him in the first place. So it was understandable when the lot of them groaned at having to chase Naruto down, "I think it would be prudent to return to the yacht and search for Naruto-san with the helicopter." Karin offered as a solution to their mobility problem.

"We don't have time for that. Naruto's fast. If he's running then by the time we get back to the yacht he could be who knows where." Sakura replied, looking over Batsu's shoulder at the phone where she could see the blip that represented Naruto moving sporadically in no particular direction, but it was rapid movement like a mouse in a maze, "What the heck is he doing?"

The sound of a chain jangling didn't really catch their attention until it got loud enough for the three of them to notice that there was a very large man standing directly behind them looking over not only their shoulders but their heads as well, "What are we all looking at brats?"

At the sound of the English accent along with the aforementioned language being spoken, all three of them turned around to see a massive, hulking black man with a black open leather vest, black leather pants, combat boots on his feet, a necklace, fingerless gloves with a ring on each of his fingers, and a blonde Mohawk that was sharp like a bird's beak with a structurally impossible hole in the middle of it. A tattoo of a red heart sat on the side of his head.

"You lot stick out like sore thumbs. Big ship, chary clothes…" The man said with a chuckle as Batsu, Sakura, and Karin hopped a decent distance away from him, eliciting a chuckle out of him, "And 'ere I thought you'd be bloomin' hard to find."

"Who the hell are you ya jackass?" Batsu spat, ready to give this man a beatdown if he was there to start trouble. Chances were good that this would be the case, but starting a fight with no reason wasn't the best course of action available, "Why are you looking for us?"

The large man laughed again before smirking at the trio of teens, "Name's Birdie. And the reason for me to be making your acquaintance this evening is for that little piece of talent right there." He said, gesturing towards Karin, "Your fam doesn't care about you that much if they let you come this far away from home do they?"

Well that was all Batsu needed to hear as he tightened his hands into fists and prepared to turn that guy's face into a Jackson Pollock painting no matter how big he was. He would have stepped forward too, but before he could, the last person either he or Sakura thought would choose to fight did just that, "What are you doing rich girl? I don't think you can pay this guy off."

"She might be able to." Birdie said to contradict him, "What's it gonna be girlie? Are you gonna make looking the other way worth ol' Birdie's while monetarily or are you coming with me so we can all give your family a ring and chat a bit over just what you're worth to 'em?"

Karin didn't say anything at first, just choosing to set herself into her Kanzuki-ryuu Kakutoujutsu fighting stance, "Sakura-san, Ichimonji-san, you two should try to find Naruto-san and figure out just what he is doing." She flipped her curls over her back to stay out of her face so that she could see properly without anything hampering her vision, "I will be more than enough to handle this myself."

While Sakura could say that she wasn't the biggest fan of her 'rival' Karin, she certainly didn't wish anything bad upon her. They were friends too, even if they didn't act like it at all. The sheer fact that they hadn't murdered each other yet attested to that, "Are you sure? I mean he's trying to kidnap you."

An airy laugh came from Karin at the mere thought of it, "Do you really think that I would be that easy for one person to kidnap all on their own? No matter how much of a vulgar hulking brute they may be. So go. Naruto-san may require assistance. I on the other hand do not."

Still looking concerned to leave Karin alone, Sakura had her arm grabbed by Batsu who took off running in the direction that Naruto's signal was coming from, "Come on Sakura, you heard the princess. She's got this covered."

The footsteps of her allies from Aohura City got fainter and fainter as Karin still stood facing down Birdie with not a hint of worry in her eyes as they stood underneath the dull streetlights.

"Well it's just as well." Birdie stated flippantly at Sakura and Batsu leaving, "Bison didn't want the other brats anyway, just you. And I think it right adorable that you think you can give me a run for me money you little totty."

Ah, Bison. Naruto told her that was the name of the man trying to put the squeeze on her family and their holdings, "Your boss only sent you for me?" Karin said, feigning fear before laughing it off, "Either you're very strong, or he doesn't value you very much. I guess the only way to find out is simply to fight you then."

Birdie merely gestured for her to bring it before preemptively lashing out to grab her with one hand and put an end to this early. However she was not some normal teenage girl, nor was she some greener-than-grass amateur martial artist as she side-stepped him without a bit of wasted motion, so fast that he had hardly seen her move, "Wha?"

"I certainly hope that's not as fast as you can go." Karin taunted, posing somewhat with her hands on her hips as she stood mere inches beside the massive arm that Birdie was going to grab her with, "Come on, put some effort into it. If you wish to hug me you've got to be quicker than that."

Growling at Karin's insolence, Birdie pulled his arm back and punched at Karin, missing her again as she wasn't even trying to dodge him. She feigned a yawn this time however, "You posh little twat!" He shouted angrily as he started rapidly punching at her as fast as he could. To a normal person it would have been a requiem for a cracked skull and a caved-in sternum from the speed and power behind them, but to Karin it was like someone moving through molasses, "Hold still!"

"Ressen Chou!"

Birdie stumbled back, holding his stomach with one hand as Karin still stood in her stance from where she had driven a stiff elbow right into his belly. He hadn't even seen her move, it was like she had been a ghost and it felt like he had taken a hit from a beanbag shotgun... at least three times in succession.

Karin got right back into her basic stance, her sharp brown eyes centered right on Birdie as he tried to get his wind back, "You may be very strong, but power without technique or speed does nothing. I can see your moves before you make them and I can counter you in three different ways before I'm ever in danger." She shut her eyes in thought to her last defeat, "The man I'm training to overcome… he is fast, he is strong, and he knows how to fight against anyone. And he's only getting better. That means I must as well."

"Well you can call him and cry to him to save you once I kidnap you!" Birdie shouted, unwrapping a chain from his other hand. He was told not to injure Karin too badly, well he had to beat her up a bit if he wanted to bring her in. Bison could just deal with it if he didn't like it, "Bandit Chain!" He slung his chain directly out at her neck to grab hold of it.

Karin grit her teeth angrily and dodged the weapon intended to choke the life out of her before rushing forward, "There's a reason my father allowed me to come on this trip without a veritable army of mercenaries to protect me. Guren Ken (Crimson Lotus Fist)!"

With a hand glowing with ki she rapidly punched Birdie in the stomach with one arm like a jackhammer until he doubled over spitting blood and saliva from his mouth. She then ended things with a fanning kick that popped him up into the air and allowed her to strike him down with a spiking side-elbow strike that sent him face-first into a brick wall hard enough to crack it.

There were cries of alarm from the people that had been giving the scary-looking Birdie a wide berth to do what he wished, whatever it may have been, to the three teens. Karin merely dusted her hands off and walked over to Birdie who had flaked off of the wall and had fallen to the ground, face up and staring at the sky.

Karin kneeled down by him and grabbed him by his hair, messing up his Mohawk and eliciting a groan of agony from him, "The reason my father allowed me to go on this trip with no one to protect me… is because they would only get in my way. Now…" She started dragging him off by his hair much to the shock of everyone watching this teenage girl haul Birdie off to who knew where as if he were nothing, "You and I are going to have a nice little talk about just who sent you to retrieve me."

XxX

(With Naruto)

The reason that Naruto had started rapidly moving away from where his friends had felt his signal was quite simple; his fight with Chun-Li was not a stationary battle. It couldn't be. She was too fast for him to stay in one place to try and bash her around.

He had dodged several kicks that he would swear up and down the backwind of them could have torn someone's pancreas out. The durable blonde ninja had actually taken one that had hit solid and had jettisoned him into the side of a car, denting it with his entire frame… and hitting the metal car wasn't even the most painful part of it, the kick was still the worst part of it by far. A rib-rattler if he had ever taken one.

Apparently those shapely legs of hers weren't just for show, as they possessed some serious power as well as versatility in their use behind them if she had the control to jump off of the roofs of moving cars as if they were stepping stones on a river. That by itself was impressive because he wouldn't have tried it, hence why he elevated and jumped the entire street in one go.

Neither of them had been able to hit the other cleanly since then, both being very wary of the other's potential to attack, and the fight had become a battle of maneuvering that had travelled to what had at first seemed like a flat, open area, perfect for a showdown.

Until Naruto realized that it was in fact one of those dry fountains that had many grated openings in the ground where water would be shot up in the air randomly. Maybe he should have been tipped off by the fact that it was well lit. Well wasn't that just peachy.

"You're pretty good." Chun-Li commented on Naruto's fighting, "I mean your technique is completely formless, but that's not really an insult. It's hard to anticipate your moves at all when you attack." She said as she took a few deep breaths. Keeping up with this speedy little punk was a workout all on its own. He seemed to enjoy running away from her and making her follow him to change the terrain of the battle to suit his fancy.

A grinning Naruto returned her compliment in kind, "You're strong too. I didn't think there were cops out there that were good at fighting like this without a weapon."

Chun-Li grinned right back at him, "I like bringing my perps in alive and in one piece. That's kind of hard to do if your go-to move is always to pull a gun on them." As they spoke the geyser-like fountain erupted around then in random areas, "I've got to be strong enough to bring armed criminals down easily. Most of them are stupider than you'd hope for."

"Well you aren't bringing me in anywhere without one hell of a fight first." Naruto asserted just as a geyser blast came between him and Chun-Li. By the time it stopped three seconds later, Naruto was gone from her sight.

Her eyes widened at the subterfuge and she looked up to see a dozen Narutos falling from the sky altogether around her. The first one tried a falling punch that she stepped out of the way of before kicking it in the head and that gave way to others coming at her in their own way. It was definitely weird, but Chun-Li had to keep her wits about her lest she find herself overwhelmed. She could ask questions later once she dragged him back to HQ and threw him into interrogation.

At the moment, Naruto's clones were doing two things at once, trying to corner her, and avoiding the blasts of the fountain that had enough power to dispel them. This made them easier targets for Chun-Li to take her time with and take down. There was no rush.

Eventually, Naruto's remaining seven clones caught on to the game and stopped pursuing her. It was clear that she wasn't going to run away, and just chasing her put them at more of a disadvantage than she was.

Chun-Li almost pouted when the multiple Naruto doppelgangers stopped coming forward and instead sat back waiting for her to make a move they could capitalize on. She _almost_ pouted, because she had a move she could still make, "Kikoken (Spirit Energy Strike)!" Using both hands outstretched in front of her like a push, she fired a yellow ball of energy with a wispy blue aura around it.

It was like a cannon shot it was so fast, and one of Naruto's clones were destroyed. A smirk came over the female Interpol officer's face as she saw the stunned looks on all of the Narutos. One of them then wiped that look off of his face, he didn't know why it was surprising to see someone blast him with ki anymore. He seemed to find a new person that could do it every week.

"Fuck it." One of the Narutos, probably the original, said as he reached out to grab two others by their collars. He spun around a full 360 before showing his strength as he launched both clones at Chun-Li like projectile weapons.

"That's insane!" Chun-Li involuntarily exclaimed, dodging the two clones, but as they flew past her they threw metal weaponry her way, forcing her to cover up as she was cut and nicked by the shuriken and kunai thrown her way. The two clones that were recklessly hurled met their demise but their job was complete.

This was the best opening Naruto could have hoped for, her covering her face.

And he took full advantage of it, using his remaining clones to surround Chun-Li and kick her straight into the air like a spiraling rocket, "U! Zu! Ma! Ki!" The original Naruto crouched down in the middle of his clones and created even more, twenty more, that jumped into the air to attack Chun-Li in an endless pattern, "Uzumaki Naruto Mugen Rendan (Naruto Uzumaki Infinite Combo)!"

Chun-Li opened her eyes from the cringe she had at being kicked into the air at once by five different sources and saw over two dozen Naruto clones leaping at her intending to beat the daylights out of her. Not tonight they weren't. Pulling one leg close to herself she left the other outstretched and began kicking at a purely inhuman rate that was impossible to follow with the naked eye, "Hyakuretsukyaku (Hundred Rending Kicks)!" They jumped straight to their demises as if they were all being fed to a wood chipper. And the impact of constantly colliding with the airborne Naruto clones were keeping her up in the sky as well.

"Who the hell kicks that fast?" Naruto mused to himself as he watched his clones dispel in smoke. He started making a few more hand-seals to prepare another attack when Chun-Li started falling towards him from the air.

"Hazanshu (Supreme Mountain Kick)!" She flipped through the air and landed in a split of an axe kick that crushed the solid metal of the geyser-fountain beneath her point of landing. Better that than landing on Naruto who had the foresight to not try and stop any kick that Chun-Li began that had any sort of preexisting momentum behind it.

Naruto watched her stand up and saw the deep imprint that was a perfect cast molding of her leg. As if to test it for himself he punched the portion where he was standing and only left a fist mark where he had hit it, and that alone almost broke his damn hand even with the gloves on, "What are your legs made of, diamonds?"

Quiet laughter was elicited from Chun-Li who now stood in a stance where her side was facing Naruto with one leg set off of the ground as if prepared to kick him into oblivion if he were insane enough to get close again and test her, "Speed to me is more important than strength really. Having all of those muscles that some fighters have is all well and good, but good luck trying to hit anyone with decent evasive skills."

Naruto idly thought to himself that from what he could see of Chun-Li's thighs through her tight unitard she didn't have any problems with developing her strength and staying fast, "You're telling me. I think if you kick me one good time you're going to tear my arm off."

She took that as the compliment that it was sort of meant to be in turn, "You, you're the toughest person to chase down just to hit that I've ever fought. It shows you're not stupid. Most men, even if they are somewhat skilled, just assume because I'm a woman and I'm smaller than them that they can just block my attack and counter me without any consequences. If you had tried to block my last attack it probably would have torn your arm off honestly."

"Good to know." Naruto said aloud before he was forced to jump out of the way and dodge a blast of water from the fountain that was right by him. All of his strong attacks required that he get close to his opponent. He wasn't going to beat Chun-Li just using spitfires because he'd never hit her enough with them. But he wasn't going to get closer to those kicks either, otherwise he could label himself the ignorant misogynist for underestimating her power.

So it was a standoff.

Both Naruto and Chun-Li just stood at the ready, both prepared to anticipate and react to an attack or ready to launch one at the first opening. As if it were the signal to start, a blast of water shot between them and Chun-Li already knew that Naruto was going to make a move.

She felt his presence in her blindspot and was already reacting, turning her kicking leg to him ready to blow him away. She then hopped back a bit at seeing a very large amphibian the size of a person just sitting there and looking at her as it croaked aimlessly, "A frog! What?"

"It's a toad!"

From behind the large toad, Naruto jumped up and vaulted himself up over Chun-Li to quickly get behind her. With her leg and foot speed he wasn't going to get her back that easily, thus he used his adjusted summoning technique as the diversion that it now counted as to do so with a use of Kawarimi when she caught on to his movement.

He hadn't counted on her flexibility being just as impressive as the strength and speed of her legs. How could he have? From how he had jumped over her it was an impossible angle that only Orochimaru would have been able to reach to defend against. He had an aerial bombardment of Chakra Spitfires at the ready to put her down with his advantageous positioning, but Chun-Li had other plans.

She bent over backwards, directly on her hands into a handstand and pushed off into the air, aiming herself directly at Naruto before she unleashed a torrent of ten ki-charged, air-tearing, shifting power kicks in succession, "Hazan Tenshoukyaku (Supreme Spinning Air Kick)!" It was a move intended to punish aerially attacking foes since they couldn't exactly move while in the air, so she could put nothing but pure power behind each and every kick.

Naruto was forced to hold back his projectile attack for personal preservation purposes as he turtled up in defense as the kicks started to blast off of the guard comprised of his legs and arms that creaked and groaned in protest under every shot. She had to be fracturing something and he didn't know what would be worse to lose to injury, a leg or an arm. If she broke his leg(s) he'd get substantially slower and she'd tear him apart with the clear mobility advantage, if she broke his arm(s) his hand-seals would be shot and half of his special attack repertoire would be disabled.

But with the last kick, Naruto found he wasn't going to fall from the air anytime soon. Well he still had something of his own. Before Chun-Li had ever attacked him he had finished his hand-seals for his spitfire technique, and he had found that adding two extra ones gave a little variation on the move that he was ready to expose in its first use in battle, "Isseishageki Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire Volley)!"

From Naruto's mouth he spat a series of pure chakra projectiles that were smaller than a normal spitfire by 1/8th, but what they lacked in size they made up for in quantity. A sheer volume attack as they came at Chun-Li who had also been stuck in the air in just over a dozen or so blasts like bomblets.

On the ground she would have been hard-pressed to dodge them, but in the air she had no shot at doing so at all.

In her best impersonation of Naruto from moments earlier, Chun-Li tried to protect her body as they exploded off of her and propelled her to the ground while Naruto was sent flying in the air in the opposite direction from her power kicks.

The first to hit the ground because of the fact that she was propelled that way, Chun-Li hit the metal of the geyser-fountain with a pained yelp as she held her torso in pain from what she had just suffered. Naruto on the other hand was knocked into a low-lying billboard that his body punched straight through before he fell through the shrubs behind it, barely breaking his fall on the ground, "Ow…"

Chun-Li let out a few coughs as she sat up and stood up as she saw Naruto starting to do the same, "Why aren't you using that power that I know you have? That Psycho Power. The red stuff." If he chose to use that against her she wasn't sure that even her very best kill-shot could defeat him. It was taking a toll on her to keep up with him as he was, he just never stopped.

"What-Power?" Naruto responded confusedly, "You saw my red chakra? You're the second person that did and got what it was called wrong. I don't know what that power you're talking about is."

"But you have to." Chun-Li responded, not letting this drop. It was important, "You used it to fight, there are two separate reports of you using it; both during a tournament battle and outside of a hospital later that night against a masked attacker. That's a power that looks very similar to what the leader of Shadaloo utilizes to make himself inhumanly powerful."

Naruto frowned and stood up out of his chosen fighting stance, "Well it's not what you think it is. Is that what you wanted to ask me earlier?"

"It's not the only thing…" Chun-Li replied with a frown of her own. If he hadn't freaked out and run away like a guilty party they could have hashed this out without all of the bodily harm. Once again; in a perfect world, "I did want to ask you if you had dealings with them, like if you were simply Bison's eyes on the Kanzuki heiress to help him plan moves against her and them."

"No way! I'd never hurt Karin!" Naruto stated, offended at the thought, "I'd never do that to any of my friends! Some Shadaloo guy named Vega tried to recruit me like that, but I said no to him so he tried to kill me. That's it. And Karin is my friend so when Shadaloo tried to take her away they had a problem with me." He then raised an eyebrow at her, "That's it? That's all you wanted? You made it sound like you were going to-."

"-Tie you to a chair in some dark basement and torment you for information that you didn't have?" Chun-Li ventured, and when she saw an embarrassed blush spread across Naruto's face she could tell she had hit the nail on the head, "Geez kid, you're paranoid." But from what he had just told her, just because he felt that people were out to get him didn't mean there weren't any. Clearly.

Naruto blinked at the woman blankly before he sighed and plopped down on the ground cross-legged, "Oh man… I'm in so much trouble… I just got into a street fight with an Interpol agent." He started to moan while clutching his head, "Ah, my friends are gonna kick my ass if they find out about this."

_Now_ Naruto looked like a more normal teenager instead of some kind of elite warrior or finely honed killing machine as the previous battle would have given full credence to. She walked over to the seated Naruto and gave him a few pats on his spiky head, "It's okay… it's just a misunderstanding. No harm done." No harm done that a little rest, ice, compression, and elevation couldn't fix.

"So I'm not an international criminal?" Naruto asked, turning big blue eyes shimmering up at her in desperation Chun-Li's way.

She couldn't help but giggle, "No you're not. Actually you might be able to help me. You have a cell phone don't you?" Naruto paled and fished his cell phone out of his supply pouch hoping that it wasn't broken before handing it over to Chun-Li. She took it and raised an eyebrow at what she saw on the first screen before shrugging it off and inputting her number, "If you're a target of Shadaloo, then you call me if you need help or if something comes up. Bison isn't to be trifled with. He beat me and made it look easy."

That was surprising. A wide-eyed Naruto took his phone back, "Really? But you're so strong." Chun-Li seemed to be mad when she thought about her loss, but she nodded in confirmation, "Wow…"

"He has an army of underlings." Was the warning that came from Chun-Li, "You may have fought a few of them, but his resources are incredible. Not to mention how scary-powerful he is. So I'll make you a deal. If either of us get the opportunity and we choose to take them on, we'll call the other to help."

Well this was a total 180 from how he first expected this woman to be. She seemed way nicer than how stern she was when they had first had a run-in, "…You just met me."

"Yeah."

"…And we just fought."

"…Yeah?"

"And now you think I can help you?"

Chun-Li fixed Naruto with a strong gaze that he returned. One that made tough guys wet themselves after having dealt with this little lady in the past, but even after having his skeletal frame rattled he seemed ready to go through it again, 'Impressive.' She started to pace around him before she spoke again, explaining why she asked him to help, "Well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Or they could be. And I can't do this by myself. You're strong, and I need strong friends for this. I only have one person that plans on helping me so far… and he isn't here yet."

Well he planned on staying in China for a foreseeable time because it was the only country whose languages he could speak that had enough supernatural crap in it to help him in his search for a possible way home. So as long as he was there why not make friends with an Interpol agent? He'd probably need it later on down the line.

"Alright." Naruto extended his hand and Chun-Li took it in a heartfelt shake, "You've got it." If there was only other person that was going to help her that wasn't going to be enough. And since he was looking to stomp a mudhole in this 'Bison' person that was the Shadaloo boss anyway, he might as well do it with friends, "So now at least I've got someone else that wants to help me kick Bison's ass."

"Don't make it sound so easy. I've got to find him first." Chun-Li crossed her arms in a displeased manner, "There are way too many Shadaloo hotspots around southern Asia to pinpoint exactly where their general focus is, so we can't center in on them. It's not like they're uniformed criminals either and they've got numerous fronts all over the world that fund them. For everyone that's brought down another one gets taken. We can't stop their financial support."

'So that's why they want Karin's family to play ball.' Naruto thought to himself, "Well before now you didn't have a bonafide ninja watching your back. I'll be… in Asia for the time being so I'll come running to wherever you need me if you do."

"Wow." Chun-Li said in response to Naruto's seemingly dead serious statement, "That's a serious friend."

All he could do was hold his hands behind his neck and grin widely, "A Konoha ninja is a good friend to have."

XxX

(Hidden Location Somewhere in Thailand)

Naruto's red energy… it was marvelous. Such concentrated might in even such a little sample of residual energy that was taken from the wounds of both Vega in the last few months and Juli from just two weeks ago. And such power had gone untapped until then? No longer.

The source of the energy was still alive and kicking so Shadaloo scientists could use what they had of Naruto's little samples that had been recovered for a test. All that was needed was a subject. Someone that could truly benefit from the boost and the benefits that would come with it.

Luckily there was someone in the Shadaloo doghouse with Bison that was actually eager to allow this to be done to him.

Not only had Vega fallen in bitter defeat to Uzumaki in Tokyo, but he had failed in his most recent mission to retrieve his rogue member of the Dolls, Cammy/a.k.a. Killer Bee who had gone rogue for some reason when her brainwashing inexplicably faltered during a mission in India. Now no one knew where she was going, but Bison knew that she would return home. She knew where it was, and if her buttons were pushed enough she would come looking for him. Those with newfound independence always made it a point to return to their former masters to prove it. And that was when he would have her.

She was his property in the purest form of the idea. After all, years ago scientists had engineered her body using his DNA as a template, solely for the use of transferring his essence into once his own body broke down from his extreme uses of Psycho Power. That was the only reason she existed to begin with, thus free will was never a right for her to have.

But that would take care of itself soon enough. There were more interesting concerns to take care of, such as the splicing of Naruto's red energy with Vega's cellular composition.

In addition to improving his strength, something that Vega would have jumped at regardless, he knew that this dangerous experiment if successful would keep him firmly in Bison's good graces. Out of the three Grandmasters of Shadaloo between Vega, Sagat, and Balrog, the only other one other than Vega that Bison could regularly count on for important measures was Sagat, and Sagat never seemed to be that in tune with what the group was all about.

Sagat's place as Bison's right-hand man was due to his undeniably powerful fighting ability, second to no one else in the world. This was the sole reason that Bison had originally sought him out and recruited him.

Balrog was too bumbling and simple to be counted on for anything too complicated, thus Vega was Bison's main man of operations. And this participation in the experiment simply solidified that fact.

"How are things looking Senoh?" Bison inquired as he walked, clad in a dark cape that covered his arms and uniform, his pupil-less white eyes staring down the hallway emotionlessly as he walked next to (slightly in front of) a diminutive and grotesque man in a white scientist's uniform. He had long, stringy grey hair and was balding on the top, "What do the results say on the experiment?"

"It's incredible." Senoh said, grinning in a manner that showed he had many missing teeth in his mouth, "Vega's body responded violently to the splicing of his cellular makeup with that of the boy Naruto Uzumaki's red power at first. We had to tie him down in order to keep him from harming himself and those around him at first, but he eventually settled down. We've been observing him for the last seventy-two hours. Thus far it has been a success."

"And?" Bison asked impatiently, not sharing the man's flair for the dramatic when it came to results.

Sensing this very fact from his dangerous and murderous leader, Senoh got straight to the point, speeding up to walk in front of Bison so that the man didn't reach the door to the lab first and find him impudent for not opening the door for him, "W-Well Master Bison, Vega's body has gone through radical changes. The coagulation of blood in the healing of his wounds has multiplied twenty-fold. His scar that was left on his body from the internal injuries inflicted on him by the boy healed right before our eyes in a day even after we diagnosed that it wouldn't fade for another month at least. His muscles are more readily able to react as his reflexes have increased considerably and if I'm correct his strength has as well. We're still running tests, but we believe that the mere presence of the power in his system has naturally enhanced his physiology."

An interested shine lay in Bison's eyes as he walked into the lab once Senoh opened the door. The man was brilliant, had little to no morals, and he was a completely utter coward; his kind of scientist. Inside the lab he found Vega dressed in his normal combat clothing marveling at his now scar-free torso in a full body mirror, looking as fit as a fiddle, "Vega. I've heard of your successful results from the infusion of the Uzumaki boy's energy."

"Oh yes…" Vega said, still checking himself over with a smirk on his face. He was as flawless as ever. That ugly spiral bruise/scar that marked not only imperfection on his body but was a perpetual reminder of his defeat to that monster of a child was gone as if it had never existed at all, "You can see the results for yourself Master Bison. As if nothing ever happened at all."

"That's good to hear." Bison stated as he stood behind the Spanish ninja, "I'd like to get you back to work as soon as possible. There's much to be done these days. Many activities in motion. So tell me how you're feeling."

Vega turned around to face Bison, still smirking as he placed a new porcelain mask onto his face, "How else?" His eyes momentarily glowed red before returning to their normal hazel color, "…Pissed off and ready for round two."

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Chun-Li  
><span>Nationality:<span> China  
><span>Gender:<span> Female  
><span>Age:<span> 20 (Birthday: March 1)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'6 ½/Secret  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> A  
><span>Likes:<span> Her father, sweets, yogashi, American candy.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Crime, indecisive and shady people, Shadaloo.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Competitive shooting.  
><span>Rivals:<span> M. Bison, Naruto Uzumaki (friendly).  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Tai Chi  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Hyakuretsukyaku (Hundred Rending Kicks/Lightning Kick), Kikoken (Spirit Energy Strike), Hazanshu (Supreme Mountain Kick), Kaiten-teki Kaku Kyakushuu (Rotating Crane Leg Kick), Tenshokyaku (Spinning Air Kick).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Senretsukyaku (Thousand Rending Kicks), Housenka (Phoenix Fan Petals), Kikoshou (Spirit Energy Blast), Hazan Tenshoukyaku (Supreme Spinning Air Kick).  
><span>Background:<span> Chun-Li is an Interpol investigator searching for clues to the death of her father over three years prior. This eventually led her to the tracks of the crime syndicate Shadaloo and its leader M. Bison, but she was unable to bring him to justice or even come close to subduing him, suffering a crushing defeat for her trouble. Chun-Li is a speed based fighter more privy to utilizing her incredibly impressive leg strength to her advantage in combat. She favors kicking techniques that can crush metal at their strongest and are lightning fast at their quickest. She can perform gravity-defying feats involving jumping that are impressive even by superhuman standards. Some criminals that have been captured by her have gone on record swearing that they had seen her jump off of nothing more than air itself. Chun-Li is generally a very cheerful and kind woman, but tends to take her job gravely serious due to her young age for such a position and her ongoing quest to force her father's killer M. Bison to pay for his crimes.

Name: Birdie  
><span>Nationality:<span> England  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 28 (May 22)  
><span>HeightWeight: 7'1/244 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> O  
><span>Likes:<span> Beer, beef jerky, making money.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Children, the police.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Gluttony, criminality.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Balrog (both are exceedingly greedy), Zangief (finds his Mohawk as a challenge from when he was a pro wrestler), E. Honda.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Wrestling & Brawling  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Bull Head, Bull Horn, Murderer Chain, Bandit Chain.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> The Birdie, Bull Revenger.  
><span>Background:<span> A former professional wrestler, Birdie turned to a life of crime when his career waned. Gaining notoriety through street fighting on the side of his main job as a crime enforcer and bouncing at nightclubs, he eventually got an invitation to enter Sagat's original World Warrior Tournament. Unfortunately while suffering from a strain of the flu he ran up against the eventual winner of the overall tournament, Ryu, and was defeated soundly. Afterwards, still making his name in the underworld criminal ranks, he became a member of Shadaloo after demonstrating his fighting prowess for them. Birdie's combat style is the epitome of brawling, completely unrefined and willing to use any means to ensure victory. He relies mostly on his size and build to defeat his enemies, and is very partial to grabbing them either with his chain or with his bare hands. Smaller opponents beware, but he can be overcome by a fighter fast enough to avoid him and strong enough keep him from moving forward like a juggernaut until he can hurt you.

* * *

><p><strong>Spring Break is a meaningless time of year if you're broke… like for me. Yay…<strong>

**It's too early for it anyway, my college always does it the first week of March, but it doesn't really matter because I don't have any money. Otherwise I wouldn't be posting this chapter I'd be watching hundreds of people make asses of themselves and get themselves one shot away from alcohol poisoning while keeping my really short friend from getting our group jumped by another college.**

…**No one outside of southwest Virginia knows where Radford University is and apparently when we go on trips to other colleges and they say that to us his drunk ass takes offense to it. It's like clockwork… it's embarrassing.**

**Either way, Naruto doesn't share my problem with his own glorified Spring Break (Not really, but I took a moment to think about it and it technically is; school is still in session for him but he's taking time off to roam the globe? That might as well be Spring Break.) complete with problems galore, and they're just getting started!**

**Until the next time folks… I think depending on how the next chapter spaces out I might pull something that'll blow your minds… in a good way of course. **

**And it's not even what you're thinking about... I hope.  
><strong>

**Kenchi out.**


	13. Picking Up the Trail

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. Do you smell that burning scent? That's the arson I'm committing to vent my frustrations over this fact. Yep… smell that asbestos burn. It smells like victory.

Wait, if that's asbestos then I shouldn't be this close right?

Ah, who cares? What's the worst thing that can happen?

*cough*

**Chapter 13: Picking Up the Trail**

* * *

><p>In a room down in the Queen of Victory's supply hold, Karin stood proudly in front of Birdie who was tied to a chair in the rather dim room. Normally she was never one to be seen down in that portion of the ship, but what else was she going to do? She certainly wasn't going to keep a thug like Birdie in the good portion of her ship, and her yacht didn't have a jail area, so she had to improvise one.<p>

This was what Naruto, Sakura, and Batsu looked at when they entered that area at her behest, "Uh…" Naruto started to say, "What exactly did you do while I was running around Aberdeen all evening? And what are you going to do with him? Do I even want to know?"

"It isn't what I'm going to do Naruto-san, it's what I've already done. And no… no you do not." Karin replied, patting Birdie on the cheek of his busted up face, a face that was even more damaged than when she had dragged him aboard, "Our friend..." Birdie whined and tried to wriggle his way out of Karin's hand on his face in vain. The crazy little bitch was meaner than she looked, "…Has been very helpful to me in regards to our enemy tonight."

"I don't get paid enough-." Birdie said, stopping for a moment to whine for a bit when Karin's hand turned to a fist pressed against his face, "I don't get paid enough to deal with this shit! I told you what you wanted, let me go!"

With a dry look on his face, Naruto walked over to Birdie and crouched down in front of his face, "Yeah, we're not going to do that." Birdie started to whine again, getting progressively louder as Sakura covered her ears and Batsu rolled his eyes, "Birdie stop-. Birdie… Birdie stop cry-. Shut the hell up Birdie!" Naruto eventually shouted right at him to get him to stop, "We're not going to let you go because you're either going to run to Bison and tell him what you told us because you're stupid, or you're just going to run. Either way he's going to kill you."

Naruto was a bleeding heart when it came to forcing people into no-win situations. He couldn't help but wish to give people into situations where they couldn't somehow make heads-or-tails of themselves a fighting chance. But some people just didn't see that sometimes, "I don't care just let me go! Where's your honor you brats?" People like Birdie. Probably because whatever Karin did to him in that supply room to yank information from him scarred him for life.

"Fine." With a sigh, Naruto figured that he wasn't going to keep Birdie around. He didn't want to be 'protected' and it wasn't like they were paramilitary and could keep a prisoner. They were foreigners, and while Birdie was too he was already considered a criminal. A grinning Naruto then pointed his finger at Birdie's head, scaring the man as if he were going to execute him before Birdie realized that he didn't use a weapon, "Caught you flinching!" Naruto said with a grin, getting a headbutt to the face for his trouble.

Sakura gasped as Naruto stumbled back before catching his footing and Batsu started laughing his ass off at Naruto getting his for trying to pick on a prisoner and getting his nose broken for it, "Naruto are you okay?" Sakura asked him as she noticed him bleeding.

At this point his nose had been broken so many times it was more annoying than anything else anymore, thus he popped it back into place with a grunt and sniffed to try and clear his nasal passages, "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm calling Chun-Li. Maybe she can take this guy?" He then walked out of the hold, cursing and muttering to himself about how he just changed clothes and got blood all over them.

Birdie watched with a bit of a smirk for managing to get the cheeky little bastard for trying to get him to lose control of his bladder out of fear, "Think you were gonna take the piss outta ol' Birdie did you mate?" He said with a chuckle as Batsu and Sakura cleared out of the room to follow Naruto back up to the regular part of the yacht.

"I wish you hadn't done that to him. He and I are rather dear friends you know." Karin said in a regretful voice, getting Birdie to lose his humor after realizing that he was all alone with the heiress again, "Now I've got to make your face feel like his or I just will not be able to sleep tonight."

She tugged on her fighting gloves and got Birdie to shake in place before she threw a punch right at him, eliciting a high-pitched shriek from him before it stopped right in front of his face and Karin flicked him lightly right in the nose.

"Caught you flinching." Karin said in something of a taunting voice before walking out of the room to leave the British thug there. Naruto's form of teasing people was indeed fun even if it did have the chance of the recipient reacting violently.

XxX

(The Next Day – Victoria Harbour)

"A kid?" A busy loading dock played host to a conversation between Chun-Li and another person; a lanky Caucasian man with green cargo pants and boots, an open light yellow flak jacket to show a rather impressive build beneath it, and glasses on his face. His blonde hair was interesting in the way that it had a very long single forelock hanging out and down in front of his face, "You're bringing a kid in on this? You've got to be out of your mind. He's just going to get himself hurt."

Chun-Li rolled her eyes as she leaned against a few crates for support, "Oh get over it Charlie. I was all by myself here. Maybe if you were better about telling someone when you'd be showing up with all of your hush-hush-."

"I'm technically AWOL so I couldn't really just hop on the closest line and call you like a relative to say I was coming. Do you know how much of a pain it was to get here?" The man, Charlie, interrupted as he crossed his arms over his chest, "These people have guys in my own Air Force. My own backup helicopter shot me down in South America when I had that bastard cornered."

"Exactly." Chun-Li said as if he hit the nail on the head as to her point, "Naruto's not a part of any government system or group so he isn't some double-agent spy or anything. He has a friend that Shadaloo is trying to hurt so he hates them too. And if you knew how strong he was you wouldn't be saying that he could get himself hurt. He's a good kid."

Charlie found it a bit funny that Chun-Li was referring to someone four years younger than her as a kid when she was barely out of her teens herself. It was only her birthday around a month ago from what he knew, "I still don't like it. This isn't some hero thing."

A frown marred Chun-Li's pretty face at his indication and she pushed herself off of the crates she had been sitting on to walk towards Charlie, "And you think I don't know that? I know what I'm doing here. Some people just have a look about them that tells you something. Well Naruto's look tells me that this is going to be okay. He even sent me a Shadaloo thug just last night." She took a modicum of satisfaction from the look on her American ally's face, "Yeah, the guy is low-level. An errand runner really, but it's the fighter Birdie. That's a pretty big deal."

With that bit of information, Charlie just stood and thought to himself for a minute as the dock workers barely registered the pair's presence. Chun-Li merely waited patiently, knowing that he didn't have any reason to dissuade Naruto getting involved. Him being a child didn't mean a thing, "Fine. Where is he so I can at least introduce myself?"

"Later. He's doing something else for me right now." From the grin on her face it was something she was quite excited about, "Criminals know who I am, so if we go looking for him now it'll just make things difficult for him. I can call him if you really want to talk to him, otherwise we can wait until he's done." Charlie consented to that with a nod, deciding to wait until Naruto was done with whatever he was doing before choosing to meet him, "Good. Now tell me what we've got to work with against Shadaloo."

XxX

(Central, Hong Kong – Lower Section of D'Aguilar Street)

With his normal taciturn expression and crimson ninja gi, Guy walked through a more obscure, compressed back street with many side sections. This was the portion of cities that he happened to be most accustomed to. The places where he could find trouble without even having to look for it. Looking the way he did, with the clothes he wore and the serious look that was always on his face, it tended to rub a lot of tough guys the wrong way.

Well that was just fine with him. If he kicked his way through enough so-called tough guys there would be one that would point him in Shadaloo's direction.

The trouble with him though, was the woman at his side. A tall woman that was just Guy's height walked along with him. She was a very curvaceous woman with long wavy purple hair, dark eyes, and a fair complexion that was out of place in that part of the world. She wore a loose red evening gown with large gold buttons over a dark-colored body stocking and high heels along with a long golden scarf around her shoulders and arms.

"Rose you should go back home." Guy said in a straightforward manner. He wasn't expecting her to even listen to him though. It had to have been the sixth time he had told her this, "Your endeavor to destroy Shadaloo's leader is self-destructive."

"And what exactly do you define your own endeavor to do so as?" Rose responded, also with a very serious look on her face, "It's my destiny to fight him. I've seen that it is my fate to do battle with him. My Soul Power is the only thing that can stand up to his twisted Psycho Power." She stated as she looked at the tarot cards she had read that had established to her that doomsday was coming and she had to try and prevent it, "I may not be as experienced a combatant as you, but I cannot run away."

"Yes you can…" Guy said, sighing in exasperation, a rare break from his usual emotionless façade, "You're not the only one that was told of such an evil that manifested as Bison. You're not the only one that's out to bring him down. You're speaking like you're okay with dying as long as you face him because it's what your fortune telling has foreseen for you." He looked over at the woman who seemed to be tuning his words out stubbornly, "Let those who have dedicated their lives to combat deal with Shadaloo."

Rose merely shook her head and spoke a line in Italian before she remembered that Guy didn't speak that language and changed it back to English for his understanding, "You cannot change the path that you are on. You can only walk forward and do your best to make things right."

That was the best he was going to get out of her apparently. This entire situation was a pain as far as Guy was concerned. His master in his ninja village spoke of a great evil that would threaten the world. He had no idea what to look for until Ibuki returned home with serious injuries at the hands of a group named Shadaloo. A little digging around found that this was a dangerously powerful organization, and he believed that this was the evil he was warned of by his late master.

So it was his self-arranged mission to put an end to it. Those that were ill-equipped to bear the burden of the fight had no place there. More deaths, needless deaths, wouldn't solve anything and they wouldn't change anything. And Rose seemed to be marching towards the gallows when she could simply avoid it altogether. He hated heroics.

Which was why he almost cringed and stopped in his tracks when he caught sight of a wild head of bright yellow hair and blue eyes walking through the crowd a ways away, "Uzumaki…"

It didn't matter what Ibuki had told him during their run-in in Aohura City, as far as he was concerned Naruto was simply playing at ninja and had been fortunate thus far with not only keeping his own life, but not losing the lives of those close to him such as Ibuki herself. And here he was again, this time next to him there was a girl that seemed even more out of place than a sixteen year old kid like him was. She looked like a regular schoolgirl with short brown hair and a white headband wrapped around her forehead.

That was the last straw. He was getting tired of this. Whatever Naruto was doing there he could more than likely confirm pretty easily that he wasn't some tourist sightseeing around. He wasn't in the right place for that, he was way off of the beaten path for any tourism.

He saw Naruto and the girl stop at a crossroad of sorts and converse rather spiritedly for a bit before Naruto threw his hands up and headed off in one direction while the brunette schoolgirl went off in another both of them still apparently cursing each other out as they made sure the people gave them a wide berth.

Grilling Naruto over why he was there wouldn't go well at all. The two weren't the biggest fans of each other and an inferring Guy would only raise Naruto's hackles defensively. He was after all a very hotheaded person, this much was common knowledge in the ninja community when it came to the 'Nukenin of Aohura City' as he was referred to informally, because the lot of them were convinced that he was merely a runaway that hadn't been dealt with by his clan yet.

With that in mind he turned to go down the path that the girl took. Maybe she would be more willing to tell him about what their purpose there was, "I'll be back." He was surprised when he saw Rose staring in the direction that Naruto went, "Rose." He said abruptly to get her attention, startling her a bit, "That boy you're looking after, I'm going to go speak to his companion."

Rose nodded before turning back towards the path that Naruto went down, "In that case I will follow the boy." She didn't explain why, nor did she give Guy the platform to ask her why she chose to do so as she moved seamlessly through the crowd and separated from her ninja friend.

XxX

(Moments Earlier – With Naruto and Sakura)

Despite the fact that she was the one to elicit the information from Birdie, and Naruto still did not want to know how she managed to do that in a span of two hours the previous night, Karin did not want to sully herself by walking amongst the most unwashed of the masses by following up on where they were told to go.

So Batsu stayed back with her because someone had to, and Sakura came with Naruto… because someone had to. They had all agreed on this except for Naruto, but his opinion mattered little to two women that had already made up their minds and Batsu who didn't care because it didn't really affect him one way or the other.

And there they were in the middle of a crowded street about to venture into the rat's nest of illicit activity. What a pair; the ninja and the Japanese schoolgirl, "Sakura-chan I really hope there isn't a kidnapping ring based around here because-."

"Please don't finish that statement." Sakura responded with a blank look aimed Naruto's way as the pair walked together, "It'll be fine. It's better than leaving you alone to get into another fight with a cop or who knows who." She ignored the sticking out of Naruto's tongue in reaction, "Mature."

Naruto grunted incoherently, bumping Sakura with his hip only to get one from her as well, "Alright fine. Follow me, eyes open, knock out anyone ogling you too closely, and stop looking like a cute, naive schoolgirl because this ain't the place for it."

"Naruto, I'm the one that's actually been around the world before if you remember correctly. You're the one that's out of their element here."

"You didn't do anything like this little lady. All you did was get into back alley street fights with nobodies and chase Ryu halfway around the globe like a bloodhound."

"Says the guy that fought an Interpol agent yesterday! You're a menace to society…"

"You're a menace to Ryu's virginity you friggin' stalker… wait. Holy crap do you think he's actually a-?"

"Shut up! Geez, sometimes you're such a delinquent brat!"

"It is what it is _stalker woman_!"

"Delinquent brat!"

"Stalker woman!"

The denizens of the back street were treated to the sight of two Japanese teenagers going nose-to-nose and shouting at each other in their native tongue. From the way their faces got progressively redder and redder and they started poking each other in their chests they were more than likely using blue language. Something to note; Sakura wasn't particularly a fan of the whole Naruto poking her in the chest thing.

"You think you're so cool with your underground mercenary-for-hire crap." Sakura stated, swatting Naruto's finger away from her chest because she swore he was enjoying letting it linger too long on her breast for it to be a poke of aggression, "I can look as non-threatening as I want to be. I still bet that if I go off on my own you're gonna be the one that gets in trouble again like you always do."

Naruto snorted and looked away from his best friend, "Whatever jailbait. I don't always get into trouble."

"You _always_ get into trouble." Sakura disputed with a smirk because, not even rising to the 'jail-bait' crack because she knew that she had him now. There was no feasible way he could deny this. There was simply too much evidence backing her up, "Everywhere you go, it's always the same thing. You're gonna do some stupid ninja thing that you think is smart that'll make the wrong person mad, then you're gonna run and call for help, then you're gonna stop and fight, then I'm gonna show up after you've already caused tons of money in property damage."

All Naruto could really do was stare at her as she gave the basic rundown of what happened in every new city he had ever gone to. He still had ammo though, "Yeah… but I'll live. I know how to get away. You don't. You're gonna get kidnapped by Triads and sold, you know that right? You've got no gut survival instinct Sakura-chan. No one's ever almost killed you before." He teased as if it was a badge of honor, "And I'll still get the job done either way. Bet I'll find something good even if I get into trouble."

"You're on." Sakura accepted the unspoken challenge between them, "If you call me and you're in trouble you lose, if I call you and I need help I lose. Winner is the one that comes back with the best info on the you-know-who. I win, you buy me whatever I want later and you do my homework and help me cheat in class for a whole semester next year."

A wager? Well there couldn't have been a more awkward time for a bet. Still, Naruto never turned down a challenge, "Fine. If I win I get to use your bedroom window to get into your house until your mom makes me stop and I get to spank you whenever you and Karin get into your stupid arguments, in public or private… _forever_."

'Pervert.' Sakura thought to herself with a twitching eyebrow. But she hated school so much, and Naruto was going to cheat anyway and never get caught. Why not make it work for her? She didn't mind the window thing and Naruto found it important because he travelled alone by roof-hopping so windows were easier for him, and she didn't think she argued with Karin aloud enough for the last stipulation to concern her too much, "Fine."

"Fine." And with that the two shook hands and separated, choosing to walk down two different paths leading away through the crowded back street.

Was that really the wisest course of action? No it wasn't. But then again, Sakura was very strong so she would be fine. She wouldn't find any information on Shadaloo though, not any info as good as he would find. She wasn't really a girl that could go get shady information unless she found a pervert that she could beat it out of once she got their attention.

Ha. She'd call him in two hours saying that she wanted to go back to the yacht. She didn't even know where they had been going before they had split up. Where'd she think she'd have to get to in order to get any use out of their trip today? He on the other hand knew where he was going.

Hence Naruto began to traverse back past the point where more normal people would not tread. An alleyway marked with a dark tarp hung in front of it, Naruto ducked through it and on the other side the place seemed to get darker.

'Here we go.' Naruto thought to himself as he noticed the very few people past that point giving him a wary and warning stare that he returned to show that he knew where he was going and what he was doing. Moving by the men standing there, Naruto kept going a short ways until he reached a door and opened it to descend a set of steps that led to a dingy little bar, 'What a dive.'

Even in the middle of the afternoon there were still dozens of people inside. Yeah, that made sense. Criminals and whatnot didn't really work 9-to-5 schedules. And him being the guy dressed in the orange clothing he was pretty sure he had burned a few corneas used to the low light of the bar so he definitely had some attention.

It didn't matter yet. His gut wasn't telling him to get ready for a fight, so he simply sat down at the bar that was rather crowded. His seat was between two other men that would have scared the crap out of normal people. He spared both of them a glance as they did to him before they all ignored each other and Naruto looked forward at the barkeep who was eying him strangely.

Naruto gave the man a grin and leaned forward. It was time to test his Mandarin, "Hey. How's it going?"

The barkeep seemed almost amused at the bright expression this kid had, and the fact that he was speaking good enough Mandarin to keep people from riding his case, "You do know that I can't legally serve alcohol to anyone under 18 years old don't you?"

Naruto just kept his eyes firmly on the man in a seemingly semi-serious standoff of sorts until both of them started laughing. Not just them, but the men beside Naruto and half of the bar got their chuckles off of that, "Yeah, because this place looks super-licensed. I don't want to drink anyway, I just want to talk really."

"Eh…" The barkeep said with a shrug, "I don't know kid. Talking is usually something that the _customers_ do. You know what I'm saying?"

Rolling his blue eyes at the inflection in the man's voice, Naruto was glad that Karin made him convert some of his money into international currencies before they left Japan. Pulling out a roll that he had previously counted to be 12,000 Hong Kong dollars that he set in front of the barkeep, "Uh… could you set all of my friends up with a round?" He flinched a bit when instead of a smattering of noise this time he got a rather loud cheer, "Keep the change."

Another chuckle came from the barkeep as he went to go place that rather large bit of 'tip money' in the backroom safe.

Naruto got a series of pats on his back from the people sitting at the bar with him along with one rather delicate tap. He ignored it mostly until it kept happening and he turned around to see a woman that he knew wasn't a local for certain. She was very pretty and had an almost pouting expression on her face as she looked at him, "Uh hi?" Naruto ventured to say at first in English because she didn't seem to be from around there, "Did you want to see the bartender for a drink?"

The woman found a bit of humor in that. She didn't believe that this bar served her drink of choice, but it was nice of him to offer. It was then that she chose to speak, "I'm sorry, but I came here to talk to you. I know who you are Naruto Uzumaki." She saw that he was surprised that she knew his name, "Do you have the time to converse for a bit?"

Taking the arrival of the very pretty foreign lady to mean something else for the blonde kid sitting with them, the two men showed a measure of gratitude to the boy by getting up from their seats at the bar with him, choosing to depart to a table, patting him on the shoulders. Though the woman couldn't understand enough Mandarin to know what was uttered to Naruto it was clear that he did and that it must have been something embarrassing from how his face turned red and from how the men were smirking and chuckling as they left.

Naruto eventually coughed his embarrassment down and turned around on his stool, pointing to a seat next to him, "Yeah! Yeah… come on and have a seat. I'm waiting anyway." The woman gave him a warm smile and sat down next to him in a very elegant way. Goodness she was pretty, with something of an ephemeral feel to her really, as if he needed to listen to every word she was about to say.

"I would like to thank you for being so calm. It must have been difficult when I suddenly spoke your name." She said first of all, settling into her seat as comfortably as possible, "My cold approach probably leaves a lot to be desired. But my name is Rose."

"Nice to meet you." Naruto said, subconsciously scratching at the Konoha leaf tattoo that sat on his bare right arm. Why'd he feel nervous? It wasn't a life-threatening kind of nervous, just an uncomfortable kind of nervous, "So, what do you want with me?"

Rose sighed before lifting her hand and poking Naruto right in the forehead where his headband lay, "I can feel the abnormally powerful energy inside of you." From how Naruto gave her a startled look she could tell that if he hadn't been paying attention before she had his full attention now, "And I believe that you have a very turbulent aura about you."

XxX

(With Sakura)

Maybe this wasn't the best idea.

It was one thing to walk with Naruto through a crowded street in a city and country she had never been in before; for some reason he always seemed to know exactly where he was going no matter what, and the fact that the both of them could handle any situation that came their way was reassuring.

It was another thing altogether to be looking for any inkling of information on a crime syndicate, intentionally looking for a bad part of town all on her own. Naruto was right to a certain extent; the way she looked was like a lost schoolgirl on a field trip abroad.

Damn it, if someone was stupid enough to try and abduct her she'd never hear the end of it from the blonde loudmouth… but she liked wearing her school uniform. It was comfortable for her to fight in.

"Let's see…" Sakura said to herself quietly as she looked around, "If I was a creep that knew something good about Shadaloo where would I hang out?"

Well from what she knew about the past run-ins with the organization, they didn't have a general nationality about them. They were from all over the place. Birdie was from England, Vega was noted Spanish nobility, and who knew where those girls that attacked her high school came from?

Maybe she could start by visiting some stores and businesses that weren't domestic to Hong Kong? It was better than walking around talking to herself.

Sakura made it back out to a main road and stopped to take out her phone and check to see if anyone had called or messaged her, hoping that Naruto had already screwed up and had lost the bet after only forty-five minutes.

No such luck.

With a sigh, Sakura put her phone back and massaged her temple, "Why does Naruto do stuff like this for a job? How does he do stuff like this for a job?" This was why she would stick to school… because at least there was a set path towards a conventional career that way.

She didn't even notice the fact that a taller man in a red ninja gi and sneakers managed to make his way next to her, arms crossed in a nonchalant manner, "What does he think he's doing here now?" He asked suddenly, startling Sakura into a defensive stance as she turned to face him, "Sorry." He said at frightening her.

Sakura gave her heart a few minutes to cease leaping into her throat from shock before she stood normally again, still keeping a wary eye on this man, "Who are you talking about?"

"Your friend Naruto."

Now choosing to narrow her eyes suspiciously on this person, Sakura clammed up, remembering that she wasn't exactly in a nice place, "Yeah? Well who's asking about him?"

At this point, it was obvious that he didn't exactly approach her as amicably as he could have for meeting a new person. The price he paid for being as serious as he always was, "I'm not Shadaloo. I'm a friend of a friend; Ibuki."

Suspicion turned to skepticism on Sakura's part, "You know Ibuki-chan?"

"I stay in her village quite often, so yes I know her. My name's Guy." He turned towards Sakura and then got serious enough to put her on her guard again from the way he was looking at her, "What exactly are you doing here? This is a long way from Japan."

"If you know Ibuki-chan then you know what happened to her and the group that did it." Sakura said in explanation, "Well they've done more than that to more people that we know and Naruto wants to deal with them before someone gets hurt."

That was what Guy figured; Naruto was there doing something again, something that was way over his head, "The only person that's going to be hurt is going to be him… and you because if you're here that means you're helping. Go home before you get killed, before he gets you killed. Following a play-ninja… you should have learned from Ibuki that it'll only get you hurt."

A play-ninja? If Naruto were there he probably would have broken Guy's jaw for that remark. If there was one thing that Naruto took seriously about himself it was that he was a true ninja, the real deal. He took pride in it. It was really the only thing about himself that he took unmistakable pride in, hence why he vocally proclaimed regularly that he was the greatest ninja in the world.

And Sakura knew for certain that while Naruto goofed around a lot, when it came time to be that person there was no one else she'd consider better. Even Ibuki deferred to Naruto when it came to the ninja arts. She was honestly taking a bit of offense at how dismissive Guy was towards Naruto, "Naruto's serious about this. What does it matter to you anyway? If you don't like him why are you talking to me?"

"Because I'm not going to sit back and let some part-time ninja lead a kid like you to her death!" Guy growled out, clenching his fists, "Even if he just so happened to be a real ninja, he doesn't take the lifestyle seriously. He should know that a ninja walks with death… and they shouldn't let normal people do the same. The lifestyles don't mix. Ibuki had to learn that the hard way. She was gravely injured trying to live like a normal person and suffered the fate of a warrior… trying to follow that boy."

As far as he was concerned, until Ibuki met a ninja that got to try and live like a normal teenager she was just fine. But after meeting Naruto and finding out how different he was from what was expected of a ninja she wanted that for herself as well, something different that could be perceived as the grass being greener on the other side. Were it not for that and were it not for him she wouldn't have been injured.

"So you blame Naruto because Ibuki-chan got hurt? That's not fair!" Sakura shouted at him much to Guy's surprise.

Guy wouldn't budge on his views though, "The way he lives makes him a target, and that makes you and everyone around him targets as well. He has no village or clan as a means of support so it's just him. The way he carries himself as a ninja is not acceptable."

"You don't like him because he's not like you and everybody else…" While normally even-tempered, badmouthing Naruto pushed her buttons. He didn't have anyone to defend himself to others but his friends, and they owed him that much, "So what if he's a ninja that lives in town? Where do you expect Naruto to live; some secret hidden safehouse in the mountains somewhere? What do you expect him to do with himself; sharpen weapons all day and brood? Go out only at night and sneak around assassinating people?"

He had to deal with people not liking him because he was different ever since he first showed up in Aohura City or Japan in general; even from her own best friend Kei at first. It seemed that the ninja societal values were just as exclusionary as the majority of the country was to those that seemed out of place.

"I expect him to act and live up to the responsibilities that come with the title of ninja." Guy declared firmly, "There's a reason that the way we live has maintained firm tradition for all of these years."

"If you were there you wouldn't have stopped anything either." Sakura hissed lowly out of spite, "Ibuki wasn't weak, and neither am I. If you're not going to help us find Shadaloo then just stay away from us you jerk. Or maybe you'd like to find out that I'm not as helpless as I look?" She offered as she set herself into her fighting stance of choice.

Guy wasn't about to get into a fight with nothing to prove and nothing to fight for against this schoolgirl, but he did notice the root of where her style of stance came from, "The way you stand… you've trained with the fighter Ryu haven't you? You fight using his discipline." Either that or the discipline of Dan Hibiki… in which case he really would have been concerned for her safety, but he was trusting that it was closer to Ryu's.

"Yes, I do. And?" Sakura queried in return. Shutting his eyes in a disengaging manner, Guy turned around and proceeded to leave her where she stood on the sidewalk, "Wait! Where are you going? You're just going to insult my best friend and leave?"

"If you're actually confident enough to fight me when you know I'm Ibuki's senior, and you use something similar to that style there's nothing I can tell you that will make you turn around. I don't get into fights without reason." Guy said as he walked away, "Ibuki really likes you all. She never blamed any of you or him at all for her wounds. That never stopped any of us from blaming the boy's influence on her. She's fine however, healing just fine."

A wave of relief ran through Sakura momentarily before she remembered that she didn't like this guy, "Good. We'll have to make it home so we can see her then."

There was a touch of defiance in her tone that got Guy to chortle slightly, "See that you do. Go to Thailand. For now that's the best advice I can give you. I've heard that your trainer is heading that way. Ryu. You should see if he will assist you, because you children are not strong enough on your own."

"We're plenty strong." Sakura said as a parting shot as Guy just walked away without turning around again to respond, 'But that… is very good to know.' Maybe they could make a side-trip to Thailand…

XxX

(With Naruto)

Naruto had requested Rose to hold off on talking about his hidden power until they had left the bar. The bartender that Naruto had paid off came back and divulged to him that Shadaloo was interested in obtaining the services of powerful and infamous fighters from around the world. In addition to that, if there was a place with a booming drug trade or an area where human trafficking and abduction was commonplace and the dealing of arms were in demand one could guarantee that Shadaloo had something to do with it. Money was money to those people.

Drug dealers around even as far as Hong Kong found that the best stuff those days were coming out of places in Thailand. And it seemed to be pouring out like a flood. Business was booming, and many of them had the same supply force.

"Well I'm going to Thailand next." Naruto said to Rose as they both stood out at the harbor, looking across at the Kowloon Peninsula across the water, "Not looking forward to that… I can't speak or read Thai."

"You'll be fine." Rose assured him. She couldn't help but listen as she heard Naruto's bit of information from the barkeep about Shadaloo and would be committing it to memory for herself. She would find Bison first and would destroy him without anyone else suffering to him. It was her destiny to do so, "Can we speak about your power now?"

"Yeah sure…" Naruto consented. By now he was so used to talking to others about the Kyuubi it was actually starting to help him accept it as a part of him. No one had shown him any hatred yet when it came to the biju within him, "You said something about my aura too. What does that mean?"

"Let's talk about the more important thing first." Rose offered. She noticed that Naruto was rather uncomfortable and placed a hand on his forearm to try and get him to calm down, "You can relax Naruto. I hold no suspicions of you for what you have inside of you. It's not an evil energy, it's just very intense. One that is not used to intense hatred would be overwhelmed by its very presence."

'Yep, that's the Kyuubi she's sensing alright.' Naruto thought to himself before asking something that was nagging at him, "How can you even tell anyway? I wasn't even drawing upon any of it."

A small laugh came from Rose as she pulled out a deck of tarot cards, "I am very spiritually in-touch one could say. I am a fortune teller normally. I have abnormal powers of my own with no distinguishable origin. But I feel a strong attraction towards a very evil power." She saw Naruto put his hand on his stomach when she said that, "I wasn't talking about you. Your energy isn't that dark, just very destructive."

That was confusing. Destructive but not dark?

"Well even if it was, the Kyuubi is a part of me." Naruto said, getting a confused look from Rose, "…That's what my power is, it's called Kyuubi. It's a living thing inside of me." More confusion from the pretty fortune teller lady, "…It's complicated. I don't even know that much about it. I'd ask Kyuubi, but he doesn't really like me."

"I'd imagine." Rose blinked owlishly at the thought of a living creature with such crushing power that she could feel it just by looking upon Naruto being contained inside of his body, "A being of such raw power unable to exercise its own free will. It must be maddening; restricted by the living prison of a mere teenage boy. Your 'Kyuubi'… is it intelligent?" Naruto nodded to her, "Oh my… he must despise you."

A grunt of confirmation came from Naruto as he sat down on the end of the harbor and looked out at the ships sailing on the water, "Yeah. I don't know what to do. Kyuubi's been inside of me my whole life and I didn't even know until I was twelve. I was taught for my whole life early on that he was something to be scared of and then I found out he was inside of me. How do you deal with that? So… I treated him like a monster. I just ignored him really, acted like his power was the only part of him that existed. He's still a living thing that thinks, and I neglected him."

"Regret is the first step to redemption." Rose said, stooping down and wrapping her arms around her knees as she looked down into the water along with Naruto, "Might I suggest the extension of an olive branch? You may find that in order to get along with an opposing entity you can't simply will things into motion. You must make a concession of some sort."

A snort came from Naruto before he gave Rose an incredulous look, "What kind of peace offering can I give a gigantic immortal creature that wants to eat me?"

"You seem like the type of person that is good at answering unconventional questions like that. I know you can find a way."

"Yeah…" Naruto didn't really believe her, but she seemed to believe in what she was saying wholeheartedly. She was so nice he couldn't just tell her that. It wasn't her problem anyway so there was no need to make it so. This whole Kyuubi thing was getting heavy, but it seemed that she didn't want anything from him, she just wanted to chat, "So… you were saying something about my aura."

"Oh. Yes." Rose pulled out a deck of tarot cards from her cleavage, putting a red tint on Naruto's face at the rather shameless way she had done so. She placed the deck on the ground and held her hand over them, "Would you allow me the pleasure of reading your fortune Naruto?"

Naruto's eyebrows rose up past his headband in surprise before smiling at her, "Yeah… I don't have to pay do I?"

"No, no…" Rose laughed slightly, "This one is free since I'm the one that offered it to you. If you want a love reading, that will actually cost you." She finished with a wink, getting another embarrassed grumble out of Naruto, "Okay, let's begin." She took a deep breath and took three cards, "The Tower, The Hanged Man, and The World." The Tower was upright, The Hanged Man was upside down, and The World was upright.

Having no idea what these things meant, Naruto just observed Rose as she mused over the cards before she held out her hand expectantly. Naruto automatically placed his hand in hers, "What do you want me to do?"

"Just focus your mind and your energy towards me." She instructed him, shutting her eyes as her other hand remained over the first card she drew, "Most people cannot and it takes me longer to draw an accurate reading, but if I can attune myself to your signature it will help me." At that moment Naruto began the flow of chakra through his body, something Rose could easily feel, "That's perfect. One moment."

Naruto watched as she frowned as she went from card to card at least three times as if to confirm what she was sensing. Her eyes eventually opened and she began to recant what she had found of his fortune.

"The Tower." Rose started to say, "Chaos… turmoil. Your life has been very hard and hectic, even before you settled in your new home. The things that you are privy to that you try to hide from others would have broken you if you chose to tell them and they refused to believe you; so you keep it to yourself. You found yourself very uncomfortable with your surroundings for a very long time but you are getting used to things. You are now mostly content."

Wow, that was actually very close. Did she actually see anything when she said this stuff or was that just… he didn't know. But damn, that was spooky. A wide-eyed Naruto just nodded and gulped the excess liquid in his throat.

With that, the purple-haired fortune teller continued, "The Hanged Man. You are searching for something that you feel you need to find. You're obligated to do your best and locate this thing because you feel it is your duty to do so. You aren't sure if it's what you want though, but you feel as if you would be letting a world of people down if you simply ignored this feeling. It eats at you and it keeps you from enjoying your life the way you should. You are a very conflicted young man on the inside." She said with a frown.

"Keep going." Naruto said, eyes intently locked on Rose's. That last one struck a serious chord with him though he would never say it aloud because it had to do with Konoha, with the Elemental Nations. He could never say these things aloud. He was looking for his way home, but did he want to go? He had to didn't he? There were promises that he had made to too many people to stay away.

"You won't find it you know." Rose told him a bit sadly, "Whatever you're looking for you won't reach it. It's beyond you. It's the last part of your second fortune."

"Why is it beyond me?" Naruto muttered quietly, so much so that Rose barely heard him, "If I know what I'm looking for or how to get it, I can make it happen." His hands were making fists so tight his fingernails were cutting into his palms.

Rose sighed. Things usually went this way back home when someone heard a bad fortune. At least he wasn't flipping out yet. He seemed like a hothead from when she had seen him with the schoolgirl earlier so this was a nice find.

In truth Naruto did want to flip out. He wanted to shout at Rose and say he could find a way home. That there was a way, because if he appeared there that meant that there was a definite way back. It didn't make sense for there to be no way to return. But he wouldn't yell at her just for reading the cards. She was far too nice to him to just shout at her for just doing what her job was. Her job wasn't 'good-fortune teller', it was just 'fortune teller'.

"Okay…" Naruto stood up from where he was sitting looking over the water, "Well thanks Rose. I'll keep that in mind. Everything you said to me." He reached down and helped her stand up from how she was stooped after she collected her cards, "It was nice to meet you." She gave him a bit of a troubled smile at seeing how dejected he seemed at hearing her news, "I hope I get to meet you again."

Without saying another word, Naruto began walking away after pulling his hood over his head and shoving his hands in his pockets.

He didn't stop until he crossed the street and disappeared into an alley. Rose watched him go the entire way. He never even let her finish his fortune; the one for the future, as distant as it may be. She would have spoken up but he seemed quite shaken. Anything else might have made him feel worse.

"Poor thing. He thinks he has to deal with his secrets alone." She looked at the last card out of the three she had drawn and smiled a bit, "The World. Naruto, you won't find what you're searching for even though you'll never quit, but eventually you will find what you really want. You'll come face-to-face with your own personal peace even as things will be coming apart at the seams all around you. You will find the things that will make you whole."

Naruto was a good boy. A warm spirit. His destiny wouldn't lead him to what he was searching for, but it would lead him to what he needed for himself… one day. She just hoped that when the time came and it was upon him he could stop and take a look around and see that for himself. Otherwise he would miss all of the wonderful things that he would earn.

"We can't change our fates in the end." Rose said as she placed her tarot cards back into her cleavage and began walking her own way, "But we can make they what we will with them."

And her fate was to head to Thailand. As long as she knew which general country he was in from there she would easily find Bison once she could feel his presence over the land. As she said before; she was attracted to an extremely dark power, and that power was his.

Hopefully she could make her own fate to face down his Psycho Power with her Soul Power a positive one.

XxX

(Aberdeen Harbor – Onboard the Queen of Victory)

A bored Karin was sitting in a large entertainment room filing her nails. Thank goodness for satellite television… even though there was nothing on. It didn't matter though, she didn't share her employee Naruto's distaste for TV. She had no problems simply letting it run even though she wasn't paying attention to it.

Elsewhere in the room she heard the clack of the balls on a pool table before a sigh echoed over towards her, "This sucks." Batsu said to Karin from where he was playing billiards to amuse himself over in the game area, "I came on this trip because I thought I would get to see some cool stuff. Meet cool people… maybe fight them. Oh, and I'd get to see Naruto do stupid things. There hasn't been enough of any of that stuff yet."

"Your company leaves much to be desired." Karin responded before blowing on her nails and switching to her other hand. She could have had people do this for her, but the whole point of her wishing to file her nails was because she was bored and needed something monotonous to do. Having someone else do it would have been just as boring, "You play a noisy game while I simply wish to relax, and then you complain about it."

'Damn rich little… Grr!' Batsu thought to himself before lining up another shot, "Are you kidding me? I don't want to be here. I'd much rather be out on the street, maybe dealing with some Triads because you know that's where they went." He took his shot and frowned as he missed miserably and scratched, "Me and Naruto would have had a blast. But if we'd left you and Sakura here you two would have torn the yacht apart by the time we got back."

"If you and Uzumaki-san had chosen to make the trip you would both be in jail by sundown." Karin fired back with a smirk, "He has no idea he did it, but he actually made the most balanced groups he could have formed out of the four of us, because I would never have gone. Just thinking of fraternizing with those hoodlums and hooligans to get information from them makes my skin crawl."

"What about Birdie? You beat the shit out of him. And I don't even want to know what you did to him in that supply closet to get him to talk."

"That was different. I had already sullied my hands on him, any more than that wouldn't have made any difference so I merely chose to interrogate him."

"But you were fine with that."

"I most certainly was not. I completely purified myself for two whole hours afterwards."

Two hours? It had to be one hell of a bath then. Weird girl… "Whatever." Batsu dismissed the conversation rudely with a sniff, getting a scoff of disgust out of Karin, "I'm hungry."

"Idiot." Karin muttered under her breath. Why did she let this commoner onto her family's vessel again? Oh yes, because he was Naruto's friend, Naruto wanted him to come with them, and letting Batsu come with them would have made Naruto happy. Wait, why'd that matter? She didn't give a damn if Naruto was happy or not.

Ah… that was right, yes she did. She did because they were 'friends'.

Being a good friend was so troublesome. Why did she have to be nice to a friend of a friend?

Her musings on the merits of friendship and how entertaining a proxy friend (i.e. a mooch) made her angry happened to be interrupted by her large butler Ishizaki, "Yes? Is there something the matter?" She asked the good-natured servant.

"Kanzuki-sama, there is a person outside on the docks that wishes to speak to you." Ishizaki said, not really knowing what to do or how to handle the apparent scenario, "It's been shown that the person is not armed, and it is just one person so I did not immediately turn them away." Karin nodded, as one person that wished to speak to her, no matter how suspicious, didn't frighten her in the least. She was confident in her ability to defend herself.

And if all else failed Batsu was there too. He could serve as a decent distraction in a fight to help her get the upper hand if the person did indeed attack her and she was unable to immediately overcome them, "Very well. Allow them aboard. I will grant them a chance to speak with me." Ishizaki bowed to her and left to get the visitor.

Batsu scoffed and looked to line up another shot on the pool table, "Grant them a chance to speak with you? Sound a little bitchier next time why don't you." Karin just ignored him in exchange for continuing to take care of her nails, "…Man Naruto is friends with the most messed up people."

"And don't you wish you were too?" Karin taunted in a sing-song manner from her seat as the two continued to wait in silence.

"Kanzuki-sama: your guest. I do not believe she speaks Japanese, but she does speak English for certain."

Batsu idly turned his eyes towards the entrance to the room and nearly allowed his tongue to hang out of his mouth at the sight of the person that had walked in, "Whoa… hottie onboard." He said aloud in Japanese so that said hottie didn't understand him. He would have wolf-whistled as well if it wouldn't have made him look totally sleazy in the process.

Karin merely put her file to the side and sat comfortably relaxed in her plush chair as the guest walked in front of her and stood there, "So you wish to speak to me about something." Her eyes panned up and down curiously as she took in the figure of the person ahead of her, "I would like to ask how you know of me and the fact that I was here, but I suppose introductions are in order. You obviously know who I am, Karin Kanzuki, yet I do not know of you."

The girl standing in front of her was a teenager with a light blue military hat, a thin scar on her left cheek, and long blonde hair in two braids down her back. She wore a light-blue long-sleeved turtleneck leotard that showed off her legs that Batsu just couldn't take his eyes off of. On her hands up to her elbows she had two very sturdy looking gauntlets and on her feet she had brown combat boots.

From where she was sitting, Karin could tell that the girl looked somewhat uncomfortable, but with more of what you would see from someone who was expecting to be attacked. As if she were preparing to dodge a kill-shot that she knew was coming her way in a matter of seconds, "Well you can call me Cammy if you'd like. And I know of you because not too long ago I was directed to kill your friend and assist in kidnapping you… as an assassin of Shadaloo."

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Rose  
><span>Nationality:<span> Italy  
><span>Gender:<span> Female  
><span>Age:<span> 21 (July 3)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'10/119 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> N/A  
><span>Likes:<span> Cherry wine, bathing.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> UV rays, waking up early, evil auras.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Tarot reading  
><span>Rivals:<span> M. Bison, Guy (friendly), Dhalsim.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Soul Power  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Anima Scintilla (Soul Spark), Anima a Spirale (Soul Spiral), Riflettono L'anima (Soul Reflect), Gettare L'anima (Soul Throw).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Anima Aura Scintilla (Aura Soul Spark), Illusione Scintilla (Illusion Spark), Anima Satellitari (Soul Satellite).  
><span>Background:<span> A fortune teller from Genoa, Italy, Rose has no knowledge of her parentage but does not concern herself with this fact. Having sensed that the end of days was coming at the hands of a man of great evil, Rose set out to rid the world of it. She narrowed this threat down to be M. Bison and engaged him in battle, defeating him after taking him by surprise with her intense spiritual powers. Despite winning through his underestimation of her she was unable to kill him and later set out to rid the world of him once and for all after discovering that he had survived. Rose has possessed very strange power since childhood that she refers to as Soul Power. In addition to using it to assist with her divination practices she is able to use it in battle by channeling it through her long yellow scarf as an extension of her own person.

* * *

><p><strong>Hey, do you remember my whole 'blow-your-mind' thing I said would happen in this chapter <strong>_**last**_** chapter? I decided to hold off on that for a while. **

**Doing it now would just be rushing it and putting too much where it didn't belong as there's storyline going on right now and doing it here would just be piling stuff on, it wouldn't have as much impact that way and it would lessen the impact of other things in the chapter if I had put it in. You'll definitely know when I do it though, and I can almost assure you that the payoff will be well worth it.**

**But that's for later at the end of this entire story arc. I don't know what I was thinking, trying to rush what I had prepared. I'm just stupid like that sometimes I guess… a hazard of getting punched and kicked in the head regularly I would guess.**

**So that's that. Later everyone.**

**Kenchi out.**


	14. All Roads Lead To

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. Now let's begin, shall we?

**Chapter 14: All Roads Lead To…**

* * *

><p>Sakura was more or less fuming by the time that she and Naruto met back up and started their trek back to the Queen of Victory to rejoin with Karin and Batsu. She was still quite upset by her meeting and resulting conversation with Guy, "I'm sorry I'm not in a good mood Naruto, it just makes me so mad when people treat you like that. They never get to know you and that guy didn't even give me a good reason for not liking you." It was more or less because Naruto wasn't more like him.<p>

"You don't have to be sorry Sakura-chan." Naruto informed her with a smile, "Some people are like that. I'm used to it." He still hated it though.

As a general personal belief, Naruto was always willing to give new people a chance. The opportunity to make a new friend was never worth just choosing to blast someone discriminately. Some of his best friends and most influential people in his life came from being his enemies first, he just had to get to know them first. It just hurt that very few people were willing to extend the same courtesy to him.

A hand was placed on the cheek of his previously smiling, now confused face before Sakura hugged him, "Don't do that Naruto. I hate it when you do that." She pulled away to take note of his befuddled look and elaborated, "When you smile when I know you're unhappy. I don't like that. It's heartbreaking."

Naruto gave her a surprised look before schooling his expression, "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm fine." From the look on her face she wasn't buying it at all.

"You've got a right to be miserable just like everyone else you know." Sakura said, holding her arms behind her back as they walked close to the southern sea of Hong Kong, "People that know you can tell when you're sad. That smile of yours doesn't really fool anyone that pays attention. Your body language is a dead giveaway when you're gloomy." It was true. He wasn't as vigorous, his voice seemed to lose some pep that he artificially tried to manufacture and it didn't seem to match the smile that he constantly plastered onto his face.

It was like he'd work his ass off to keep people from thinking he was down. Sakura herself could never understand why he did it, and neither could anyone else really. Her mother was actually worried about it at one point when the two of them were younger. It wasn't healthy. He avoided showing despondence like it was a symptom of the bubonic plague.

Whoever said that it took more muscles to frown than to smile didn't take into account that all frowning took was letting gravity win over your face, smiling forced you to fight against gravity and do work even if it did happen to use less muscles.

"That's not to say that no one wants you to smile." Sakura spoke, continuing down the path of their conversation, "People that love you and care about you like it a lot. Sakura just thinks that if Naruto would show when things bothered him so that others could help him, his smiles would mean a lot more…" She then looked up at Naruto, beaming radiantly at her best friend, "…Because sometimes maybe Sakura could be the one that puts the smile on Naruto's face the way he always seems to put one on hers."

"Damn Sakura-chan…" Naruto said quietly, hiding his slightly misty eyes by looking directly upward as if he'd suck the mounting moisture back through his tear ducts. Eventually he regained enough of his composure to look over at her and give her a kiss on the cheek that she accepted in an 'I-know-you-want-to-give-me-one' manner, "Heh, you should be a shrink… you always seem to know what to say to mess with me."

"Oh that? I'm just in your head." Sakura joked, tapping Naruto's temple with a finger, "I've been in your head for a lo~~~ng time. It's my duty to know how you tick because somebody has to be able to keep all of your crazy pieced together. It's a labor of love, being your best friend I mean."

"Well it's definitely not a loveless labor." Naruto said, pulling the brown-haired apprentice fighter close to him in a shoulder hug, "Thank you." The calm air between the two of them then shifted a bit when Naruto smirked, "…You know I love you, but you know you lost that bet we made right?"

A shocked facade flew onto Sakura's face, quite affronted at the sudden proclamation, "What? No way! Your informant told you to go to Thailand too!" They technically were pointed in the exact same direction, so she didn't accept that as a loss at all.

"Yeah, but my information was actually legit on Shadaloo. Your information was on _Ryu_!" Naruto exclaimed in an overly exaggerated manner, "I don't even know how you did that. How'd that even come up? How'd you go from being pissed off at Guy to squeezing where Ryu's going out of him? That doesn't even make any sense."

"That doesn't mean I lost!" Sakura defended desperately, "It's just a little bit more roundabout than what you got…"

From the grin on Naruto's face he wasn't buying her bid whatsoever, "Roundabout... yeah, around about way off base. Just face it, you lose and you know what that means. You better start playing peacemaker with Karin or the next time; POW!"

Sakura could already sense that Naruto was going to go overboard with this whole thing. Her backside was turning red already just thinking about it, "You're going to enjoy doing this way too much."

"I just want my friends to get along Sakura-chan." Naruto said with an earnest exterior look, "…If I have to smack you on the ass every single day for the rest of our lives to make that happen I'm willing to make that sacrifice." He noticed her eye twitching dangerously as he still hugged her around the shoulder, "Oh stop fussing. Better me than someone else." Because at least he'd enjoy it properly.

All Sakura could console herself with was the fact that it still could have been worse. Naruto could have set it up so that he could spank her every time the topic of Ryu came up around the two of them. As a matter of fact, in hindsight she was surprised that he didn't, 'He hides it decently well, but he's a total pervert…' She thought to herself as she managed to get herself away from Naruto's hug.

As if to break the current trains of thought between the two, Naruto's phone went off to reveal a message from Chun-Li that perked him up somewhat, "Hey, the guy that the Interpol agent I fought yesterday was waiting on is here. She wants me to meet him."

"Well you should go then." Sakura stressed just as they were about to turn and enter the marina that housed the Queen of Victory, "You were supposed to be sharing information on Shadaloo with her anyway weren't you?"

"Yeah." Naruto said, putting his phone back in his pocket, "Alright, I'll be back in a bit. Go ahead and tell everyone where we're heading next and I'll do the same with Chun-Li."

That was agreeable enough as this little link-up with Interpol's agent was set up by Naruto, so Sakura didn't really have any place there, "That's fine. Just don't-." She stopped when she turned and realized that he was already gone, "I hate it when he does that… and why didn't he just send a clone?"

XxX

(Meanwhile – Onboard the Queen of Victory)

The moment Cammy divulged her identity to Karin and Batsu it seemed like everything in the room stopped. Batsu's shot that he had been lining up at the pool table was hit so hard that it flew through the air and smashed itself into the wall.

Karin didn't outwardly show much shock or a physical reaction to that bit of news at all, still observing Cammy astutely, "You must either have a very good reason for appearing here to tell me this, or you are taunting me. For your sake I would hope it is not the latter."

"It's the truth. And I'm not here to taunt you or harm you… nothing of the sort." Cammy impassively tried to reason. If nothing else she was at least grateful that nobody had tried to kill her yet. And then she was forced to lift her hand to catch a ball from the billiard table that had been sent screaming at her head from across the room. She leveled a glare on Batsu who was still in position from the throw and he was more than willing to send a dirty look right back at her.

"…Every single girl we meet… I swear to fucking-." Batsu muttered before cursing under his breath and speaking up, "I remember what Naruto told me about the attack on his school! That's the bitch that almost killed him; the robot chick. I can tell from the scar on her face."

A delicate blonde eyebrow rose on Karin's face in interest, "'Robot chick' you say?" Well she couldn't see anything robotic about Cammy at all, and she didn't speak like a machine. There was emotion behind it, "She seems to be flesh and blood to me. I believe I need to have a talk with Naruto-san on how he needs to amend his understanding on just what comprises a robot or an android."

Cammy frowned at Batsu's recounted description of her, "That was a different me. Things have changed now. All I can do now is really just apologize for it."

But they _did_ indeed know Naruto. That was good. It was partly the reason that she had tracked down info on Karin Kanzuki, and then she discovered that the Kanzuki Family yacht was in China, she moved from where she had been travelling in eastern India and made it to Hong Kong post-haste.

'Oh here we go.' Batsu thought to himself as he observed Karin from where he was across the room, 'Karin's a seriously vindictive bitch. There's no way she's gonna let this Cammy girl slide on almost kidnapping her during that attack.' He was coiled and ready to react whenever Karin chose to attack her.

"One of my associates was injured during the plot against me and you yourself tried to kill my closest confidant." Karin said in a low and even-tempered tone of voice, "Not only that, but you were in the employ of an organization that intends to use my family and siphon away my father's fortune akin to a tick. I will not attack you without warning, but I cannot see how you can defend this."

Oh, well that was easy. It depended on how believable it was from the point of view of the others listening to Cammy, "Until two weeks ago I had no free will. No emotions. This is why Naruto Uzumaki compared me to a robot from our interaction. I was soulless really… until a spiritual leader in India that I was supposed to assassinate did something to me."

Batsu just gave her a deadpan look from across the room, "So now you're still a Shadaloo assassin… just with a soul? That still means you want to kill Naruto and kidnap princess here!"

A raise of Karin's hand wordlessly directed him to be quiet much to his displeasure as she then efficiently directed Cammy to continue. With a nod of thanks, the young femme fatale continued, "I realized that Master Bison was controlling me, but he sent his assassin Vega to confront me because I was 'an experiment that was no longer needed' or so he said. I somehow overcame him, but I don't know why I'm a target. I never did anything against them."

"Why come to us then?"

"The enemy of my enemy I guess…" Cammy said with a bit of a hapless shrug, "I don't know what else to do but confront Bison directly before he manages to kill me. And then there are the other twelve girls that are still brainwashed; the rest of the Dolls."

Batsu almost put the brakes on the conversation right then and there to loudly shout a question that was exploding in his head, 'There are twelve other girls just like you? Are they all hot too?' If that was indeed the case, he was going to start to like this trip.

Karin's attention was on the actual important part of that statement, "You know where Bison is? The Shadaloo leader? And you are planning to confront him alone?" A confrontation was not a good idea… directly. Fortunately she knew a ninja. A ninja that was technically under her employ, and all he needed was the location of a target.

This was useable. Yes, this was very good.

From the silence of thought permeating through the room via the gears turning in Karin's head, Batsu could almost already tell where this was going, "Oh no. No you're not. Naruto's gonna flip the fuck out if he comes back and sees her standing here. He isn't even going to wait for the explanation, he's just going to scrap with her, and they're gonna rip this place apart because she's not going to just stand there and take it."

Damn right she wasn't going to just stand there and let Naruto beat six different shades of bruises into her. It didn't matter if Cammy was sorry or not; she was a trained killer, not someone's punching bag. If he tried to 'teach her a lesson' as it were, she would rip his scrotum off and chuck it into the harbor.

"I am aware of how impulsive he can be." Karin stated as she furrowed her brow in thought. Naruto and Sakura weren't going to be gone for that much longer, "And it is true that Naruto-san is not the most reasonable person in the world. It shouldn't matter. In the end it is my choice more than it is his." She said, then choosing to direct a pointed look at Batsu, "You are paying for what you did to my wall by the way."

XxX

(Southern District of Hong Kong – Ocean Park – Atoll Reef Aquarium)

"Yo." Naruto said with a big grin on his face as he dropped down from a two story stairwell to land next to Chun-Li who had been waiting, sitting against a ledge at the bottom of it, "I made it here as fast as I could. You pick weird places for meetings."

Chun-Li rolled her eyes and beckoned him over to sit with her, "It's weird to you. Where did you want to meet, in a low-lit alley somewhere?" She had to admit that it was impressive that he knew his way around without even having to ask her for directions.

"No, I've had enough alleys for today." With a grunt, Naruto sat down next to the older woman and looked at the towering aquariums that stood more than four stories and covered the vicinity, "I hope this guy isn't a jerk."

"Charlie's a good person." Chun-Li assured him before pointing intently at the blonde ninja, "I'm going to need you to be nice okay? On your best behavior. Charlie's really important in helping us find Shadaloo's main area of operations in Asia." And right on cue she saw the bespectacled American soldier coming their way, "Here he is. Naruto, meet Charlie Nash. Charlie, this is Naruto Uzumaki."

Hopping up from his seat on the ledge, Naruto extended his hand to Charlie who was surprised at how sudden he moved, but he shook it regardless, "I hope you're as good as she says you are kid."

"You kidding?" Naruto grinned widely in a confident manner, "I'm the best ninja in the world. If I can't handle this nobody can. And if that doesn't tell you enough, I found out that Shadaloo is funneling drugs across the continent out of Thailand. They've got control of a lot of the countryside. Small villages with no contact with the government can't really do anything about them."

Well Charlie would be damned… That was actually consistent with his own string of info and experience, "That makes a lot of sense. It was a mission I flew in Thailand with a friend of mine. We were both shot down and captured. As far as we knew only a handful of people knew we were on that mission so I'll believe that."

"Speaking of your friend…" Chun-Li said with a knowing smile on her face, "He's in Hong Kong looking for you. He wants to help and I said okay. Guile was his name I believe."

Charlie rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses in exasperation, muttering about how he was supposed to be undercover. Naruto however, saw no problems with this at all, "That's great! That means between me, you two, my friends that are strong, and this new guy Guile too we've got seven tough fighters to help us search and find the base. This is gonna be easy."

"Have you ever even seen Bison kid?" Charlie asked Naruto with a raised eyebrow, getting Naruto to shake his head, "Well don't just think that because we've got the numbers we're going to win. He's not that kind of opponent. Trust me. He's that strong."

"Right then." Chun-Li punched into her palm, "Well I need to start getting this little operation in motion. The operation to get an airstrike to bomb the hell out of that base and scorch it from the face of the earth with Bison in it. But first we need to actually locate it and mark its coordinates." She turned towards Naruto, "I hate to use you like this, but you don't seem like you mind. Could you go to Thailand first and see if you can find it? We'll be right behind you; Charlie, Guile, and myself, but if we can coordinate me getting the green light for the attack with you finding the base we could wipe them out before they even see it coming."

"That's why I don't work for anybody." Naruto said as he spoke sagely from personal familiarity, "At least if I screw up it's me screwing up the way I want to. That and I don't have to ask for permission for blowing stuff up." He then realized what he said and backtracked, "Not I've ever blown anything up..."

"Yeah, you should just quit while you're ahead kid." Charlie said, taking mercy on Naruto before he could possibly incriminate himself in several large unexplained explosions across the Japanese island over the last four years, "She still does have to throw you into prison for illicit activities."

Seeing that as good advice, Naruto just let the topic drop there and turned back to an amused looking Chun-Li, "So Thailand right?" She took pity on him and nodded, holding back some giggles. Naruto was a goofy kid, "Alright… I'll see you guys later then."

XxX

(Later that Evening – Onboard the Queen of Victory)

Something was strange as Naruto walked back onto the yacht after returning from his meeting with Chun-Li and Charlie. Things seemed too still in his opinion. Normally Karin and Sakura would be just about to have it out, and he could sense the tension between the two of them about to kick off from a mile away. Either that or he'd see servants about somewhere on the ship doing various things like cleaning the deck, checking the levels in the pool, things like that.

It almost made him want to pull a kunai it was so quiet.

Almost.

As he eventually made it back to his personal cabin and plopped down face-first on his bed, the sound of the ship's intercom coming on made Naruto flip over and throw a shuriken directly at it, _"Naruto-san, please come to the bridge. Everyone is waiting for you here."_

Naruto blinked at hearing Karin's voice come through the speaker and sat up in his bed, "How'd you know I was even here?"

"_Cameras are all over the vessel. You never can be too safe you know. Please hurry as we have already made to depart the harbor . We already know where our next destination is."_

Not needing to hear anymore, Naruto jumped up and strolled his way through the halls and different floors of the yacht before reaching the bridge where the main controls of the ship and all of the other important accoutrements lay for observation and use. This yacht was smooth. He hadn't even felt it begin to go.

"Now when you say there are cameras everywhere…" Naruto started to say as he walked up the last flight of stairs that would take him to the bridge, "…You don't mean in the rooms too right? Because that would be totally creepy Karin." As he reached over the top step and started making his way into the room he was grabbed from behind in a bear hug by Batsu, "The hell?"

"Okay… don't freak out." Batsu said, holding firm to his grip on Naruto, "Just be cool alright?"

Naruto wondered what his friend was referring to, and why he was keeping such a tight grip on him with his crazy gorilla strength that let him chuck motorcycles fifty yards without breaking a sweat.

And then he saw Sakura and Karin walk into the room from the other side on the outdoor deck, with a familiar looking assassin following them in, "Naruto-san, this is Cammy. I am sure you two know each other. She has explained her situation to us and will be travelling with us to Thailand to deal with our Shadaloo problem." The blonde heiress chose to explain preemptively.

The sharp blue eyes of Naruto went wide before they narrowed on the form of the girl that he knew as Killer Bee, "I wonder if we're far out enough from shore yet for sharks, because I'm gonna hurl this bitch overboard and she's probably going to be bleeding when I do it." And with that, Batsu dug his heels in and started holding Naruto back from stomping over to the last person that tried to kill him to finish what they started in Aohura City, "Batsu let go!"

"Fucking talk already!" Batsu shouted at the girls, "If he gets his hands to touch each other I can't stop him! You know that!"

"You've got to be kidding me!" It was obvious that he had no desire to hear anyone out, not about this. When he looked at Cammy all he could remember was what her allies had done to his close friend Ibuki. It wasn't even really about himself, "Are you out of your minds? I've done a lot of things that you all thought were stupid, but you can't look at me and give me a good reason for this! It's asinine -ttebayo!"

For some reason the worked up Naruto struck a chord with the patron of the entire trip in a very negative way. Instead of immediately talking, Karin walked up towards Naruto who continued to struggle against Batsu. He seemed to be managing to wiggle his hands closer and closer together and it was only a matter of time before he was able to make hand-seals. If that happened then all bets were off.

As the noted heir to her family's fortune, Karin was extremely knowledgeable on how to make people do what she wanted with the least amount of effort needed to do so. The heads of the Kanzuki Zaibatsu traditionally possessed wills powerful enough to influence meetings without even speaking. Just their presence alone was usually enough and had been for generations. The reason for this being that when persuasion and money failed they would still have one absolute method of persuasion.

Karin was vastly more imposing than her father was though, even at her age, even being thirty-plus years his junior. If she opted to show it she could frighten even him though she never chose to do so out of respect, but she had no problems showing this when she felt there was a need to assert herself elsewhere.

She had enough of Naruto trying to break free of Batsu and then break their guest in half. Once Karin reached Naruto she grabbed his face underneath the chin, her fingers pressing into his cheeks as she forced him to look directly into her eyes, "That. Is. Enough."

A struggle continued until Naruto's eyes locked with Karin's, and he found no humor or patience within them as he started to calm down. From Naruto's perspective it felt like his body temperature had dropped several degrees just from making eye contact with her. All of his bucking and snorting and shouting did not amuse her whatsoever.

So is this what it felt like to actually make her angry? He'd aggravated her before, but he'd always towed the line enough to keep from outright pissing her off.

"Yes, our guest waged an assassination attempt against you in the past, but you're a professional mercenary. It comes with the occupation and you know this, so get over it. _Grow up_." Karin snapped at him, "She told us who she was, and I hold no grudges. I have forgiven her as she has apologized. I am a target and I am alright with that. She has offered to cast her lot in with us against Shadaloo, and I have accepted."

"She tried to kill-."

"This is _my_ vessel that we are aboard." Karin cut him off, not wanting to hear any sort of weak or petty dispute Naruto had, "I can invite anyone I choose for as long as I wish. And you will respect that. Otherwise you can walk cross-country to Thailand or you can find another way back home." She kept a hold of Naruto and remained staring directly in his eyes, "Release him."

Batsu frowned but loosened up his grip, "Are you sure? He's gonna-."

"He will do nothing."

Cammy still stood on her guard next to Sakura who looked on in concern as Batsu released Naruto and stepped away from him a safe distance. But Karin still held onto him as if she were a teacher lecturing a problem child, and Naruto didn't move, still looking at her with the defiance creeping out of his gaze.

As if daring him to do anything, Karin let go of his cheeks and stepped back with her hands on her hips, "We are friends and I accept that. I enjoy that. Don't ever think that I do not. But I will not have you disrespect my ability to deliberate. I am your friend, but I am also next in line to lead the largest Zaibatsu in Asia and you will not walk all over me and slight my deliberation processes. I am no fool, and if you believe that I am, that I allowed an assassin of our enemy into our midst without covering our bases first… that is the most vulgar show of disrespect you can demonstrate to me as the heir to the Kanzuki Dynasty and I will not accept this."

It wasn't a matter of Naruto not liking Cammy for what had happened in Aohura City. That didn't matter to Karin. It was not personal on anyone's front what happened that day. It was business in its most sincere form in her mind; it was all a part of the chess game of life and industry. But the way Naruto reacted as if he didn't trust Karin's judgment and rationale, it was a slap in the face to his friend; a young woman that had been groomed and conditioned to be the successor to her family's company since the moment she was able to first form coherent thought.

It was nothing like the teasing and the good-natured one-upmanship that seemed to exist between them all. This forceful doubt of her reasoning she took deeply personal. As far as she saw it, it was the equivalent of someone calling her unworthy of being who she was; denying all of her life's work to be good enough.

He didn't have to like it. She didn't care. Not about this. He didn't have any say in the matter, it was her call. It wasn't just about him and how he felt because he hadn't been the only one targeted that day and she had taken hours to actually think of how she felt upon this while he had been off gallivanting elsewhere in Hong Kong. He'd damn sure accept it though if she had anything to do with it, or else they would be the ones with the problem, not him and Cammy.

"Accept it or walk away." Karin stated flatly, "This is not the Uzumaki Naruto show and you are not in charge of me or any of us. You do not automatically get to call shots that are not your right to make."

Naruto's eyes momentarily flickered away from Karin's to Cammy's and right back to Karin's, "Fine… okay. If you all agree on her being here then I can't say no. It's not like anyone's the leader or anything."

He then felt just how hot his blood had been boiling until right at that point. Was he really seeing red over this girl? And she had just been standing to the side demurely while he had been talking about throwing her overboard and whatnot.

Wow, that made him feel like he had been a total confrontational prick. That wasn't him. The prick part wasn't at least. He knew he could be a little quick on the draw, but compared to right then it was absurd. Wasn't he supposed to be the kind of person that gave new people a chance? Even if there were few people willing to extend the same courtesy to him?

Well here was an actual, factual past enemy that seemed to want to make nice for once instead of him having to be the one to initiate the reaching out process. And Cammy wasn't saying that she wanted to be friends, she just wanted their help against Shadaloo. Desperation made for strange bedfellows.

Damn it, he knew that by then.

Maybe the fortune telling thing with Rose earlier that day compounded with all the other emotions swirling through him with the kind things Sakura said after Guy's appearance, excitement at searching for Shadaloo that got his blood pumping, the dangers of the previous night, the uncertainty of international travel and a pending operation… all of that combined to create the perfect storm that seeing Cammy just so happened to set off.

And him getting set off without even bothering to listen to the reasoning of a very level-headed girl that he had trusted and had never received any reason to doubt as to the purpose Cammy was there, he had done so as if she were ignorant and that could have hurt a close friend of his deeply. Not physically of course, but in another way.

"I'm sorry." Naruto said, eventually reaching out to hug a very surprised Karin who lost her coldly angry expression, "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. You must have been feeling pretty bad to give me a tongue-lashing like that huh?" Acting all tough like that was a defensive reaction he hadn't ever seen out of her towards him or any of them in the past. She never had to act like that unless it was reactionary and he knew it.

Managing to hide her embarrassment at getting such a quick apology by quickly pushing Naruto away, Karin scoffed, "Just do not let it happen again. I am willing to overlook very much when it comes to you and I, but now you know where my limit stands. Take the time to think every now and then. You're smarter than this." She then gestured towards Cammy, "Now I believe that you two should bury the hatchet for the time being as it were."

It didn't sound like too much of a suggestion.

Accepting this to avoid another chance of a shakedown, Naruto walked over towards Cammy who stood tall as he approached and they faced off, "I don't know you." He said to begin, "Other than the part where you tried to kill me."

"I don't know much about myself…" Cammy replied in a straightforward way, "But I can promise you that I don't want to fight with you. I have just become self-aware. My mission against you was back when I was more or less soulless. It's a long story."

Looking at the others as if to ask if she was serious, Naruto got his answer in the flat stares that came back his way from his friends. She was serious, even though she still seemed a little stiff. And the pretty little assassin seemed to be waiting as if she were about to receive Naruto's judgment on whether or not he would accept her explanation or not, "Well it's a long way to Thailand, so I've got the time to listen."

How farfetched could the explanation really be? It wasn't like his own origin story wasn't literally out of this world.

XxX

(A Few Days Later – Thailand – Abandoned Buddhist Temple)

As she thought after being pointed in the right direction via the amount of information that she was able to glean from Naruto, Rose didn't take long afterwards to track down the sickening source of the Psycho Power that permeated the landscape. The clouds overhead were dark as if the environment itself was aware of how black Bison's heart was.

She didn't expect him to actually come out and face her though.

He confronted her directly. Bison went right to her. No guards, no trap, nothing. Just him and him alone. And as imposing a figure as the military man cut in his red uniform and hat, his solid white eyes that lacked pupils and irises… eyes of evil. He was shrouded with his dark cape that could have been a metaphor for what he had planned for the world, Rose did not fear him the way she should have. She defeated him before, she could do it again.

She had to.

Levitating directly in front of Rose, Bison had his arms crossed over his chest as he smirked at her confidently, "You should taken your last little victory over me and left it at that." He said in his dark tone, "You were amusing the last time and I simply toyed with you for too long. Don't consider that a gauge of your own power."

"This comes to an end now." Rose replied, standing in a fighting stance, "I won't let you destroy the world. I can't. Not when I have the power to stop it." With that, she threw one end of her scarf out and it struck towards Bison like a snake.

A snake that he caught by its head, laughing as he did so, "And what if I told you that your power was my power?" He asked, dropping the scarf when the Soul Power Rose began to generate through it began to shock him with its purity, "You've never found out where it came from have you?"

"It doesn't matter because I know it can destroy you!" Rose shouted before using her scarf to fire a ghostly green-blue projectile at her adversary, "Anima Scintilla (Soul Spark)!"

Bison merely lifted one hand and allowed the attack to collide with a sick purple energy that was generated around his hand, "You haven't gotten any stronger since the last time? In that case you definitely can't win!" He exclaimed before laughing again, suddenly teleporting out of Rose's sight.

He reappeared instantly right behind her, swatting her away with a powerful backhand strike that she was unable to avoid or block at all.

Rose's body flew along the aged yellow brick ground of the temple grounds until she came to a stop and shakily retook a standing position. She couldn't see Bison again, but instead of waiting for him to reappear she prepared countermeasures, "Let the spirits guide you! Anima Satellitari (Soul Satellite)!" Two larger orbs of her Soul Power took form around Rose's body and quickly swirled about in a defensive manner.

Bison reappeared right within the rotational pattern of these orbs and they managed to blast him, eliciting a cry of great pain from the twisted dictator. The resulting explosion of force sent him careening into a large Buddhist statue that crumbled and fell around him, clearly crushing him beneath it.

Beginning to charge a ton of her power into her scarf to the point where it began to glow an unnatural green, Rose was beginning to sweat at the amount of power she was using. She had hit him once and it was a doozy, thus she couldn't let up for a moment until he was dead, "Try this on for size! Illusione Scintilla (Illusion Spark)!"

She threw her scarf and extended it outward to where Bison's arm was sticking out of the rubble of the destroyed statue his body had broken. It wrapped around his arm and began unleashing every bit of Soul Power she could muster through the medium item.

A loud humming noise emitted from the ruined pile of rubble as Bison's visible arm began to glow green to show the Soul Power swelling into him to damage him. The statue pieces began to crumble even further against the pressure of the powerful energy pouring out of Rose's scarf into Bison's body.

"Die!" Her entire body glowed the strange green of her Soul Power before it all released in a vicious burst through the scarf as if it were a power surge heading through electric lines in an overload. The resulting crash of power put a blinding glow over the entire temple grounds.

The ground beneath the site of the destroyed statue finally crumbled and formed a crater that seemed to bury Bison's body as neatly as could be arranged for its scenario and Rose retracted her scarf before falling to her knees in outright exhaustion.

She had put her all into that last attack. She had him in dire straits and this time she wasn't going to leave any chance of him surviving behind. She had to kill him. That was her aim, and that was what she had just done. Even at the cost of all of her power. It hadn't been a smart fight, it had been a total blitz because it was her only chance.

But she had gotten the job done. That was her thought as she fell forward onto the ground and passed out from fatigue.

The temple grounds were completely still until the makeshift grave of Bison began to shake and rattle prior to the debris being sent flying everywhere.

"Fool. As long as the Psycho Drive exists you can't overcome me in the end. I have too much power at my disposal to be killed for good. By anyone." From the crater in the ground, Bison floated up and back onto the ground with intense purple power blazing around his body. In addition to that, the shoulder pads that held his cape to his uniform were glowing white and crackling with black electricity, "Fear and respect the energy that is Psycho Power."

Despite Rose's all-out attack, he stood unscathed, as if he were amused at having directly endured her very best shot that would have killed anyone else of any lesser level of strength, "You can't kill me. When you fought me last my body was beginning to break down from the Psycho Power exceeding my power. I've managed to adjust state of being until I can receive a new body to house my spirit. Too bad for you… weakling." He taunted, though she couldn't hear him.

Now he had more important things to concern himself with, things that were actually interesting to him and important unlike Rose's futile effort to stop him with her powers that she knew nothing of the origin of.

Things like the fighter that had defeated his right-hand man Sagat. The man was in Thailand and this was of great interest to him. He already had his operatives gathering data on him. The Dolls would easily accomplish that mission. All they had to do was fight him.

Speaking of Dolls, he had a lost little Doll out in the world. Not just any one though, but his most prized of them. It was okay though. He knew that she would return home soon enough, she had no choice. Even as self-aware as she was she knew nothing else. Her brainwashing was just too deep, and she had never had free will prior to now.

So yes, she would return home. His cherished Doll would bring herself right to him no matter how she felt or what had occurred to cause this malfunction in her brainwashing.

And of course he would be there to receive her, with arms wide open.

XxX

(Village Near Historic Ruins of Khmer, Thailand – With Sakura and Batsu)

Once again, the groups opted to split up to cover more ground. Sakura and Batsu went their own way with Ishizaki piloting one of the two helicopters that sat on the Queen of Victory to take them inland without wasting any time. On the other side, Karin took the other helicopter to go with Naruto and Cammy as she tried to show them the area where they could prepare to locate the Shadaloo base.

They would not approach it on their own until Chun-Li and Charlie arrived and gave word to do so, that the airstrike was a go. And then it would only be to mark the coordinates of the hidden base that had escaped prying eyes thus far.

"I can't speak Thai…" Batsu mumbled as he and Sakura walked through a crowded village square. He was listening to the people around him speaking that sounded mostly like indistinguishable chatter to him, "If that Cammy girl knows where the base is, why aren't we all just going together?"

"We can't go straight there. Approaching it would be trouble if we did it before the airstrike was ready." Sakura responded. Though she didn't know any Thai either, she was not shy at all about trying to move amongst the people, always excited to see new places as she was, "And what are we going to do going that way with two helicopters? We've got to approach from the ground."

Letting out a conceding grunt, Batsu was just thankful that Ishizaki was out procuring a vehicle for them to drive towards the rally point village with because he didn't like being in a place where he couldn't speak the language, "Okay, but why aren't we with Ishizaki?"

Sakura gave Batsu a wryly amused look over her shoulder as she continued to lead them along, "Because he can't speak Thai either. Who knows how long it'll take him to get us a ride?" The butler told them to merely waste time around the middle of the village and he would find them himself later. The village square architecture was comprised of yellow brick and set up as a literal square with descending ledge levels and stairs on each side. It looked something like a temple ground, but it was just the architecture. People were strewn all about, as were small stands that sold foods and sundry goods and items.

And amidst the crowds all around, a bright red gi stuck out like a sore thumb. A sore thumb that Sakura proceeded to march right up to as she had unfinished business with the last person she had met in a red gi. Though she was wrong on who exactly this person was, because it wasn't Guy.

The gi was fundamentally different being a sleeveless karate variation instead of that suited for ninjutsu with a red belt holding it closed. In addition to that, the person wearing it had long blonde hair that went down their back and he was going shoeless to boot. But that gi looked mighty familiar.

It also seemed that this man knew of Sakura too from an appearance of something, "That headband… you wouldn't happen to be named Sakura would you?" The man said curiously, "Ryu's kinda-student."

"Wait…" Sakura said, trying to dredge up some memories of the last time she had gone around the world, "…I know you. We've met. Aren't you the friend of Ryu that I met?"

"Yeah, it is you." The blonde man said with a grin, walking through the few people standing between himself and Sakura and Batsu before reaching them and resting a hand on Sakura's short hair to ruffle it, "That schoolgirl that tracked Ryu down two years ago. Heh, that was weird." He said with a laugh, not noticing Sakura fume slightly at being made fun of, "You're still on about him aren't you?"

It was obvious to Batsu that he was missing something going on at the moment as he watched the byplay between Sakura and this American guy, "Uh yo… who the fuck is this guy?"

The American man turned towards Batsu and raised an eyebrow, "Another kid running around the world? Don't you all have parents? Whatever. Nice to meet you, my name's Ken Masters." He finished, pointing his thumb at himself confidently.

XxX

(Northeastern Thailand Interior – With Naruto)

"So some weird yoga master that you were supposed to kill tapped you on the head in the middle of a fight to screw with your head and that's what happened to make you the way you are now?" Naruto asked as he and Cammy walked through the woods outside of a small village they had decided to wait things out at, "That's weird. Usually when someone hits me in the head it does brain damage, it doesn't fix it."

"It wasn't a hit so much as it was him pushing his powers into my mind." Cammy explained, following along with him as he traversed the forest. He seemed very good at navigating wooded terrain. It was like he was right at home, and he was way nicer here too. As if it made him calm down being in the forest, "And I wasn't brain damaged, I was brain_washed_." She specified with a bit of a glare at her fellow blonde.

"Tomato/To-mah-toe." Naruto replied as he jumped up into a branch and leaned against the trunk with a long strand of grass in his mouth idly. It was a nice little walk they were having and it served a purpose as well even if there was no real reason for it.

The reason the two were together with no mediator was because Karin was in the village fussing over making sure that she had acceptable accommodations that would suit her for as long as they stayed there. It was a pretty backwater place, at least that was what she referred to it as. Naruto personally liked it as it was a change from the very close quarters of the cities that he had lived in for four years in Japan.

But back to Karin. While she was finding her way into buying enough comforts to keep herself content for the duration of their stay she basically kicked Naruto and Cammy out of the village altogether to see if they couldn't get along or at least see if they could make it back later without one having killed each other.

Even that would have counted as a success in her book.

"Not really." Cammy said, seemingly impatient with Naruto's cavalier take on things, "Would you be attentive? This is the village with the closest proximity to the base. We could walk there and arrive by dawn. The base is intentionally kept in the thickest woods available in the country. It's been preserved by Shadaloo's influence. The land can't be cleared because of the underlying threat from them." She simply stood beneath the tree straight, no leaning, sitting or anything.

"It reminds me a little bit of a hidden village." Naruto mused to himself with a touch of familiarity before quickly quelling it, "…Meh, not really." The tigers and the cobras and whatnot that he knew would lie deeper would not have been a Konoha thing… unless someone decided to go into the Forest of Death.

Hearing him talk to himself, Cammy decided to continue to address him even though she wasn't necessarily being spoken to, "Master Bison has soldiers patrol about quite often though they never come this far out. They stay deep in the woods, many kilometers deeper so that no one sees them. It's a precaution in case outsiders come. If they go deep enough into the forest to discover the forces they don't leave again. The locals just say that they disappear."

A thoughtful look crossed Naruto's face as he sat down on the branch he was in before laying back on it, "You did it again." Cammy looked up at him confusedly as she was unaware as to what he was referring to, "You still call him master. That doesn't make me feel very safe you know."

It was instinctual at this point for her. A few days of self-awareness was not going to cure her of something like that. Despite being self-aware and able to feel emotions, Cammy was not used to the whole gambit of them, thus she still chose to ignore most of them. The three days of travelling to Thailand saw the following sentiments and states of mind brought out of Cammy; boredom, curiosity, apprehension, excitement, and among few others that she didn't verbalize: annoyance.

Naruto had a lot to do with the last one as he really didn't believe that she didn't know what emotions she happened to be feeling, thus he took it upon himself to try and pull each one he could think of out of her. He failed miserably for most, only agitating her at best, and decided to just let her be. These things would come to her eventually.

"You've never been scared before have you?" Naruto asked her suddenly.

"I'm not afraid of fighting. I just think I'm nervous about what we're doing here." Cammy replied sternly. She was still a powerful fighter even if she was not the same as before. All that had changed were the thoughts running through her head. She lost none of her fighting prowess, nor had she automatically gained a personality.

Sighing at her choice in response, Naruto had to remember what Sakura had told him when it came to his patience with her. It wasn't like Cammy had a need to be nice to the people around her that didn't have authority over her. Most of the people in the world that she met she had probably killed or defeated before now. It wasn't as if she were completely lacking social graces. Not at all. She was a very smart and well-read young lady, but she wasn't an experienced conversationalist, "There's nothing wrong with being scared."

"Cowardice is a mark of the weak." A robotic response from the pretty young girl that should never have said anything in such a way. There was barely more life in that statement than the way she had spoken to Naruto during their battle in Aohura City, "I am not weak, I am not allowed to be weak, therefore I am not afraid."

Naruto rolled over onto his stomach to stare down listlessly at the former Shadaloo assassin, "Well I get scared sometimes. Does that make me weak?" Apparently Cammy had enough tact to hold her tongue from speaking blatant truths that could be taken as insults because she said nothing, "…Don't answer that. But seriously, being scared isn't the same thing as being a coward. Sometimes when you're scared it lets you think of stuff or do stuff you could never do."

"I don't understand." She said, looking up at him with a slight cocking of her head that Naruto couldn't help but deem as cute from her earnest face. It seemed her go-to mentality was just to try and be like the Doll she had been before the yoga master Dhalsim messed with her head, but when she wasn't trying to maintain this she just let what she naturally was supposed to feel in certain situations come out.

He scratched his cheek and chewed on the grass piece as he thought of what to compare it to, "Well it works both ways actually. It's kind of like fighting when you're mad. It can help you or hurt you depending on how you use it."

"I still don't understand." Cammy replied, her brow furrowing in thought as she tried to ponder his words and work to comprehend them.

"Why?"

"I've never done either of those things; fighting while angry or scared." For some reason she knew she should have been able to comprehend this from the way that Naruto was looking at her, but with no experience of either she couldn't imagine what he was talking about, "I think I've _seen_ what you're referring to, but I don't have experience feeling it myself to say I understand."

A grunt escaped Naruto as he rolled the blade of grass around in his mouth, "What are we gonna do with you?" She was still so well conditioned that even then she seemed to be standing at attention, eyes drawn on him while he spoke as if she were being briefed, "I mean after this is over with what in the hell are we gonna do? Where are we going to take you? Where are you from?"

"I don't know."

"Do you have any family?"

"I… don't believe I do."

Of course she didn't. Other than her time working amongst the Dolls, Cammy was unable to give them even the slightest glimpse into her past. All she knew was her training and her missions and things having to do with Shadaloo. That kind of brainwashing had to be deep to make her forget what she had been before she was forced to fight as Bison's fire-and-forget killer, "Well… what do you like to do? Maybe we can take you somewhere that would work for that after all of this is over."

"Collecting data on powerful fighters." Cammy rattled off without missing a beat, "It's what I did when I was not working on missions; preparing myself for potential fights in the future."

"Damn it, you are really not helping me out with this at all." Naruto whined, waving his arms and legs in the air from where he was laying on the branch, "Whatever. We'll figure it out later." He pushed himself up and sat against a tree before yawning and shutting his eyes, "I think we should wait a bit before going back to the village while Karin is turning it into her own base camp while we're here."

Upon hearing the yawn, Cammy managed to jump her way onto Naruto's branch to make sure she was seeing what she thought she had heard. It stirred Naruto for a moment before he shut his eyes again, "You're going to sleep out here?" She sat down on the large tree appendage with her legs folded inwards, hands pressing down on her ankles with a frown on her face, "That doesn't seem very smart."

"It's okay." Naruto assured her as he tried to catch a nap in the calm forest, "You can relax for a bit too. I promise I've got everything under control. Nobody's going to sneak up on us." Skeptically, Cammy observed him for a bit before it was evident that he had fallen asleep.

Weirdo. But he was still alive for a reason, no matter how unorthodox he seemed. And he said that he had their security in this predicament under control. They weren't that far inside of the forest anyway to be in much danger. She wasn't going to shut her eyes though. She was merely going to continue trying to make heads or tails of just what she was going to do when she returned to the Shadaloo base.

XxX

(Village Near Historic Ruins of Khmer, Thailand – With Sakura and Batsu)

Sakura and Ken spent the time waiting for Ishizaki to procure a ride for her and Batsu catching up, what with Ken being the best friend of her personal hero.

Sitting on one of the numerous ledges in the village square, the two fighters with similarly derived styles spoke while Batsu just waited with them while eating a large amount of fruits he had bought from a nearby stand.

"So you're looking for Ryu again are you?" Ken said to Sakura before laughing in a bit of amusement, "I can't really say anything though. I am too. I heard he was in Thailand."

'Well that's not really the reason I'm here…' Sakura thought to herself with a sheepish look. But Ken was the kind of guy that once he got something into his head it was rather hard to convince him otherwise, "I heard that too. But he's never going to train me is he?" She asked almost knowingly.

"It's not that he doesn't want to." Ken decided to explain, as he could tell from the first time they had met that she had a lot of raw talent that she just needed to hone, "He doesn't believe he's fit to really train anyone. Not right now. We both still have a lot to learn. Our master could still wipe the floor with both of us at the same time so neither of us has any right to teach anyone for real. And he's having a bit of an identity issue at the moment too. That's sort of why I'm looking for him to see how he's doing with it."

When Ryu had visited her and Naruto back in Japan two months ago it was clear that he was suffering from some sort of internal conflict with himself, about his dark inner power the Satsui no Hadou. He feared that one day his drive to win at all costs would eventually have him willing to kill his opponents and do whatever was necessary just so that he wouldn't have to suffer defeat, even in insignificant fights.

"He seemed troubled when I saw him." Sakura reported, choosing to look around their rather beautiful surroundings instead of at the person she was talking to. She wasn't going to give up on trying to earn Ryu's respect so that she could get real training from him, but hearing a rundown of reasons as to why it wasn't going to be happening anytime soon wasn't exactly fun.

This downcast mood wasn't exactly where Ken wanted the conversation to be directed towards so in an effort to liven things up he gave Sakura a few hearty pats on her back that almost accidentally knocked her from the ledge, "Hey, I'm actually curious to how good you are now. It's been a while." With that he jumped up and started stretching himself out, "How about it? You want to go a round or two?"

Absolutely she did. A spar would have been great.

Great for her. For the other company present it was boring.

Batsu had managed to bulldoze straight through his large pile of fruit and had long since gotten up to go for a bit of a walk around the premises, as it was a nice place and he wanted to go down to the grassy field at the bottom of the town square.

The stairs were rather crowded though, and used to things like this on the crowded sidewalks of Aohura City he went to slipping his way through the people in his path. At most he would barely brush past them as he walked, something he had great practice in doing, but apparently even this was offensive to someone as when he lightly jostled a person he was walking past on the steps they turned and stopped him by grabbing his shoulder.

He was turned around and greeted by a veritable gang of young men that were older than him, all wearing Muay Thai kickboxing shorts, athletic shirts and looking as if they had just come from training somewhere. While they started babbling about respect for the practitioners of the strongest martial art in the world, Batsu didn't understand a word that they were saying because he didn't speak Thai… at all.

But he was getting sick of the lead man's grip tightening on his shoulder and knowing that this was about to lead to a confrontation, grabbed him by the wrist tight enough for one to hear bones creak. Batsu then casually tossed him back over his head and down the stairs. All the way down the stairs, with the aspiring young fighter landing directly on his back in the grass with a crashing thud.

The crowd gasped at the show of freaky strength and the other fighters started backing away from Batsu and ran away after he let out a bull-like snort that roughly translated in any language to 'leave me the hell alone'.

With that little problem dealt with, he continued down the stairs until he reached the grassy center at the bottom of the square and kneeled down by the fighter he had thrown there who was groaning in pain, "I guess there are jerks in every country that think they can bully people just because they're stronger fighters." He mused to himself until he heard the crowd begin to chatter and heard shouts from the boys he had scared off prior.

This time he saw them being led by a man down the stairs that the crowd automatically cleared out of the way of, either out of respect or fear, he couldn't tell which. Either way he stood back up and waited for the man to head over to him as the others from earlier picked up their friend that Batsu had thrown there. Apparently his name was Adon, because that was what he kept hearing the people say that he could distinguish from the rest of the words he couldn't understand.

The man stood a few inches taller than Batsu with orange hair like a hawk's tail, a lean, muscular frame unlike the others. He had on a traditional Muay Thai headband, heavily taped hands and feet, blue and yellow ropes wrapped around his biceps, and blue and yellow colored kickboxing trunks. On his face he seemed to have a rather slimy-looking smile, but it was clear how confident he was in his fighting ability, unlike the previous boys that seemed to be self-conscious with something to prove.

"Well at least they aren't stupid." Adon said in English, surprising Batsu and getting him to chuckle, "But they're cowards though for calling me as if I'll fight their battle for them." Batsu relaxed for a moment, but tensed up again after the next sentence, "I'm still going to fight mind you, but not for them, for me."

"Why?"

"Because there's no one strong in this country after you've dethroned the 'God of Muay Thai!'" Adon exclaimed in a grandiose manner, "Sagat was a pathetic representative of our fighting style for losing to that man Ryu three years ago, but he was the last tough opponent there was for me. Now I've got to wait for a new Muay Thai challenger to rise up and in the meantime I've got to test myself against any tough fighter I can find."

"Yeah about that…" Batsu replied, wondering just what his luck was. The last important fight he had was against a former heavyweight champion boxer and now it seemed like he was about to fight against the best in Thailand, "I ain't a world champion. But you're saying you beat Sagat? You're the second guy I've met that said that… and I don't believe you either, just like him. What, did you beat him when he was maimed or did he throw the fight?"

Adon narrowed his eyes at Batsu and the smile fell from his face, "What are you saying? I beat him two years ago right after he embarrassed himself and our martial art against Ryu."

"No shit you beat him then!" Exclaimed the boisterous young Japanese man immediately after, "You challenged him to a match right after? I saw that fight with Ryu at the tournament, he tore Sagat's fucking chest open like he was getting bypass surgery!" The whole world saw it. It was on TV everywhere, "You're proud of that? I don't accept you as any champion of anything!"

"Then I'll just make you." Adon took a high Muay Thai stance and everyone immediately got themselves off of the grass and moved to the ledges and the stairs to get away from both him and Batsu, "I don't normally beat up children, but you don't look like you care too much about that kind of thing."

"I don't. If you can fight you can fight, it doesn't matter how old you are." By now Batsu was also in his own low stance to defend himself.

"It matters here." It seemed that Adon wasn't taking Batsu very seriously, underestimating him. But that didn't mean that he still didn't plan on taking the youngster to school, "It's a whole different ballgame fighting a Muay Thai expert! You either get strong by the time you reach my age or you usually wind up dead or crippled!" With that, he attacked Batsu, seemingly taking one step to close twenty feet worth of distance between the two of them.

The movement was extremely fast.

A hard side kick was driven directly into the stomach of Batsu, knocking the wind right out of him and sending him rolling back head over heels across the lawn until he came to a stop with all sorts of dirt and grass in his hair.

Coughs came from Batsu's throat as he got back up off of the ground, still a little loopy from the previous shot. Not only was Adon's short range foot-speed great, but he lashed out with a lengthy kicking strike that was difficult to counter, "Ugh." Not one to surrender so easily though, Batsu sucked it up and chose to wage an attack of his own.

But once he got up and his eyes locked onto where Adon had once been he was pushed towards the defensive as he found that Adon had already gotten well within his personal space again, this time locking both of his hands together behind Batsu's neck to hook him in place where he began pummeling him with knee strikes to the body. When Batsu began to block his torso with his arms, Adon pulled his head down and kneed him directly in the face.

His head would have snapped back, but Adon still had a hold of him, so Batsu started doing the only thing he could think of to keep himself in the fight; he started throwing shots to the body as best he could.

Adon kept his hold on Batsu despite the hooks coming from the left and the right pounding away at his kidneys, 'How can he generate that much strength from this close and in this position?' As his grip started to lessen, his danger senses then went off, causing him to step back and avoid a strike that would have torn his lower jaw asunder.

"Kiaiappa (Guts Upper)!"

A bright orange glowing arm sailed just upwards in front of Adon's face in the form of a powerful uppercut from Batsu before Adon responded in kind. They were still in very close range, and he used a lightning-quick overhand elbow strike that hit Batsu's face, "K̄hb Kheī̂yw Cākạ Wr̒ (Jaguar Crunch)!"

It hit so fast that Batsu didn't feel any pain, nor did he even know anything had hit him until his brow split open as if someone had pulled a zipper and blood spilled freely from the wound. His eye beneath the bloody brow instinctively closed from the plasma flowing down into it, 'Shit! Does his elbow double as a surgical scalpel or what?'

Adon was still close and took advantage of his semi-blinded foe, moving into Batsu's blindspot where he struck at him with several pawing and quick looking jabs.

This was the scene that Sakura and Ken neared close enough to see. They had finished their own little test of one another's skills only to find that a real fight was going on not too far from where they had been, a fight that was being lost by… "Batsu!" Sakura exclaimed upon seeing him stumble back from Adon's most recent barrage of strikes, "How did this even happen?"

Ken noticed who Batsu was fighting and cursed underneath his breath, "Damn it, that's the champion Adon. What's your buddy doing? I've fought him before, he's dangerous." He asked Sakura before shouting some advice aloud so that Batsu could hear him, "Stay the hell away from him kid! Keep him back!"

Adon heard this as well and scoffed at the loud blonde man as he understood English, "I'll deal with you in a bit. This is between me and this kid here." But turning his attention away from Batsu was a mistake as he had underestimated the boy.

"Mikazukikero (Crescent Moon Kick)!" Batsu managed to score with a 360 degree swinging kick directly to Adon's face that sent him flying back from the power behind it, but as Batsu spun through he opted to follow up immediately, "Kiaidan (Guts Bullet)!" From his hand he generated ki before punching it with his other hand, firing a solid burst of energy right at Adon that hit him again.

Ken crossed his arms in a satisfied manner that his advice had come through while Sakura jumped and cheered for Batsu at his side, "Good combo for the projectile." Ken admitted appreciatively. Batsu fought bowling-shoe ugly, but damned if he couldn't exploit an opening, "You get a three out of ten for style though… and two of those points are for the blood on you."

Grumbling about smart-mouthed Americans bashing the way he fought, Batsu wiped the blood from his cut in vain as it just came right back out. This didn't hinder him for the most part though as he saw Adon get back up, glaring at him heatedly all the while, "You get one…" Adon said, wiping the blood from his own mouth after getting kicked square in it by his younger adversary, "…Everybody gets one. You won't land another move."

A middle finger from Batsu was his response, as was another Guts Bullet. But keeping true to his word, Adon did not allow it to hit him at all.

Still though, Batsu had a strategy now; to keep Adon as far away as possible. His ability to backstep and keep moving away from a foe was more important than ever to keep that plan alive, just so that he could buy enough time to find a pattern in Adon's movements to capitalize on.

On the other hand, Adon was getting sick and tired of Batsu firing off shot after shot at him. It reminded him of how Sagat battered and beat him to within an inch of his life years prior. Adon had defeated the injured man under the rules of the Muay Thai fight they had engaged in where ki attacks were forbidden, but afterwards there was no such restriction, and the angry Sagat who was not hurt enough to lose a fight with no rules annihilated him with his Tiger Shot projectile before inflicting damage on him with his hands and feet. He thought about it every day.

In other words he had been training for such a thing.

He was by no means able to work out exactly how to use his ki to utilize such attacks, but he had mercilessly worked to overcome the advantage that a projectile user held over him in his own way.

Adon backflipped out of the way of a Guts Bullet that struck the ground before he used the spring his legs took on immediately upon landing to launch directly forward during the lapse caused by the time it took for Batsu to compress a useful Kiaidan, "Fạn r̒ (Jaguar Tooth)!" He leapt directly towards Batsu with his leg extended to drive right through the boy, forcing him to dodge.

By Batsu's judgment he still had enough range to try another ranged attack. Perhaps it would push Adon back again because all that Batsu had worked out about how to beat him thus far was that he liked to take to the air often, a nimble combatant, "Kiaidan (Guts Bullet)!" He didn't have the time to charge up his stronger variant of the technique. Adon would never give him the opportunity to.

However by using another projectile he had played right into the experienced Adon's hands who sprang towards him and jumped right over the attack, flipping and smashing both of his feet off of the top of Batsu's head, "Tea r̒ (Jaguar Kick)!"

Batsu's head snapped downward violently though he still remained on his feet with a glazed over look in his eyes. Adon figured that he was out on his feet, and he was right. But Batsu was an instinctual fighter and as long as he was still standing he had a touch of danger about him. As shown when he unconsciously prepared to lash out with a last gasp Kiaidan.

Adon took this as the insolence of a person that didn't understand when they were beaten and would not acknowledge him as the superior fighter. This was something he was not going to let stand at all.

Ken could see that Batsu was not consciously defending himself, but he could also see Adon's muscles coil for another attack, "Adon stop!"

"H̄ima Thl̀m r̒ (Jaguar Avalanche)!" Leaping at Batsu again, he struck him on the chin with two flying knees in succession that knocked him into the air. Following his body, Adon delivered another kick to his head before flipping over and delivering a series of stomps that sent Batsu crashing to the ground, "Rest in peace brat!" He then noticed Ken running towards them with anger in his eyes.

The normal end of this move would have seen Adon dive down and stomp on Batsu's chest, something that could kill him. But he had to change this, as killing the boy during this fight would have resulted in a far more serious battle against Ken than the battle he had trying to teach a young punk his place.

Thus instead of trying to crush Batsu's ribs and breastbone he landed on his knee with his falling stomp. While there was no threat of death, there was an absolute chance of excruciating injury from the results of this action.

"GAAH!" And the sharp pain provided by such a move was more than enough to wake up the previously out of it Batsu. Getting your leg broken would do that to you.

The ear-splitting cry of pain from the young man got Ken to stop running, flinching at what he was too late to stop as Adon had moved away from him, smirking at Ken smugly, "Too weak. You should thank me for keeping him alive."

By this time, Sakura had made it to her downed friend's side as he was writhing about and ripping up the grass and the earth with his hands in a futile effort to assuage the pain, "Batsu keep still. We're going to get you to a doctor alright?" She figured only Naruto got into trouble like this with no one around to watch him.

"Why the leg? Fuck!" Batsu shouted loudly, not knowing what to do with himself with Sakura's best efforts to make sure that he held still and didn't try to move around.

Ken meanwhile was glaring heatedly at Adon, "You'd cripple an opponent like that? You had him beaten! He was already done you goddamn disgrace!"

"The only disgrace here is you trying to defend that weakling." Adon dismissed Ken's anger to his own amusement, "There's a new God of Muay Thai that the world needs to accept. It's not Sagat anymore, you're looking at him right now. He needed to understand that and now he does."

An angry Ken clinched his yellow-gloved hands in rage before taking a few deep breaths to calm himself, "Okay, I will accept it. I know the man that beat your teacher, and I'll tell him to come here and fight you so you can prove you're better than Sagat by succeeding where he failed." He could see Adon's beady eyes light up at the idea of getting Ryu to fight him, "…If I can't beat you in three moves that is."

"What?"

"You heard me." Ken held up three fingers as an illustration, "All I need to beat you is three moves. I promise. Take it or leave it."

Instead of remaining offended, Adon simply began to laugh, "Three moves? I won't even have time to warm back up." He got back into his stance and charged right at Ken without warning. Preparing another flying double-knee strike, he was preempted.

"Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (Tornado Whirlwind Leg)!" Spinning around almost like a red blur, Ken also launched towards Adon with a rapidly spinning kick and the two clashed, with Adon getting blown back from his attempted maneuver, neutralized. Ken simply stood there unfazed whatsoever, "One."

Adon growled at the fact that Ken actually seemed to be taking his own terms to the fight seriously and decided to show him who exactly he was dealing with, springing back after faking a forward approach, he used the contradictory movement to rocket himself forward with more momentum, leading with his leg straight out to spear straight through Ken, "Fạn r̒ (Jaguar Tooth)!"

Able to see the threat level behind the move, Ken wasted no time in dodging it, but it seemed to be just a tactic to let Adon get close as he hadn't used as much range as the move could have provided. He chose to cut it short in an effort to batter Ken in close, but he didn't wonder why Ken hadn't countered yet, as when he reached out to grab a clinch with the blonde martial artist he felt nothing more than pain afterwards.

Ken had ducked down to sharply build up his ki for his strongest close-range countermove, "Shinryuuken (Divine Dragon Fist)!" Ken launched into the air with a powerful leaping, twisting uppercut that smashed Adon right in the chest, but it didn't stop there.

The buildup of ki was released the moment Ken started going upward with his uppercut. Before he ever even left the ground for his jumping portion of the room he had created a spiraling vacuum of flames around himself that scorched Adon along with the forceful blow to his chest.

The Muay Thai champion was knocked fifteen feet into the air before landing on the ground flat on his back and unconscious, eyes showing that the lights were off in his head. A nasty burn sat on Adon's chest where Ken had struck him in the form of a fist.

"Well what do you know?" Ken said, dusting his hands off as he looked down at the beaten man, "It only took two."

Adon was good, but Ken had seen more than enough of his style from when Batsu had been giving him fits to have come up with a way to defeat him. Were he not so cocky he wouldn't have chosen to step into a battle against an opponent that had just seen him fight a fairly complete battle while he himself hadn't been able to see any of his enemy's capabilities whatsoever.

Sakura had propped Batsu up to allow him to see Ken defeat Adon as a way to help him take his mind somewhat off of the pain of his broken leg, but they hadn't really expected to see that incredible performance. Both Sakura and Batsu had the same thing in mind as they saw the blonde man walk back over to them, tightening the belt of his gi, 'We need to get stronger…'

"Don't worry kid." Ken said in a heartfelt and concerned manner as he crouched down by the wounded teen, "We'll get a doctor right to you to patch you up."

All Batsu could do was nod in a pained manner to the very skilled martial artist while breathing erratically, "Looks like my vacation is over…" He joked humorlessly as Sakura set him back down flat on the ground to wait for medical attention.

XxX

(Northeastern Thailand Interior – Sundown)

The quick flash of a claw drew across the throat of an orange clad interloper who was merely in the wrong place, with the wrong predator in the vicinity. It actually wasn't bad camouflage, the orange clothing. Tigers were orange with markings and existed just fine in the jungles, and that wasn't even mentioning the blinding and blazing sunset bathing the landscape in orange as well.

The stalker of his prey was just too focused.

But much to the claw-wielding hunter's chagrin, his target disappeared into a puff of smoke instead of bathing his metal three fingered claw in precious lifeblood.

"Hmm…" Vega said lowly, somewhat disappointed that he had not indeed caught Naruto slipping dangerously close to Shadaloo's hidden base. But then again, this merely meant that there was a game afoot. If there was one Naruto there were more, this was the cardinal rule of dealing with Naruto's copies; that he never made just one, "Let's have a little fun Uzumaki." He then took off through the forest again like a shadow.

He wondered how many fakes he would wind up killing before he found the real one to snuff out.

XxX

Naruto's eyes popped open after visions of three clones dying went through his head. Those weren't dreams. They weren't mental sleep terrors. They were the feedback from his dispelled clones. And he had just received another one. Something fast and dangerous was gleefully hunting his Kage Bunshin and/or him down.

He looked over to where he saw Cammy, sleeping a bit fitfully face down on the large branch they had taken a rest on. And she'd been so against trying to relax while out in the jungle or so it seemed. The long trip inland from Bangkok had tired her out, she was human after all.

Sighing to himself, Naruto quickly created a small squad of five clones to watch over her and possibly wake her up and take her away in a retreat if necessary. He wouldn't send them away right then because unneeded movement might attract the forest attacker if they tried to leave with her. He was taking down clones already without them trying to flee.

Naruto stood up and leapt from one branch to another without stirring the first place at all, lest he awaken his new ally. He'd leave that for the clones keeping watch over her.

There was already a trail to follow as he had upwards of thirty Kage Bunshin on patrol through the area and three had been killed already… make that four… no five.

They were dropping like flies out there, but Naruto could triangulate the position of his attacker in the woods from his clones' memories of their movements prior to their extermination. It would be easy for him to set up and prepare for battle as long as he knew where the killer was moving towards.

Kami he was fast though. Whatever. Anyone was trappable, no matter how fast they were.

Naruto tightened his headband around his forehead tightly for security. Whoever it was wasn't going to get him or anyone else killed on his side. Not tonight.

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Ken Masters  
><span>Nationality:<span> USA  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 25 (February 14)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'10/165 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> B  
><span>Likes:<span> His girlfriend Eliza, his best friend Ryu, fighting, skateboarding, the beach, sports cars.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Umeboshi, soap operas, wearing shoes, losing to fighters with no honor.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Pasta chef, finding Ryu on his wanderings.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Ryu (friendly), Sakura (friendly), Akuma.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Martial Art rooted in Ansatsuken.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Hadoken (Surge Fist), Shoryuuken (Rising Dragon Fist), Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (Tornado Whirlwind Leg).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Shoryureppa (Rising Dragon Destroyer), Shinryuken (Divine Dragon Fist), Guren Senpukyaku (Crimson Lotus Whirlwind Kick).  
><span>Background:<span> Ken is the son of a rich hotel tycoon and the best friend, chief rival, and fellow disciple of a fellow user of his style, Ryu. Where Ryu is focused, serious, and stoic, Ken is his general antithesis; flashy, unconventional, and very capricious. A bit egotistical and sometimes short-tempered, he is extremely friendly and far more easygoing than Ryu. As a young boy starting at the age of 12, Ken was trained alongside Ryu at the behest of his father who wanted to teach him discipline so that he did not wind up spoiled by his family's fortune. After returning to America and winning multiple tournaments he returned to Japan and witnessed his master Gouken's death at the hands of a man named Akuma. Ken was no match against him and was defeated in one blow. To this day he balances his life back home in the U.S. with his further training and searches for Akuma, who left him alive for being too weak to pose any kind of challenge to him. Ken differentiates his fighting from Ryu in his focus on developing his Shoryuuken and physical attacks instead of the Hadoken as a specialty the way Ryu has chosen to do.

Name: Adon  
><span>Nationality:<span> Thailand  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 27 (August 2)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'11 ½/161 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> B  
><span>Likes:<span> Enjoying nature, Muay Thai fighting.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Sagat, people who talk big.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Waiku (a dance of Muay Thai).  
><span>Rivals:<span> Sagat, Ryu, Ken.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Muay Thai  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Pheìm Khụ̂n r̒ (Rising Jaguar), Tea r̒ (Jaguar Kick), Tea Xākāṣ̄ r̒ (Airborne Jaguar Kick), Fạn r̒ (Jaguar Tooth), K̄hb Kheī̂yw Cākạ Wr̒ (Jaguar Crunch).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> R̒ Cū̀com Thī̀ Hlākh̄lāy (Jaguar Varied Assault), Pụ̄n r̒ (Jaguar Revolver), H̄ima Thl̀m r̒ (Jaguar Avalanche).  
><span>Background:<span> Adon is a former student of Sagat and has often been compared to his teacher throughout his career as a 'lesser version' despite his efforts to differentiate himself with more acrobatic techniques. Three years ago Adon entered the World Warrior tournament to prove himself as something more, but was defeated by eventual tournament winner Ryu who defeated him with a single Shoryuuken. After witnessing Sagat's violent defeat to the same man that defeated him, Adon began to break down, blaming Sagat for failing to uphold Muay Thai's honor and neglecting to acknowledge the fact that he himself was defeated far more decisively. He challenged a still gravely injured Sagat for his title of God of Muay Thai and defeated him according to the rules of their bout, but an angered Sagat beat him so badly that he was hospitalized for months afterwards. Even as a recognized champion, Adon cannot escape the shadow of his former master Sagat, something he obsesses over almost fanatically, driving him to continue increasing his reputation and build his own legend to eclipse Sagat's.

* * *

><p><strong>What's up jerks? I've got nothing worth a damn to say other than I hope you enjoyed and I'll catch you all around the next time. I'm going to sleep… and then I'm going to work on other stories. I may even put a chapter to something else out by the end of the day depending on how the flow of words goes towards a story. This one just flows the easiest for me at the moment.<br>**

**Kenchi out.**

**P.S. Playing golf is awesome. It's a very refreshing change of pace from running, punching, kicking, lifting, and trying to tie another human being into a pretzel. I endorse it heavily as my sport of choice to wind down from fighting.**

**Makes my back hurt a bit though…**


	15. Better Than the Alternative

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. Go ahead and back over my hopes and dreams with a pickup truck again why don't you?

Now let's get tropical.

**Chapter 15: Better Than the Alternative**

* * *

><p>The only sounds in the forest were the subtle rustling of leaves and the calls of the birds that were planning on calling it a night before darkness fell over the land. This belied the chaos going on within.<p>

Over the course of fifteen minutes after running across the first Naruto clone and ending its existence, Vega had decimated sixteen more of them in a sadistic game of cat and mouse. A few had managed to see him coming at the last second, but it was always too late.

As he moved through the jungle looking for another Naruto to kill he wondered if the original would be so easy to get rid of or-.

He managed to get his answer when he least expected it as he tripped a piece of metal wire that broke, bringing down four massive logs from all sides around him trying to crush him. They seemingly smashed into Vega and randomly exploded on contact, rocking the tranquility of nature with manmade destruction.

From a spot hidden not too far from where this occurred, Naruto observed the sprung trap and waited for the debris and smoke to clear from the blast. A trap should always have explosive tags attached. It just makes the whole thing at least twice as effective. He hadn't had an opportunity to blow things up without getting into huge trouble for a long time.

But here… if there was an explosion in the forest and no one was around to hear it could anyone prove that anything was detonated?

The death of a clone that was close enough to investigate the explosion warned Naruto that he needed to move, and he leapt from his hiding place just as it was cut asunder by a razor-sharp claw with tremendous force behind it.

Landing on the ground and dodging the falling heavy branch that he had been taking refuge on, Naruto turned and faced Vega who was standing on what was left of the tree limb he had just cut down, in his full masked glory, "Back for another asskicking?" Naruto quipped, with no love lost for the Spanish ninja, "This time you don't have anyone to take hostage. It's just you and me, dattebayo."

"That's just fine." Vega replied, holding up his claw by his face, "I wouldn't want to risk destroying something beautiful while ridding the world of something as repulsive as yourself." The killing intent in the air between the two could have been cut with a knife, "You scarred my beautiful body the last time we met."

"You seem just fine to me. You still look way too much like a girl to be a man for my tastes, but you don't look like I scarred you."

Behind his mask Vega smirked despite Naruto's insult to his masculinity, "Yes. You have something to do with that. At least you were able to fix what you managed to ruin. Behind that ugly shell you call your body, you possess amazing ki. I've never felt better in my life."

That shoved a sense of foreboding into Naruto's stomach. At least he thought it was foreboding until he realized that there was a quiet growling in his head, **"You mean to say that even here too…"** Kyuubi muttered so low that Naruto almost didn't hear, **"I thought something felt familiar… they've bonded traces of our chakra with his body."**

'What?' Naruto thought with a bit of shock, 'That's impossible! They don't have fuuinjutsu in this world! And even if they did, if they used your chakra shouldn't he be dying or something? It's too strong for most people right?'

"**I said **_**our**_** chakra you little dumbass."** Kyuubi asserted as it sat on its haunches within its cage, fully aware of the events taking place outside in the world, **"It's not just mine. Yours is inside of him as well. As a matter of fact it's mostly yours, not even a significant fraction of mine. Either way, your chakra is like a base separating my caustic chakra from his own."**

Were Naruto's chakra not there Vega's body wouldn't be able to handle even the little amount of Kyuubi's chakra within him at all, he'd become violently ill as it poisoned his system. But since there was more of Naruto's chakra within him, Vega was implying not only was he fine, he was saying that he was benefiting from this. But how?

'What does that mean?' Naruto asked the Kyuubi. He didn't want to hear the answer that he was more than likely going to get, "What the hell do you mean you've never felt better in your life?" He shouted at Vega as he threw shuriken his way.

As if answering Naruto's question, Vega jumped onto the tree trunk to dodge the metal stars and sprung off of them heading right for Naruto at an incredible speed with a brazen attempt to stab him through with his claw, "Vuelo de Barcelona (Flying Barcelona)!"

Shocked at Vega's increased speed, Naruto narrowly stepped out of the way, but Vega rolled through and swept Naruto's leg out from beneath him, knocking him to the ground. Gritting his teeth once he hit the ground, Naruto kipped back up to his feet and lashed out with a kick that Vega slithered out of the way of, low to the ground as he avoided the response attack, 'He's even faster now? What the fuck!'

Laughing to himself in an increasingly manic manner at his heightened instinctive reflexes, Vega scaled the side of a tree again as if he were moving along the ground, "I mean just what I said! Is this what you feel like all the time? It's glorious! I've so much energy I'm almost bursting with it! Give me a workout Uzumaki! Let me see the new limits of my ability!"

"Limit this! Kage Shuriken no Jutsu (Shadow Shuriken Jutsu)!" Naruto brandished a massive folding windmill-like shuriken and hurled it right at Vega and his place on the tree. Still laughing at the easy-to-scout attack, Vega jumped from the tree only to realize that Naruto had piled another shuriken underneath the first and had thrown them together, hiding the second shuriken in the shadow of the first so that it couldn't be seen.

He managed to block it with his claw as metal clashed against metal, but he was unable to dodge when Naruto had taken advantage of this opening after jumping from the spot where his first shuriken had hit the tree. He wound up delivering a deeply driving kick to Vega's belly that kicked him past a few trees and into some brush.

Naruto landed from his authoritative kick and slid to a stop, "You can't beat me by trying to _be_ me Vega! You can have all of my chakra that you want, you still suck!" He taunted, not willing to chase the man into where he had kicked him out of sight. He wouldn't have chased himself and Vega was more devious and less honorable than he was. So his next option was to goad him out, "I'm the best ninja in the world you tranny! Go hide behind another unconscious teenage girl if you want a better chance to win!"

As a bullfighter, Vega knew the act of taunting the beast to attack on your terms instead of just letting it attack when it wanted to. Naruto was trying to goad him into striking when he was prepared instead of allowing himself to be attacked on Vega's terms and simply reacting to it.

A fairly decent stratagem against a dangerous foe who could attack without warning, but when it came to goading ugly brutes into making ill-advised moves Vega had been doing it since he had been younger than Naruto's age.

And Naruto was probably dumber than any bull he'd have fought against in Spain, because a silver-tongue was all that was required for him to force him into anything.

"A ninja you call yourself? Don't make me laugh. The art of ninjutsu is far too beautiful for an ill-bred fool like you to be considered the best in. You're the cattle of the ninja world; only fit for slaughter at the hands of one better than you." Vega's voice echoed through the trees around Naruto, "Who would want to be you? I doubt you even want to be yourself! No family wanted you probably due to your incompetence or repugnance, orphan. You can't protect a friend that needs you such as the real ninja girl back in Japan, failure! You can't even make your own ambitions a reality you're so inept! The only thing you're good for is the power within you, and now you're not even good for that, because I can keep it within my body!"

"You don't know the first thing about me!" Naruto snapped angrily, his voice echoing through the jungle, "I'll show you who's cattle! I'll show you how much of a failure I am!" He was sick and tired of hearing people question and slight his hard-earned skills. First Guy, now Vega. Even Ibuki's teacher Sanjou didn't see much in him despite everything he had done to keep himself alive and prove his skills.

He'd go as far to say that at least Konoha recognized him and acknowledged his potential as something after he defeated Neji during the chunin exams.

The taunting laugh of Vega rang out clearly, angering him further, angering him to the extent that his body became coated in the flaming orange chakra that resided deep within his core.

Seeing this happen right in front of his eyes as he skulked through the quickly darkening jungle, Vega smirked and licked his lips predatorily underneath his porcelain mask, "That's right… bring that monster power inside of you out. I want to crush you at your ugliest you insignificant little-." He stopped talking when Naruto's head turned his way and the boy blurred out of his view, leaving a trail of orange in his wake.

Vega's body then left a trail of broken branches and smashed tree trunks when Naruto smashed him.

XxX

(Elsewhere in the Jungle)

Cammy's eyes snapped open and she went on her guard once she was aware of the multiple presences around her body, grabbing the nearest one sitting on the branch with her around the neck, "Hey! What the hell's the big idea?" She looked around to see multiple Narutos sprinkled about the area giving her guarded looks and she then realized that she had another one caught in her grasp, "We're friendly damn it!"

Letting go of the clone's neck as if she was burned from touching it, Cammy held her hands up defensively as the clone dropped down to get some distance from her, "I'm sorry!" She said abruptly before stopping to blush at the high tone she used. She felt weird.

"Just so you know that's embarrassment you're feeling right now." A grinning Naruto remarked before being shoved by another for picking on the former Doll, "Boss made us to watch over you so that Vega didn't try to use you to beat him again. For some reason Vega's stronger now. It'll probably be a tougher fight than at the hospital."

Another clone chimed in to defend their creator, "He doesn't have Sakura-chan as an unconscious human shield with boobies this time. Boss'll kick his ass in five minutes."

'Vega is here?' Cammy thought to herself, her eyes jerking all over to try and figure out which way he and her current companion had gone to engage in battle, 'This can't be good. He almost killed me the last time and they say that Naruto believes he's stronger now.' She then brought this up to the clones, "Won't Naruto need help? He can't get hurt too badly all the way out here. Not this close to Shadaloo's base."

"Boss… doesn't want you to fight." A Naruto clone said, getting a glare from the rest of his chakra-comprised brethren, "What? He doesn't." Another clone muttered that he was an idiot and smacked him in the head, dispelling him. Hopefully that didn't mess with Naruto if he were fighting.

Cammy didn't say anything in reply to that at first, just looking at the lot of them with an unreadable expression on her face. Man they wished that she showed more emotions more often, because it would have helped them recognize just when she was about to bolt off in the direction where she could hear a distant series of cracking noises in the quiet early evening.

"Should we chase her or dispel?" The clones asked themselves in a veritable meeting of the minds.

XxX

(Naruto vs. Vega)

Picking thorns and splinters out of his ass was not what Vega had been hoping on when he fought Naruto again, but the young man tapping into that powerful orange energy again was just what he wanted. Now if only he could get it to turn red he could give his body a test run for real.

He was still a dumb brute who would try his best to get his hands on him directly to pummel his brains out. He even moved like a brute, on all fours like some kind of animal.

Speaking of the orange-clad devil himself, Vega could hear him storming his way in that direction. It would be impossible to sneak up on anyone with such an output of murderous intent coming from him but he could at least try to put some effort behind it.

As he prepared himself to face off directly with the charging Naruto he got a nasty little surprise in the form of a clone bursting from the ground at Vega's feet. The Spanish killer jumped up into the air before the earth beneath him broke. A brutal cutting of the brazenly attacking ninja revealed it to be another copy, 'A decent move.'

A jagged chunk of tree was hurled at Vega at that moment that he narrowly ducked as it flew over him and Naruto came forward to attack again, but his flurry of punches were all slipped by Vega whose heart was beating with more blood pumping through it than ever before, 'Yes! Push me! Try to kill me! Come within a hair of ripping my head off with your blows! I can truly show my beauty and superiority in the heat of battle!'

An angry Naruto growled and stopped punching at Vega, choosing to stop and stand on all fours. The narcissistic Shadaloo assassin figured that Naruto was merely in awe of his ever-heightened reflexes and prepared to taunt the bull into charging once again until Naruto let out a brain-rattling roar.

A roar with enough force to throw Vega back like a rag-doll again, his body smacking a tree trunk solidly. But before he could get himself off of it to regroup, he found Naruto in his face with his fist already cocked back. The blonde unleashed a haymaker of a punch that smashed Vega's face and broke through the tree he was up against, felling it in the woods.

That felt great; to hit Vega right in his smug pretty-boy asshole face. In their first fight he hadn't hit him in the face at all. And even thought it had been covered by a mask, he could dream that the crack he felt was a bone in Vega's face.

There was a good chance that it was indeed a bone that had cracked.

Naruto picked bits and pieces of porcelain out of his fist as he walked through the path of forested destruction he had wrought with Vega's body until he heard a crack from something he stepped on and saw a broken piece of Vega's mask underneath his foot.

Looking up he then caught the sight of Vega rising back to his feet like a zombie as his vertebrae made sounds of popping themselves back into alignment. His own blood was staining his body from where his face had been smashed beneath his now broken mask, but cracking noises could be heard as if his facial bones were resetting themselves slowly.

"How does it feel?" Vega asked, drawing his own claw across his bare chest to draw blood as the wound stopped bleeding right before Naruto's eyes, "How does it feel to see such a wondrous power in the hands of one that actually deserves and appreciates it. Not only am I a different fighter now. I can never be scarred again."

"I'll scar you up right now!" Naruto shouted right back. But as he moved to rush forward he found himself stopped as his enemy was no longer at a distance, with Vega having balled up and rolled himself forward to increase his speed and make himself an even more evasive target.

"Rodante de Cristal Flash (Rolling Crystal Flash)!"

A sound of metal piercing flesh and a claw sticking out of the back of his shoulder/chest area showed that Vega had preempted him with his planned maneuver. His red eyes went wide in shock before a growling Naruto retaliated and slashed Vega viciously across the chest with his lengthened nails in a two-hit combination that sent blood flying freely.

All of this occurred in the span of a second.

Getting his distance back, Vega's wounds closed right before his very eyes, "I told you, you can't scar me anymore! Just as I can't scar you and make you any uglier!'" He pointed out as his wound closed itself up. The blood on his body was inconsequential as long as there were no marks on his flawless form, "A perfect gift to the human embodiment of visual perfection. Nothing can disturb the living work of art that is my body. Truly an endowment that only I am worthy of… and after tonight only I will have."

"**He's worthy of nothing."** The Kyuubi said aloud within Naruto's head, **"My power isn't a trophy. It isn't a tool for some vain primping bishounen to keep himself looking pristine."** There was only one man that had ever existed that the great creature of chakra would have ever deemed worthy of containing his lifeforce, and Vega was an insect in comparison, **"I'll grant you more chakra boy, if you can promise me that he'll pay dearly."**

'I was going to make him pay if you hadn't asked me anyway, but alright.' Naruto thought back as his wound closed shut and his chakra cloak grew dense, changing from orange to red as it took on the outline of a fox shape around his body, "Alright Vega, let's see you get up after I'm done with you this time." He threatened in a more feral and gravelly voice before abruptly lashing out with his chakra in the form of an extending claw.

It missed Vega and he dove towards Naruto, cackling as he utilized a sliding tackle kick to try and knock Naruto in the air, but Naruto's chakra claw latched onto a tree trunk and pulled him in towards it. This was not the course of action that Vega had expected, nor had he expected the tail of Naruto's chakra cloak to grab onto his leg after he had missed to drag him back along the ground.

"Don't you know? The ugly monster always falls to the noble gentleman knight!" Vega's metal claw cleaved through the thick and tangible energy just as it lifted him off of the ground to throw him and he caught himself, standing on another tree's trunk before he leapt at Naruto in a blur with his tongue hanging out in a sick manner as he passed and landed on another trunk, bouncing back to cut Naruto again at his high speed, "Garra Sangrienta de Alta (Bloody High Claw)!" His blood was never even given the opportunity to hit the ground.

Each slash kept Naruto in the air was too fast to allow Naruto to fall as he was not given the time to heal one wound before another was inflicted, staining his orange fighting outfit red with his own blood, damn the metal mesh shirt underneath.

"I'm not a damn monster!" Naruto allowed Vega to stab him through the body. He gripped around Vega's wrist tightly and tore the gauntleted claw and the flesh straight off of him before spinning through and hurling Vega forcefully to the ground. Falling along with him, Naruto formed a Rasengan in his right hand that was surrounded by a stabilizing red shell of the Kyuubi's chakra, "Shui Rasengan (Vermillion Rasengan)!"

The resulting attack ended in a blast of red chakra permeating the air, rocking the ground from the pulverizing force behind it.

Knocked away from his point of impact by the explosion, Naruto sat against a tree trunk breathing tensely as he stood back up. His hand rested on the clawed gauntlet of Vega's sticking out of his stomach and pulled it out with a pained shout. The wound had healed around the blades of the claw, making it harder to do so, but he yanked it right out of there in one move and tossed it aside.

"You're not…"

Naruto was unable to hear the quiet mutter from Vega who rested, buried in rubble inside of a crater that had been formed from the attack. Slowly rubble started to move aside before it exploded up and Vega jumped out, covered in his own blood as the flesh from his wounds slowly knit back together as clear as day, "You're not worthy of this power you monster! It's protecting me! You can't turn me into an ugly monster like yourself! I'll kill you!"

A red haze began to emit from Vega's body as his eyes began to glow red and he walked towards Naruto. Prepared for another fight, Naruto's chakra cloak remained at the ready, tail swishing behind him as he waited to counter again. He could be as enhanced as he wanted to be, there wasn't any beating the original jinchuuriki in a battle of attrition if you were using his own chakra for the enhancement.

But after Vega took a few steps he stopped, his lip quivering with a lost look on his face. That haze was more akin to smoke emitting from his own body instead of a sign of him gaining more strength. And this brought a dark chuckle from the Kyuubi, **"Heh… he finally did it. He broke through the barrier that your chakra created from mine that was protecting him."**

Naruto watched as Vega regurgitated blood and bile onto the ground and fell to his knees. A morbid fascination was evident on Naruto as he watched Vega continue to vomit and convulse, "What's happening to him?"

"**Anger at losing to you triggered him tapping into my chakra the way that anger triggers you doing the same at times. Only unlike you he can't handle my raw undiluted chakra running through his system, even the small amount he has. The unstable protection your own chakra inside of him gave was broken when he gave in to his desperation to live and to kill you."**

Vega's insides felt like they were burning, but it wasn't a burn he could touch. It wasn't even hurting his organs directly but it was moving through his entire body, "You did this! W-What did you do to me?" He demanded from Naruto, trying to get back up and attack him, but failing to due to his agonized body.

"You did it." Naruto told him a bit remorsefully. Vega was a grandiose son of a bitch on the highest scale, but he didn't feel right about winning that way; beating Vega until he had more or less forced him to poison himself to keep from dying instantly via powered up Rasengan injuries. Naruto would rather have just flat out finished him in battle than watch him be tortured through his Chakra Pathway System, "That's why no one is supposed to have the power I have inside of me. It's too strong for humans to control. You used it."

Why didn't any of Shadaloo's scientists pick this up when they ran the tests on him? His bodily functions had been at an all time high, off the charts, and yet now he was suffering! His perfect body was unable to contain this power yet an imperfect creature like Naruto was able to utilize it? Why? That was what Vega was wondering as it felt like his entire body was being branded on the inside.

As he mused, body quivering randomly from jolts of paralyzing pain, Vega saw Naruto walking away from him into the thicket of the jungle to leave him there, "You're not leaving! I'll kill you for this!" He tried to get up, but that strain was too much for him to attempt to do as blood started streaming from his mouth, "You've ruined me! You and your cursed power!"

"It's not cursed power, and it's not evil power…" Naruto replied, drawing upon what Rose told him when they had met previously, "…it's just not meant for humans." He just kept walking towards the edge of the battle-scarred area, not even turning around, "And I don't want to kill you. You're gonna die all on your own."

No weapon and he could hardly move without causing major internal bleeding along with Kyuubi's forceful chakra travelling through and shredding his Chakra Pathway System like a sandstorm stripping paint from a building wall?

"**Fitting."** Kyuubi said aloud in Naruto's head, taking in the sight of Vega behind on the ground, a trail of his blood leading from where he had slowly dragged himself from the place where he had first fallen, **"A narcissist dying in such an ugly way…"** Now if only a cobra would slither across him and give him a little love bite, that would have been even better, **"Wait!"** Kyuubi said, stopping the young blonde in his tracks before he could leave, **"Rest your hand on him. I want back what's mine."**

Naruto strode back over to Vega who clutched weakly at his leg and tried to pull himself back up using the limb, but Naruto set his hand on the top of Vega's head and held him down, focusing to feel Kyuubi's chakra within himself before finding it in Vega. He pulled his hand away and drew a red aura out of the man's body, getting him to yell out in pain of having it extracted directly from his cells.

The man blacked out as the excess energy receded into Naruto's body, prompting him to flex his fist as he watched the nails on it go back to normal, "Huh. He didn't even have that much of your chakra inside of him. That was barely any."

"**I told you so. My residual chakra from a single ninjutsu mixed with mostly your chakra. It was not only diluted until he accessed it directly, there was far more of yours within him. It shows you just how strong I am. Barely 1/1000****th**** of my chakra was enough to devastate his entire body with this illness."**

"Okay, you're super-strong." Naruto said with a roll of his eyes as he checked his bloody body and clothes over. At least the wounds had closed up. He still hurt all over like hell though, "You could at least thank me for giving you your chakra back."

"**You mean the chakra that belonged to me in the first place? The chakra that I'm going to have to use again later to keep you alive the next time you get obliterated by a superior fighter? The chakra you just used to-?"**

"Alright already, forget I said anything at all… damn."

"**I already have you insignificant entitled little worm. If anything you should be thanking me… all the time." **There was a lull of silence between them as Naruto took to the trees again to return to Cammy. Until Kyuubi felt the need to speak up again to mess with Naruto, **"I hope the fool back there gets eaten by a tiger. I wonder if tigers in Thailand like Spanish cuisine."**

"…That's really screwed up."

XxX

(Deeper in the Jungle – Secret Point 48106)

A small flying camera had been dispatched with Vega by the scientists to keep track of his progress in training his body with Naruto's power flowing through his cells, but this had the secondary effect of capturing the entire battle between the two, something that Bison was called to bear witness to in most of its entirety.

"Failure…" Bison muttered, shutting the feed off as he was sick of watching Vega writhing in agony as the Kyuubi's chakra continued to run roughshod over his body, "That was your last chance Vega, three strikes and all that. I don't tolerate weakness within my elites." He said to himself as he left his darkened private quarters and headed down the hall of the facility.

Vega was replaceable. Though he was a skilled killer this did not mean that there was no one that could fill his spot. The world was full of powerful prospects, and at the moment he had perhaps the greatest potential tool to his ambitions that had foolishly come to him of his own accord after defeating the Doll that was sent to spy on him and obtain information on his fighting style.

He hoped he could defeat him. Stupid hero.

Entering a bright laboratory area, Bison smirked at the sight of Ryu bolted to a sturdy table, seemingly unconscious. He moved past a few scientists watching over the man and shoved them out of the way before placing his hand on Ryu's head and channeling his Psycho Power directly into the man's head, "Wake up now. Your services are required."

Ryu's eyes snapped open, white and pupil-less just like Bison's were.

The sick grin that crossed the powerful crime lord's face showed that this was just what he wanted, "Release him." He demanded of the scientists that hurriedly did what was instructed of them, "Ryu… while the Satsui no Hadou within you is inferior to my Psycho Power, it is still more than enough to allow me to use my power to unlock your, shall we say vast potential? Now let's test how much you've grown."

Ryu stood up and waited seemingly at attention obediently. But one could see a slight twitch of struggle on his face and a minute jerking of his fingers at his sides if they were really paying attention or cared to.

"Like a good little minion I want you to do something for me." Bison said to the brainwashed Ryu, "There is only one road through this part of the region either in or out. I want you to watch over it. You will kill anything that comes from either direction on this road. Now go."

A short growl tore from Ryu's throat as he turned and left the lab amid Bison's laughter. Just outside of the door of the lab, he passed by an exceedingly tall man with long limbs and a bald head. He wore blue Muay Thai shorts with red trim and wrappings on his fists and feet. An eye-patch sat over his right eye and on his chest he bore a massive scar that spanned from his waist to his opposite shoulder.

"Ah, how do you like the new Ryu Sagat?" Bison said as he could sense the powerful man standing just outside, "Just think of it; you say that he wouldn't rematch you when you demanded it of him, well now he has no choice. He'll battle with you to your heart's content after I have him eradicate the pests flittering around our base. Just observe how much stronger he is now."

"Shoving your power into him didn't make him stronger." The large Muay Thai legend said, stepping off of the wall and walking down the hall as he left Bison alone with his victorious laughter, 'I don't want to fight a corrupted Ryu. I want to fight the same man that defeated me. This isn't him, it's a husk being driven by Bison's orders.'

The warrior in him did not want a dark and brainwashed puppet version of Ryu to fight him. He wanted a true match. There was no one else he deemed worthy to fight, and here Bison had gone and besmirched such pure character and will. And he was ecstatic about it from the sound of his booming laughs.

Sagat was Bison's bodyguard. That was the sole reason for his employment in Shadaloo. Being second-in-command really meant nothing with a control freak like Bison at the helm, as all decisions were made by him.

He had been angry and consumed with a desire to get his revenge bout against the man that had defeated him, this was his mindset when he joined with the promise of an eventual rematch. But as time passed he cooled down and felt his desire to stay with Shadaloo diminish. There was just nothing worthwhile in it for him.

Still, he was Bison's bodyguard.

Just a glorified bodyguard… so as long as he was willing to accept this as his job it didn't mean he couldn't do whatever he wished. With that in mind he left to follow Ryu in an attempt to beat him to the point where he was certain he would go.

XxX

(The Next Day – Late Morning – Jungle Roads of Thailand)

"Ow! Fuck it!" Batsu shouted from the backseat of a jeep where he was sitting, a cast-covered leg propped up on Sakura's lap as they went over a bump in the road, "Why is the American guy driving?" In the front, Ishizaki sat on the passenger's side while Ken was manning the wheel as they traversed the rough road, "Why's he even here?"

"Kid, why didn't you stay back with that doctor?" Ken asked in return. Driving that jeep wasn't driving a performance vehicle, but there weren't really speed limits so he could go nuts with that in this country, "I'm surprised you're even awake. You just had surgery yesterday evening."

He was barely awake, but it wasn't like he needed to be attentive and aware while he was sporting a cast and crutches, "I'm not staying in a doctor's clinic in a town that the guy that broke my leg is still in, especially after what you did to him and what I did to those punks first." Batsu gave Sakura an apologetic look as she shifted a bit uncomfortably with his injured leg sitting on her own two, "Sorry. There's no space on the floor."

Even though her legs were both utterly asleep at this point in the journey, Sakura spared the injured Batsu a smile, "It's not like you can help it. But I just wonder if everybody else is okay. I don't think Naruto or Karin's phones have a signal wherever they are." She tried to call them during Batsu's hasty surgery, but got no response. They were already in a rural area as her signal was weak, so there probably wasn't one at all even further.

"I hope Kanzuki-sama is fine all the way out here in the middle of this country." Ishizaki fretted, wishing he and his young charge had satellite phones so that signals didn't matter, "I wonder if the water is any good for her, or how many venomous snakes find their way into people's rooms. I doubt there's a hotel out here that would even qualify as four-star."

Amused laughter came from Ken as he heard the butler worry over Karin. Being a rich man himself, this amused him because of how he was brought up as a martial artist, "Well it can only be good for her. If she's here and if she's capable enough to be allowed to go on this trip you should trust her that much."

No one else in the jeep was actually concerned, "Dude, you should worry more about what she's doing to this place instead of what this place is doing to her. That girl is sinister." Batsu said, flicking the butler on the ear to get him to stop worrying the way he had done since they had been delayed by Batsu's injury, "That's one scary chick." He held his hands over his mouth once he realized that he had said such a thing out loud.

It was too late though, as Sakura had heard him and was grinning from ear-to-ear. Finally, something to make this crappy car ride more bearable, "You're scared of Kanzuki-san? That's… the best thing I've ever heard."

"I didn't say that." Batsu said, averting his gaze to the trees surrounding the road, "I said she was scary. There's a difference." He then winced again as the car hit another bump, "Damn it, how am I supposed to fight anyone on this thing, swing a crutch at them? We're supposed to be attacking a fortress you know."

"No we're not." Sakura replied, "We're just supposed to be marking coordinates for an airstrike. No one's attacking that base... only Naruto and the Cammy girl are supposed to be going into the jungle anyway." And thank goodness. Taking on the stronghold of a paramilitary group was just a little step past what she was prepared for. Guys with guns were a different animal altogether compared to just fighters.

"Aww, bases are easy." Ken insisted, one hand on the wheel and his other arm hanging back over the head of his seat to grin back at the kids who were mortified that he was taking his eyes off of the road, "Guys with guns… just make sure they're not pointing the damn things at you and you're good to go!"

"Eyes on the road!" Both Batsu and Sakura shouted simultaneously, getting Ken to laugh good-naturedly again. They didn't see anything funny though. Neither of them wanted to die in a fiery car wreck a thousand-plus miles away from home.

Waving off their concerns as he turned back around to keep them from freaking out anymore, Ken scoffed, "Are you kidding me? It's a straight shot right through the jungle. If there's one thing I know how to do besides fight it's how to-."

"Holy shit dude!"

A sudden and powerful blue blast of ki slammed into the side front of the jeep, destroying the front left tire and forcing the vehicle into a spin and then a flip before it came to a stop just within the trees and bushes lining the side of the road.

There was no motion from the overturned vehicle until the driver's side door was kicked off of the hinges and Ken pulled himself out, followed by him yanking the unconscious Ishizaki out. The butler was bleeding from where he had slammed his skull against the metal door, and he would be no help in this situation, "Ugh." Ken grunted after freeing the man and laying him down propped up against a tree, "Are you kids alright?"

"We're not dead…" Batsu said in a bit of a pained voice, "My stitches over my eye popped and I think my kneecap shattered like a dinner plate all over again but other than that we're a-okay. You ever heard of defensive driving motherfucker?"

Sakura crawled out of the wreck looking a bit shaken up but no worse for wear really, as did Batsu as he crawled out holding a pair of crutches, though blood was streaming down his face from where he had been stitched up the day before, "What in the world… what hit us?" Sakura asked as she stood up and helped Batsu get upright, "It was like someone shot a cannonball."

"It was a Hadoken." Ken said with complete certainty in his tone as he faced away from the direction of the car wreck and the now useless jeep, "Yeah… definitely a Hadoken. I'd stake my right arm on it."

Batsu winced as he set his crutches rightly underneath his arms to stand on his own, "That thing was moving so fast man. How can you be that sure about it?"

At first Ken didn't answer, still staring across the road from the accident intently at the figure waiting there staring right back at him emotionlessly, something the kids hadn't noticed yet because they were too busy worrying about Batsu's injuries, "Oh… it was just a good hunch." Staring back at him was his best friend Ryu, "What's up buddy?"

XxX

(Rural Village by the Deep Thailand Jungle – With Naruto)

Naruto should have been more self-conscious due to the fact that he was sitting outdoors with no clothes on other than the pair of boxers being the only thing covering his modesty, but he wasn't. It was hard to be embarrassed when you were just short of being pissed off.

"What the fuck do you mean there's no airstrike coming?" Naruto said to a recently arrived Chun-Li and Charlie, wincing slightly as a local doctor wrapped his would-be wounded areas in bandages just in case it was necessary. It was just unbelievable to them that he was completely healed, but that was not important. What was important was that his assignment had apparently just been revoked, "You just told me three days ago, 'Wait for us at this village with the coordinates marked but don't go in, _there's an airstrike coming_.'"

Instead of talking inside where it was all hot and sticky due to the late spring climate of the region, they were all just outside of the building that Karin had basically rented out and had utterly transformed to suit her 'needs'.

With Charlie and Chun-Li was another blonde American man with a square jaw and serious flattop hair, wearing an olive tanktop and military fatigures as well as his dogtags around his neck. Apparently he was Charlie's friend named Guile, "Well this is how it is kid. We made it here and we called to confirm the aerial bombardment for an hour once we got the coordinates, they told us it was off. What do you want from us?"

"To find your stoolie in the air force and kick his ass like I kicked Vega's." Naruto replied as the doctor finished with lightly bandaging him, allowing Naruto to get up and change into a spare orange fighting uniform and metal mesh armor undershirt. Vega had messed up his previous set, "Bet he won't try to jump me in the jungle again… bet he won't jump again at all."

"You killed Vega?" Charlie asked him, knowing who that man was from what he was told by Chun-Li on the known associates of Shadaloo.

"Killed him dead."

"How dead?"

"Deader than dead."

"Right Said Fred?"

"Simply Red."

Everyone just stared at Naruto and Charlie in silence as they all doubted that what they said made any sense even to those that did speak English in that village, "…Okay." Chun-Li said, taking a large pack from her back, "Luckily I came prepared. Take a look." She opened it and showed that she had managed to bring along enough C-4 to take down four separate buildings if need be, "Looks like we're going to have to do this ourselves."

Guile cleared his throat to get her attention and gestured towards the three teenagers who were looking at Chun-Li's large bag of explosives, with Naruto mumbling about how she'd never sneak that anywhere and that explosive tags were better, "Hrmrphr… kids…"

Well technically Cammy couldn't really be considered a normal kid, she was an assassin. And Naruto couldn't really be considered normal either… for a bunch of reasons. But still, ethics were ethics, "Yeah, by 'we' I mean Guile, Charlie, and myself." Chun-Li said, much to Naruto and Cammy's chagrin, "Sorry… but all we planned on having you do was to get the coordinates. You're not going into the base."

Naruto's eye twitched before he spoke up again, "Okay, everyone here who's a trained ninja that can transform into any person he's ever seen to sneak inside an enemy base raise your hand." No one but him did so, "Anyone who actually knows how to get to the base fast, knows how Shadaloo's going to protect the place, and knows the layout of the base, raise your hand." Cammy did so, even though she was unaware that Naruto was just being facetious to Chun-Li, "Anyone who… actually I don't really have any reason for Karin to go." He conceded, ignoring her indignant squawk in return.

"He has a very good point you know." Cammy chimed in, trying to be as helpful as possible. She didn't really know any of them, had tried to kill one, kidnap another, and the rest of them only knew her as the soulless Shadaloo assassin that had gained awareness, "Without me it would be very hard to find the base, and without Naruto there probably wouldn't be anyone that could sneak inside. We have our own reasons for wishing to go."

Chun-Li just stared at Naruto, not seeming to be fazed by the points brought up, "No. I can't be held responsible for what happens if you go along."

"Responsible for what?" Naruto replied, waving his arms about indignantly, "If Vega beat me last night and killed me I could probably count out the number of people that would have cared on one hand without even using all of my fingers. Anyone that would care that Cammy's doing this are the people inside of the damn base. The only one out of the three of us that what you just said applies to is Karin."

Again Karin let out an offended noise at being treated like a glass figurine and marched up to Naruto to bicker with him, "I am not helpless Naruto-san. I came all the way here to fight Shadaloo and teach them a lesson when it comes to dealing with the Kanzuki Dynasty."

"Don't I represent you though?"

"What?" Karin said confusedly as she looked at her fellow blonde high school student, "What do you mean?"

A victoriously grinning Naruto pointed directly at Karin as for once he remembered something trivial that worked to his advantage to circumvent a disagreement, "I represent you don't I? When I win you win and when I lose you lose because you're my benefactor right? Well let me represent you then boss lady." He remarked, throwing her words from months prior back into her face, "Let me fight for you, okay?"

Remembering where he had drudged the previous reference up from, Karin's eyes widened and she opened her mouth prepared to argue some more before no words came out. Instead she just started chuckling and wiped away a tear of humor from her eye, "Ah… that is correct. I do recall saying that to you. Very well then Naruto-san; all I need is victory after all, it doesn't matter which method I use to obtain it."

"Karin?" Naruto said questioningly as the girl quickly turned around and started to head back into the building that she had rented space inside of for the duration of their stay, "Karin, are you going to be alright by yourself?"

"Everything should be fine." Karin replied, not turning around as she continued to walk, "I will be alright here by myself until Ishizaki, Sakura-san, and Ichimonji-san arrive. They're late, but I believe they should be here by noon." With that, she disappeared through the open doorway leaving the others to themselves.

That was strange. Naruto hadn't expected her to just cut out and leave. Instead he had expected her to stay at least until they had decided to set out. And despite the fact that she had spoken with her usual confidence and airy uncaring demeanor there had been something wrong.

"Naruto." His attention was torn away from the temporary lodgings of his rather good friend when Chun-Li called to him, "We're heading for the base. The other girl is already leading the way. Let's go if you're coming kid. It's supposed to be far in there." She had a very serious demeanor about her as she pointed to where Charlie, Guile, and Cammy were already walking towards the edge of the village.

He nodded in acknowledgment and started to follow her and the others but not without sparing one last glance in the direction of where Karin had retreated to, "Stop calling me kid damn it." Naruto muttered absently as he trailed behind the Chinese Interpol agent.

Though he didn't see that Karin was just inside of the doorway, leaning against the wall outside of the sight of everyone else. Once she heard the sounds Naruto's footsteps finally shadow away, signifying that he had left the vicinity, she allowed herself a deep breath and walked back to her room, keeping her eyes from misting over, 'He didn't even defend me coming along. Am I really thought of as being that weak? Why do I even care what a bunch of commoners think? I've never cared before.'

But was it really what all of them thought, or just one?

Chun-Li, Guile, and Charlie were merely covering for themselves and that was understandable given their position in the matter. They didn't know her and she was the heir to a vast fortune, thus if she were hurt or killed attacking a military stronghold like some foot soldier they and their respective organizations would definitely be receiving the blowback from hell when her family found out about it.

She never even cared what Sakura thought of her and they were supposed to be rivals. She was supposed to be trying to prove her superiority over Sakura as a combatant, so as long as she could overcome her in battle and prove that it didn't matter what she thought.

Still, the thought of Naruto looking down on her opinion as if it weren't important the way he had the other day made her angry and sad, and the thought of him finding her to be weak made her actually _feel_ weak, 'Why do I feel as if I have something to prove to him?' The only person she felt she had anything to prove towards was her father, not an employee of hers, 'I pay him. An employer has nothing to prove to a worker.'

"_-I don't know if you're my boss, my rival, my friend, my manager. What?"_

What was wrong with being all of them together and balancing them? Though admittedly this little arrangement had already muddied the waters in all of those regards several times in the past. And any combination of the aforementioned titles without the inclusion of the 'friend' one being amongst them forced a pang of hurt through her, 'Idiot… I'm above thinking of something lowly the likes of a commoner. I'll make him pay for making me feel like this when this is all over with.'

XxX

(Jungle Roads of Thailand)

"Ryu stop! What are you doing?"

Sakura's desperate cry fell on deaf ears as the white gi clad warrior attacked what he perceived to be the most significant threat out of the group; Ken. The two went move for move, trading similar looking punches and kicks in something of a blur of arms and legs before breaking away just out of range of each other where they quickly fired off another similar attack they shared.

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!"

The two similar looking blasts of ki slammed into each other and exploded, sending both men flying back and landing on their feet. Ken still stood in his fighting stance as Ryu rushed through the smoke and dust to attack him again, "What the hell's wrong with him? His fists are hollow, he's not fighting with any spirit!" Both fighters clashed with a single knuckle-shattering punch before trading kicks that clashed and pushed off, "His ki is all messed up too-!"

Ken's next sentence was cut off when Ryu slammed a knee into his body and doubled him over. This was something that Ryu took advantage of with no wasted motion, "Shoryuuken (Rising Dragon Punch)!" The powerful rising uppercut nailed the man right underneath the chin and knocked him into the air.

"Holy crap he knocked the piss out of him!" Batsu exclaimed, unknowingly getting Ryu's attention next who zoned in on the wounded teen, "Aw… damn it!" Ryu charged Batsu down and he was forced to block his injured leg from a leg sweep by jamming his metal crutch into the ground to make a sturdy base to defend with. With his good leg he jumped using the crutch as a prop and delivered a dropping ax kick that the crouching Ryu blocked, "This guy's a machine!"

Ryu grabbed Batsu by his good leg and threw him over his shoulder at the wrecked remains of the jeep until Sakura dove in the way to prevent him from slamming against it. The girl caught him out of the air and slid back across the grass and ground, pulling up earth before she came to a stop, "Ugh…" With a grunt, Sakura safely set him down onto the ground, "Are you alright?"

"Fine." Getting his crutches back beneath him, Batsu thanked his lucky stars that he didn't have the misfortune of getting his other leg broken to go with his already recently injured one that was still throbbing, "What are you going to do? That guy's your hero right?" He asked Sakura who was set in her fighting stance that looked similar to that of Ken's and Ryu's.

Before she could respond, Ryu moved forward to attack the weak link in Batsu again, however he was cut off when he had to block a kick aimed at his head from Sakura, "There's no choice, we've got to beat him somehow!" Landing on the ground after her attempt to attack, Sakura was forced to sway out of the way of a furious assault from the fists of her idol. The punches were so furious her hands grew sore just blocking them, 'He's so strong! How hard does he train? Or… or is it that he was holding back on me that much when we sparred?'

"Sakura move! Kiaidan (Guts Bullet)!"

Sakura instinctually did as instructed and Ryu covered up just in time for Batsu's blast of energy to plow into him and drive him back into the road before he deflected it directly upward into the sky. Having braced himself with his back against the wrecked jeep, Batsu had made himself an easy target for a return blast of a Hadoken from Ryu who charged and fired it directly at him.

Once again, Sakura jumped in the way to help the immobile teen, using her own Hadoken to deflect it, but she had no time to charge any power behind it. Ryu's perfected Hadoken punched right through her flimsy one, barely slowing down at all. She was hit by the move but weathered it despite taking it directly, as luckily her own Hadoken was able to take the brunt of the blow away even if it was unable to stop Ryu's.

The hit was followed up on by Ryu rushing forward, and despite Sakura's preparation for his movements, he dodged her punch that she had timed with his incoming and grabbed a hold of the yellow scarf tied around the front neck of her school uniform. Pulling it tight, Ryu choked her and rolled backwards, taking her with him before kicking her off and away forcefully.

Ryu's attention turned back to Batsu who he attacked, lashing out with a thrust kick that Batsu was able to avoid by pushing himself into a small by his normal standards jump that seated him on the top of the overturned jeep. The kick caved in the door of the jeep it had impacted against and a crutch was swatted off the top of his head forcefully. He looked up and saw Batsu preparing to hit him again with the only available weapon he could realistically use to fight with physically.

Preventing him from taking a swing, Ryu grabbed his injured leg in a paralyzingly painful grip that caused Batsu to drop the crutch and cry out in agony as Ryu started to squeeze down on the leg hard enough to begin cracking the hard cast.

He let go when Ken got himself back into the battle, jumping and getting to Ryu's side before firing a midair Hadoken that Ryu backflipped out of the way of, "Brat you've got to sit back and let us fight. You're a target!"

Batsu growled, but had to concede the point as Ken charged back towards Ryu to try and beat some sense back into his friend, "So I've got to sit on this fucking jeep and watch you two get your asses handed to you by zombie-Ryu. Cool." He quipped angrily. Being injured sucked! Why couldn't he heal like Naruto? Naruto would at least be limping around right then. Better to be a gimp that totally immobile the way he was.

"Sakura, Ryu's right handed so attack from his left to avoid his power!" Ken advised his informal kohai who nodded and ran back in to assist him in engaging Ryu once more, "Ryu snap out of it! Don't make me hurt you man!" He got a tight hold of Ryu's gi and prepared to throw him when his grip was broken and Ryu kicked him square in the chest, knocking him to the ground.

A rear attacking punch from Sakura flew past his head narrowly and he grabbed a tight hold of her arm before violently judo tossing her straight to the ground, planning to follow up with a brick-breaking chop that plowed into the road instead of Sakura when Ken pulled her out of the way and slung her around before throwing her at Ryu, "Shunpukyaku (Twirling Gale Kick)!"

Adding a quick spin, Sakura kicked at Ryu with the extra force provided to her by Ken's toss hard enough to break his guard, "Ryu! Stop it!" She cried as she landed, simultaneously punching him directly across the face. Without missing a beat, Ryu returned fire and punched Sakura in the stomach hard enough to lift her off of the ground on nothing more than his fist, 'Why is this happening? What's wrong with him?'

He pulled his fist from Sakura's stomach and let her land back on her feet, stunned motionless from the punch that had robbed her of the air in her lungs. Ryu then let loose with a brutal combination of punches and kicks that she had no answer for.

"Sakura!" Batsu cried out, watching her take a beating that she wasn't even able to protect herself from, "American dude! You've got to stop that guy already!"

"Ryu!" Ken shouted, running right at him as fast as he could to get him to leave Sakura alone, "Put Sakura down! I'm done being patient with you! We don't want to hurt you!" Ryu punched Sakura aside as he saw the incoming Ken and in response Ken spun a 360 in mid-step, dragging his front foot across the ground and engulfing it in flames as if he had dragged a match across a rough surface before launching himself at Ryu with a kick, "This'll hurt me more than it'll hurt you! Guren Senpukyaku (Crimson Lotus Whirlwind Kick)!"

The first kick slammed into Ryu and didn't stop there as Ken kicked him again and again with flaming kicks that knocked him into the air directly up. A burning and bruised Ryu shifted his body in midair as he fell down towards Ken who was waiting to finish him with one last jumping corkscrew kick and charged his ki as intensely as he could, "Shinkuu Hadoken (Vacuum Surge Fist)!"

Instead of Sakura's monstrous normal orb-like Hadoken, Ryu's was a direct beam of power the size of his body that he fired right at Ken who had already jumped up to deliver his kick. Ken's spinning flame kick allowed him to cut through most of Ryu's Hadoken only to find that his friend was not in the air at the end of the beam.

He landed on the ground unable to find Ryu until a diving knee strike slammed into the back of his head and neck; a move with nothing but the worst of intentions behind it that sent Ken face-first down into the dirt, not moving.

Sakura was on the ground as well and was able to clearly see Ryu's sleight of hand that allowed him to get the upper hand before the dirty strike to the base of Ken's neck that if done properly could have killed the man, "No!" Ken was supposed to be Ryu's best friend. His training partner for well over a decade. And he was able to simply strike him down, just like that, "Ryu, we're your friends! What's happened to you!" She shouted, getting herself back up off of the ground, "You're like some kind of shell!"

In response, Ryu merely turned to the beaten up girl and started charging up another Shinkuu Hadoken meant exclusively for her, something that brought tears to her eyes. This wasn't her hero. He looked like him and fought like him, but there was no heart in any of his moves; nothing but the pure intent to destroy.

"Damn it girl move! He's going to kill you!" Batsu yelled in warning. He couldn't get up and fire his own ultimate Guts Bullet to try and protect her from afar. He didn't have the leg strength to do so because of his injury. The recoil it would have caused upon release would have reinjured his leg all over again, 'Gah! I'm so useless!'

The blue glowing energy charged in between Ryu's hands as he prepared to let it all go and engulf Sakura who was unable to move due to her shaky knees. She had never dealt with anyone powerful enough to kill her that actually intended to do so. She had never faced down killing intent before, and Ryu's mere presence as he charged the massive Hadoken caused her to see her own death as it was about to happen, 'Is this really it? I never even got to-."

"Shinkuu Hadoken (Vacuum Surge Fist)!"

"Khæn Nxn Seụ̄x (Tiger Cannon)!"

As Ryu fired his destructive blue beam of ki at Sakura, a massive yellow sun-looking orb the size of a wrecking ball plowed into the side of the stream and redirected it into the trees lining the side of the jungle road where it tore down well over twenty of them and left a massive trench in the ground.

Ryu was then forced to block a sudden arrival's kick that had enough force to send him sliding several meters away before he came to a stop, glaring at his new apparent enemy.

"What kind of a man are you Ryu?" The menacing, bald, and battle-scarred form of Sagat calmly walked onto the scene from his side of the jungle, staring Ryu down, "You allowed a man like Bison to enforce his will over you. I'm disappointed. I expected far more of a fight out of you. Or are you really that mentally weak? Do you really doubt yourself after defeat that much?" That was the pot calling the kettle black, this he knew, but he had a point he needed to make, "Snap out of it or I'll force you to."

Over on the jeep, Batsu's jaw had dropped from the sheer destruction that had been wrought and at the person who had wrought it, "No way. Oh my fucking-…"

"-God…" Sakura basically said the same thing without the expletive when she caught sight of the former 'God of Muay Thai' stepping from the shadows of the jungle right in front of their eyes. Ken, who had recently awoken with his head still swimming from the strike he had taken had even seen Sagat and couldn't believe he was actually there, "That's… that's Sagat. And he's going to actually fight Ryu? Right now?"

"…I didn't want my rematch to be under these circumstances." Sagat admitted, standing at the ready to engage his vaunted rival, "But it appears I'll have to break you out of this if I ever want a true encounter to occur ever again." A wry smile of amusement ghosted across his intimidating visage for a mere moment at the thought, "At least now you can't sandbag your way out of it like the last time."

Sakura was awestruck at what she was about to see, but found it within her to speak up regardless, "Uh, ah Mr. Sagat. Thank you for stopping Ryu's last attack. I think you saved my life."

"I _did_ save your life girl, there's no two ways about it. I think I should step in here. That is unless you're not finished eating dirt." Sagat replied gruffly, getting Sakura to flinch and blush at the blunt statement. Sagat didn't really care though. What was a little girl like this doing stepping into a situation of this magnitude? Go home and do some damn homework, "Now get the other man off of the road and get some space. I don't need anyone else getting caught up in the middle of this."

Obeying, Sakura rushed over and assisted Ken back to his feet as they both left to the wayside with Batsu, "Hey!" Ken shouted in order to get Sagat's attention, "You were talking like you knew what was wrong with him? What is it?" Yes, Ken had taken quite serious blow, but he was awake now and seemed ready to fight again.

"Ask him yourself after I wake him up. I know that you're powerful in your own right-." Sagat said succinctly towards Ken as he never took his eyes off of the mind controlled Ryu, "-But since you're not willing to do what you must to fight on par with your friend for long I'll step in. If you want to keep your heads I'd advise you to keep them down until the two of us are finished here!" He warned just before diving headlong towards Ryu in a crushing offensive as he and Ryu made their first strikes against each other.

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Working Rehab<span>

(Aohura City, Japan)

"Fuck I'm bored." A school uniform clad Ibuki muttered to her pet tanuki Don who was sitting on her shoulder as she walked on the sidewalk away from school. She had returned a week ago, but her friends were still on that trip that they had been planning to take for the last few months before her injury.

The young kunoichi was still pretty sore, but it wasn't any kind of pain that one couldn't just work themselves through if the need for it really arose. With this argument she took it to Sanjou and the master of her village and they decided to let her go back to school, because otherwise she would have just been hanging around the village doing nothing until they chose to clear her and let her return.

She really wished that the others would return soon though. With Naruto, Sakura, and Karin being gone the only one of the group left to talk to that she knew well enough was Kei, and after school was over with she couldn't go to her house to hang out in a timely manner because of Kei's afterschool club commitments. That meant that all she could do was go back home to the village.

Boring.

Well, she wasn't in her village at the moment, and she wasn't in class, so she wouldn't get busted for giving her friends a call to see how they were doing, if they weren't in catastrophic trouble at the moment of course. If they were then they'd get the message and they'd call her later… if they weren't dead by then from the aforementioned catastrophic trouble.

With a smile, she fished her cell phone out of her school bag and started looking through her very limited contact list to find Naruto's number before dialing it where she didn't even get a dial tone before an answering machine message came up.

"_Thanks for contacting Uzumaki Naruto, jack-of-all-trades ninja for your interest in hiring me. Sorry, but I'm currently out on a sabbatical of sorts so leave me a message and I will contact you to discuss terms and payment after I come back if I'm interested. If the mission is of a… more sensitive nature, a dead drop would be recommended for me to go over if you want me to accept the mission at my address of-… wait, what the hell am I saying, why am I giving you my address? You know what? Screw it. Instead just drop it at-."_

"Damn, wrong number." Ibuki had instead called Naruto's piece of crap, untrackable prepaid phone that he used for business, "Why do I even have that one? Why would I ever actually try to hire Naruto for something again, he's my friend." And if she really wanted his help with something all she had to do was give him a heartfelt look with big doe eyes and he'd melt like an ice cube guaranteed, "'Jack-of-all-trades ninja' Uzumaki Naruto? Really?" She said to herself with quite a bit of amusement.

"So I've found another person that knows who Uzumaki Naruto is! Oroshi (Wind Blowing Down From the Mountains)!"

Ibuki turned around and hurriedly backflipped out of the way of a powerful overhand chop that missed her and smashed the concrete of the sidewalk as if it were a demonstrative cinder block. After landing, she winced and held her torso, "Ah, still hurts. What's the big idea with attacking me like that?"

Standing across from her was a girl slightly younger than her with messy black hair wearing a karate gi with patches in it from wear-down. Around her neck was a yellow band that hung down past her back behind her and she was set in a traditional-looking karate stance, "Every single person I ran into in this town that I asked about this Uzumaki Naruto guy that knew about him tried to fight me first. Well you just said he was your friend, which is better than any of them so I expected you to attack me first too."

"Why do you want to find Naruto?" Ibuki asked, narrowing her eyes while Don stood up defensively on his master's shoulder and neck. If this was another person that was trying to take him out, well at least it was one-on-one this time and she could definitely handle that even if this girl was skilled. She couldn't hit her when she was unaware of her presence and that spoke volumes.

"To kick the crap out of him so I can get my father's dojo some notoriety and attract students!" The karate girl shouted, getting Ibuki to stare at her owlishly instead of accusingly the way she had been before, "He won that tournament a few months ago with that girl that's from this town too, speaking of which; I should probably beat her too for good measure."

She wanted to fight Naruto to get her father's fighting style famous. For some reason that was very normal around Aohura City just in different ways. Street punks liked to try and fight Naruto to prove that they were strong and on the rise, but they usually just wound up getting knocked out in short order. At least it kept him from getting out of shape, "Right… well, what's your name?"

"Makoto of the Rindoukan-ryuu Karate discipline." The girl stated firmly.

'Why do all of these little punks want to knock off Naruto so bad?' Ibuki thought to herself before sighing, and speaking to the younger girl, "Well Makoto, Naruto isn't here right now and neither is Sakura. They're out of the country, so you'll have to wait until he comes back."

Makoto seemed rather disappointed and impatient at having to wait for Naruto to return, "Are you kidding me? I came 80 kilometers all the way to the Chugoku region to fight this guy and he isn't even here?"

"That's unfortunate." Ibuki commented, "Your father let you come all the way out here to fight someone?" Makoto nodded as if there was nothing wrong with that, but Ibuki was well aware how strange that was for normal people.

"It's just an hour by bus. And when it comes to a young fighter in training challenging themselves no distance is too great." She seemed proud of that bit of combat philosophy, "I hope he's not just hiding or anything. I don't want to fight a guy like that."

"No… he's just not here. You should try again in a few weeks. Unless he's dead he'll be back by then, I'm sure of it. We've still got to finish up the school term." Makoto's eyes lit up when she heard that Naruto's life might be under duress, 'Crap, she must think he's a really strong opponent if I'm talking about him doing something that can kill him. So she's that kind of person.'

"Well then I'll definitely wait and then I'll come back." Makoto stated resolutely, "He and that Sakura girl are the closest fighters with any kind of name value based near the Shikoku region."

An idea formed in Ibuki's head to take some heat off of Naruto from this girl, because she seemed to be the type that would get madder the longer she waited to fight him, and she herself didn't want to get into a useless fight while she was still injured, "Well if you want to waste some time there's a dojo in town run by Hibiki Dan. He's kind of famous. You could go dojo busting."

That worked just fine. And Ibuki was in need of some entertainment. Keep a crazy karate girl off of her friend's back for as long as possible and amuse herself a bit before she went home by watching this girl kick every single one of Dan's student's asses (and maybe Dan himself if he was there).

The city was so much more interesting than her village.

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Sagat  
><span>Nationality:<span> Thailand  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 34 (July 2)  
><span>HeightWeight: 7'6/330 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> B  
><span>Likes:<span> Strong opponents.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Metsu Shoryuuken, losing the pride of his people, Satsui no Hadou, Adon.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Diving (20 minutes time holding breath)  
><span>Rivals:<span> Ryu, Adon, Dan  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Muay Thai  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Ying Seụ̄x (Tiger Shot), K̄hèā Seụ̄x (Tiger Knee), S̄eụ̄x Sxydāw (Tiger Uppercut), P̄hælpĕn Korṭh (Angry Scar).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Kār Kh̀ā Lāng Phèāphạnṭhu̒ Seụ̄x (Tiger Genocide), Thảlāy Seụ̄x (Tiger Destruction), Khæn Nxn Seụ̄x (Tiger Cannon).  
><span>Background:<span> As a teenager, Sagat won the title of God of Muay Thai and became a national hero in Thailand where the combat sport is revered. Over the next fifteen years he established himself in many violent, hard-fought encounters as perhaps the most infamous martial artist in the world, cementing his name for beating a fighter named Go Hibiki to death in an uncontrollable rage for destroying Sagat's right eye mid-bout. Sagat's defeat and subsequent scarring at the hands of Ryu and his Satsui no Hadou in the World Warrior Tournament was his first defeat nearly two decades and caused him to become obsessed with training and avenging his loss, so much so that in his anger he was driven to accept an offer from M. Bison to join Shadaloo due to promises that the group's resources would locate Ryu and bring him to Sagat for a rematch that Sagat was convinced he was ducking. Sagat is a very powerful fighter and a proud warrior that has dedicated his life to physical and spiritual training in the martial arts and believes in the merits of a fair fight. In combat he can become easily enraged and will then increase his strength further than normal as a result. He makes good use of his size, incredible strength, and abnormal height and range with an aggressive attack pattern and style.

* * *

><p><strong>Ah, and that's another complete chapter in the books. My fingers hurt.<strong>

**Later all. Kenchi out.**


	16. At the Gates

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. For those who've played, who's the most annoying Street Fighter character to go up against in any game? Bosses don't count. Just normal, pickable characters. I personally always hated playing Guile. Him and that fucking Flash Kick anti-air counter of his! And he always knocked me through the crates on his level!

Always!

**Chapter 16: At the Gates**

* * *

><p>"I'm so tired of jungle." Charlie remarked as he, Guile, Chun-Li, and Naruto followed Cammy's lead through the Thailand wilderness. The blonde teenage femme fatale had been leading them along for the last couple of hours and while none of them were in need of a rest, dodging poisonous snakes and nasty insects was not the way they liked to spend their time, "How could he really build a base in the jungle that nobody could see from the air? Did he build it underground?"<p>

"What is this, 'Nam?" Guile replied, smacking his bicep on his American flag tattoo as he felt a mosquito crawling about on it, "I really doubt that this guy has a series of underground tunnels."

Hearing something that she could talk about and maybe help with, Cammy spoke up, "Master Bison doesn't have a series of tunnels. He has one complete base of operations here. Normally you would be right in saying that building a base that could be unseen by nosy scouts would be difficult. But there isn't really much of a foreign military presence in Thailand, and aside from that he's taken precautions in the building of the base."

Chun-Li looked back towards Naruto who decided to stay in the back and distribute clones all about to prevent an ambush just in case, "She called Bison 'master' again. Are you really sure this is the best idea?"

"She's not a bad person... not really." Naruto answered, feeling jittery at the slow going pace they were moving at. He would much rather have been jumping through the trees, a faster way of traversing the woodlands in his opinion, but he was the only person that was trained to do such a thing. So he was stuck to walking with the rest of them, "Cammy's been calling him that for who knows how many years and she just broke away from Shadaloo. She'll stop eventually."

Well if that was the case then Chun-Li was really wishing that something would break her of that habit and in a hurry. It was kind of unnerving to be taken through the thick jungle by a person that was a noted assassin of Shadaloo, someone who still called the leader of said criminal organization 'master' when she was supposed to be preparing to fight against him. It made her feel like something terrible could happen at any time.

At that point Cammy suddenly ran forward, startling the others who started running as well to keep up with her.

She ran for a bit, but came to a stop at the top of a rather steep incline to allow the others to catch up to her. She didn't say anything as they surrounded her upon reaching her, all she did was point directly outward into the valley ahead of her. The sight they were bearing witness to explained why she had run to that point.

In the valley beneath them lay a well disguised base amongst the trees the size of a small town, mostly in one big structure with a few smaller buildings out back, probably supply areas or barracks. Low roofs camouflaged to the style of the jungle around it, built slightly into the ground adjust for the low roof height, no paving as none happened to be necessary for the vehicles below which consisted of jeeps, trucks, helicopters, small hovercrafts, and a large military-grade jet with hovering capabilities. And those were just the vehicles that were easy to see. They had SAM turrets concealed that could fire up through the flimsy leaves that concealed the base from view above.

That was not to mention that there were dozens, maybe hundreds of soldiers stationed about, looking like ants walking about the anthill to the observers.

"Shadaloo's southeast Asian base of operations I presume." Chun-Li said, mentally preparing herself for quite the fight once they went down there, "That's a big building to blow up… I hope I brought enough explosives."

Guile grunted in annoyance at the well-fortified looking base and moved ahead with Charlie as they began to descend to the valley below. They still had another hour or two of walking before they could even think about getting into position to infiltrate.

At the summit, Naruto lagged a bit behind again as Chun-Li and Cammy passed by him to follow the two older soldiers, "If those guys have guns I'm not sure how useful clones will be except to help dodge bullets." Oh who was he kidding? "Of course they have guns… there's no way they don't have guns." Naruto said to himself dejectedly.

XxX

(Jungle Roads of Thailand – Sakura/Batsu/Ken/Sagat vs. Ryu)

While Ken watched the ongoing struggle between Sagat and Ryu intently, both Batsu and Sakura couldn't tear their eyes away from it because they had never seen a fight of that magnitude up close.

No wonder Ryu had kicked the two of them around so thoroughly to the extent that only Ken could fight back. It even made Ken realize that he really should have been fighting Ryu full out from the beginning, because he could have taken it. It made him feel like a chump to be knocked down so easily, but in his defense that falling knee strike to the back of the head was not a Ryu move. Ryu didn't fight to maim like that.

His inner berating of his negligence was cut off by Batsu's comment, "Okay… when we get home, I've definitely got to start training _way_ harder." The normally belligerent young man stated in awe of the pace that Sagat and Ryu were fighting at, "What in the world did we get ourselves into?" He then flinched and ducked as a tree behind him was smashed and felled, "Oh man!" He quickly hobbled himself away as fast as he could on his crutches as the fight had moved to behind him.

The tree had been smashed through with a kick from Sagat that Ryu managed to dodge before retaliating with a flurry of hazy punches that smashed off of the back of Sagat's blocking arms.

The Muay Thai master simply weathered the storm until the failed combination ended before lashing back out with a hard kick to Ryu's body that knocked him away. Getting a bit of a running start, Sagat then launched himself at Ryu, leading with his knee, "K̄hèā Seụ̄x (Tiger Knee)!"

Ryu blocked the powerful hit, but slid back a few meters from the force of the attack. If Ryu's own thoughts could shine through he would have noted that Sagat had certainly not grown any weaker over the last few years, and he seemed a lot more sure of himself than the last time they had met after the man's defeat at his hands.

Tall, confident, and regal-looking in his stride, Sagat didn't seem to be taking the battle as the driving, all-consuming conflict with his greatest rival that he would have been yearning for only weeks earlier, "Is this it? This is all it takes to break your spirit as a martial artist; the twisted wiles of Bison?" Instead of answering, Ryu launched himself at Sagat once again where they engaged in a furious flurry of punches and kicks that only Ken could make out.

"You were humoring me weren't you?"

Ken's attention was taken from the battle momentarily when Sakura spoke to him from next to him as she also watched the ongoing combat, "Come again? What are you talking about?"

"When you said I was really strong after our spar yesterday, you were just encouraging me." Sakura said without even looking his way. She felt that if she missed even a moment of the fight she'd have missed something important or incredible, "I can't fight like this. I can't fight like you were fighting to match Ryu earlier. You held back against me, and Ryu held back against Naruto when they went one-on-one before." She knew for a fact that Naruto held back too to keep from destroying private property, but the levels that Ryu jumped up in terms of strength here was scary.

Rolling his eyes, Ken thwacked her on the head eliciting an indignant cry and faux teary eyes, "If you're going to break down and have your own identity crisis in regards to your own strength can you save it for a less serious time?" He remarked before pulling Sakura out of the way of stray debris from a smashed portion of road that was going to hit her.

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" The blue orb of surging ki flew from Ryu's hands at Sagat only for the man to kick it directly up into the air harmlessly and lower it back down in an ax kick that cracked the road and intended to smash Ryu had he not dodged. The nimble Ryu responded with a kick to Sagat's outstretched leg to compromise his balance before a secondary attack with his powerful high-rising uppercut, "Shoryuuken (Rising Dragon Fist)!"

The blow hit Sagat under the chin and sent him flying back through the air into the trunk of a tree. He fell and landed on his feet back on the ground where he spit blood from his mouth and worked his jaw, "Ah, not as strong as the one that scarred me. Your fists don't have any soul behind them. No feeling. If you let yourself be turned into a marionette then you can't ever call yourself a warrior. And you'll always lose to a real one! Ying Seụ̄x (Tiger Shot)!"

Sagat crouched down to Ryu's height and punched out with both of his hands with enough force to push out his ki in a quick crescent burst of yellow energy that forced Ryu to turtle up in order to defend against. It blasted apart off of his guard but it concealed his sight of Sagat's approach.

And the sight of Sagat's new move, based off of something very familiar to everyone present.

"S̄eụ̄x Sxydāw (Tiger Uppercut)!"

A leaping uppercut was uncoiled from Sagat that sent both of them upwards more than fifteen feet into the air, showing the impressive natural leaping ability of Sagat and his raw strength to knock Ryu up at least that high as well.

"Wasn't that-?" Batsu started to say, pointing up a crutch at the sky-high combatants.

"I think it is." Ken more or less confirmed what he assumed the youngster was thinking and what the look in Sakura's eye told him she came the assumption of as well, "It's based on the Shoryuuken. Even the little mid-air twist he threw in there for added impact."

Sagat flipped through in the air after the full extension of his Tiger Uppercut came to an end. He looked on with no small bit of satisfaction as Ryu fell flat on his back on the ground with an audibly solid thud.

He simply stood there with his massive arms crossed over his equally massive scarred chest as Ryu started standing back up, "That's what the heart of a real fighter brings you Ryu. I lost to your little killer uppercut and I figured why not incorporate a similar technique into my own repertoire. The heart of a real fighter allows you to learn and grow, to continue to improve and find inspiration to continue onward. Something you don't have as you are. So when I put you down, you're just going to lay down, because you won't have the heart to get back up. Not like you once did."

All Ryu did was stand back up and get into his fighting stance, a dead look in his eyes as he did so.

Sagat just scoffed at this and casually slid back into his own, "I see. Well I guess you'll never be considered a master of your fighting style after all. you aren't even the master of yourself." He noticed that Ryu still hadn't moved from his place and decided to take the initiative. With long strides of his tall legs, Sagat got into a powerful run before preparing to plow straight through Ryu. No guard he had was going to prevent him from being lain out with his next move, "Thảlāy Seụ̄x (Tiger Destruction)!" He was about to put all of his force behind a plowing knee that was never going to force him to break stride or combination as it would only be the first move.

"Wait! Stop!"

Sakura's cry would have otherwise fallen on deaf ears had Sagat not been so attentive. Even while lacking in depth perception with his one eye, he took notice of the subtle view of Ryu's arms being no longer tensed. He was still in his stance but as the saying went; the lights were on but there was no one home. Nor was there any hint of Bison's Psycho Power influencing his actions.

The knee of Sagat stopped short of hitting Ryu right between the eyes by inches before he lowered his leg and smirked, "Well what do you know? Questioning your drive was what it took to get you to stop?" He started to laugh before suddenly punching Ryu hard across the face without warning, much to the shock of everyone watching, "Maybe when you wake up this time you'll have yourself all together."

Sakura and Ken quickly made it to Ryu's side as he lay on the ground, grimacing in pain after Sagat's unblocked haymaker, "What in the world was that for?" Sakura asked, somewhat affronted at the large Thai man's actions, "He'd already stopped. That was why I yelled!" She let out a fearful 'eep' when Sagat's eye turned to her before he started laughing again, "What's so funny?"

"I hit him because I still owed him for the scar and the recovery time it took afterwards. He's lucky one punch is all he's getting, but I want a real fight next time so crippling him or giving him brain damage now wouldn't have been advisable." Sagat said rather casually with no shame for doing so. With his need to be there done, Sagat turned to walk away and leave, "Until the next time. Fighting now wouldn't be suitable. There are more important things happening right now, and even rivalries need to have their limits."

Ken stood up, leaving his friend to Sakura and Batsu who happened to be hobbling over on his crutches, "You're just leaving? Just like that? What happened to Ryu?" He asked, still not having any of the answers he needed to understand what was happening. Call him impatient or whatever, but he was pretty sure he had a concussion and he didn't take that kind of thing lightly, especially when he didn't know the reason why.

"Like I said..." Sagat uttered, not turning around as he continued to walk down the road in his own direction, "Bison was the cause of your friend's brainwashing. He's fine now if you can sense his ki." He pointed off in a direction into the deep jungle, "If you care, that's where Bison's base is. It's very far inside, but you can't miss it if you reach it."

Ryu sat up, beginning to get his bearings back now that he was conscious. He had been aware of the things going on since falling under Bison's control but had been unable to do anything other than simply observe until he fought back and regained autonomy over his own person, "Wait. You're not going to try and ask me for a match now that we're here?"

Hearing his rival's voice got the former 'God of Muay Thai' to stop just long enough to address him in turn, "I'm not ready to take you on in a real battle again. Not yet. I've spent too much time obsessing and not enough time growing." With that being said he proceeded to walk away again, "The next time I'll beat you and show you who's the strongest. Not for revenge, but because it's my destiny."

Instead of anyone going off to stop him or anyone trying to say something to keep him there they just watched him wander his way down the road until he fell out of sight. As if any of them were going to be able to convince that man to stop. But still, him helping them out was pretty admirable of him.

Either that or he was really just passionate about winning a fair fight against the last person to so completely defeat him. To Ryu's surprise as he knew of Sagat's occupation as Bison's bodyguard the man had just given them the location of the evil dictator and he hadn't even tried to stop them, nor did it look like he even cared. Ryu knew the location already, but the others didn't yet.

"Oh man." Batsu said, shifting his crutches beneath him, "Well let's go to that village we were supposed to meet the blonde brigade at. We can't be that far away right?" Hobbling for miles and miles didn't seem like fun at all but what other option did he have?

Instead of agreeing like most of the others were, Ryu remained silent and looked into the jungle. It didn't take too long for Ken to notice this and roll his eyes as he already knew what was on his friend's mind. Ryu just couldn't take an asskicking lying down without fixating over it, "You're going back after Bison aren't you?" He didn't even need the answer as Ryu started walking off of the road and into the jungle just like that, "Ugh… of course you are."

"He'll just escape unless someone makes sure he doesn't. And you didn't see the Psycho Drive…" Ryu said in his own defense, remembering his own time as a captive, "Not only does it make him stronger… it's a super-weapon in of itself."

"Psycho Drive?" Sakura asked, lagging slightly behind the two of them, "Wait, you're going that way? There's supposed to be an airstrike on that base once the coordinates are found. That's why we're going to the village, so that Naruto and Cammy can start looking for the base to mark it." They were already late and they'd be even later without a vehicle to take them there.

"Well if no one's going in until you reach the village you're going to I have time to head to the base and ensure that Bison is destroyed." Ryu said, tightening the red headband around his forehead, "Like I said; there's always a chance that he'll escape. I can't let that happen. This can't be done to anyone else… after what he did to Rose." By a stroke of luck, Ryu managed to find Rose after she was defeated and managed to get her somewhere to heal and rest, at least until she woke up, "…And what he's done to so many other people."

Batsu threw his arms up along with the crutches he still happened to be holding on to, "Well that's great. Go skulk through the jungle. What the fuck am I supposed to do out here on the road by myself? Tigers still come out this far sometimes you know, especially to get a wounded meal out of something like me." He was cut off when he found himself suddenly picked up by Ishizaki over one shoulder as the large man started walking down the road towards the village, "Oi! What the hell?"

"I'll transport Ichimonji-san to the village of note." A recovered Ishizaki said resolutely as the titanic butler carried off an arguing Batsu who was angrily waving one of his crutches over his shoulder, "I was supposed to be responsible for the transportation after all."

Ken ran a hand through his long blonde hair before shrugging. That was one problem solved at least. And then he turned to see Ryu gone and sensed him heading off at a high speed through the jungle already, "Oh goddamn it." He said before getting Sakura's attention and pointing into the wilderness, "Come on if you're going." With that he also took off in a run to try and catch up to Ryu.

"Alright!" Sakura kept it in step with Ken as they chased after Ryu who didn't seem to want to slow down for them, 'Following Ryu is a lot more trouble this time than when I was 14.' After all that, Ryu hadn't said more than three sentences to them before taking off to fight. He must have really been pissed, 'Last time didn't involve so much running either.' She thought as a stray branch slapped her face, "Why does Naruto like the woods so much? This is annoying."

XxX

(Hours Later – Outside of Shadaloo Base)

Guile and Charlie cut a none too subtle trail through the soldiers along the outskirts of the base, in order to soften up an exit route for those further on the inside once the explosives were planted. To their unbridled luck, the communications and alarms had been disabled somehow. This forced any reinforcements that came for them to have to run and get them on foot. Easy for two well-trained powerful warriors like them to deal with one after another.

And random traps of wires and sometimes explosives kept going off whenever certain groups of soldiers would get close enough to fire at them. Neither Charlie or Nash set any traps, but they looked around and sometimes caught a grin or a flash of orange before it disappeared in smoke.

Either way, they were a great diversion that looked like a pair of tough guys trying to muscle their way into the base. They were strong enough to make it a very realistic threat that had to be dealt with because the number of defeated soldiers started numbering past two hundred.

"More guys with guns." Guile said as Charlie stood directly next to him, both of them ducking behind a large tree and watching the advance of the next coming squad of Shadaloo soldiers, "Again?" He asked, flexing his arms out seemingly in preparation.

"Well it's not like they're stupid. They can't communicate properly, otherwise they'd see this coming." Charlie returned before the two of them looked at each other and nodded, jumping out from behind their place of cover and shouting simultaneously.

"Sonic Boom!"

"Sonic Break!"

Guile swung his arms inwardly concurrently in a double-armed cross slash with enough speed and force to send out his ki in a spinning wave of energy. Charlie's did the same, only he needed just one arm to fire his, making his rate of fire far faster than Guile's as he could swing his arms in succession and do his damage. It was comparable to a semi-automatic and an automatic weapon. He could even do it by throwing kicks as well which he took liberal use of.

Either way, the explosive blasts of fast ki devastated the soldiers before they could take aim at them men and fire. After the rumbling explosions rang out, Charlie sighed and looked over at his friend and partner before adjusting his glasses on his face, "You've seriously got to learn how to do these with one arm Guile. Yours are so slow compared to mine."

"They work just fine the way they are." Guile responded dryly a dark killing intent filled the air around them, "You feel that don't you?" Both of them looked directly up to see M. Bison hovering above them with his arms crossed and his cape billowing behind him, "Is that who I think it is?" Charlie didn't answer, he just stood by Guile's side in his fighting stance. That was all the answer Guile needed, thus he wound up for another projectile attack, "Sonic Boo-!"

Before he could even launch the attack, Bison teleported right in front of his eyes and reappeared directly behind them. The confident dictator laughed when he saw both U.S. born military men jump away from him as if to avoid an attack.

The notion that someone like him would need to sneak attack those two worms from behind in order to defeat them. Absurd.

"So these are the barbarians knocking at my gate?" Bison said, observing Charlie and Guile through his white and pupil-less eyes with a smirk on his face, "And here I thought I killed the man in glasses there. Back in Brazil."

"Good thing your gunships aim as badly as you dress." Charlie responded with a hard look in his eyes, remembering almost being killed two years ago after being shot from behind off of a clifff by a gunship that Bison used to escape, "I'd love to see you try that again, or are you actually going to fight this time?"

Bison scoffed and cast away the cape that was attached to the shoulder pads of his uniform in kind, "I normally don't dirty my uniform with the blood of such useless peons, but what can I say?" His body began to radiate the sickly purple Psycho Power in an intimidating fashion, "Today is just your lucky day isn't it?"

"I'm done hearing you talk! Sonic Boom!" Guile flung his double-armed wave of ki at Bison only for him to chuckle and teleport a few feet to the side to avoid the blast that exploded in the distance behind him. A totally unnecessary display of his apparent superiority over them. Guile merely growled at him in anger from being so casually overlooked.

"What was that; a demonstration?" Bison taunted, gesturing them both forward with one hand, "I'll even handicap myself. We're so close to it on my base, but I won't even draw power from the Psycho Drive to defeat you. Consider it a gift from me to you for thinning out so many of my useless soldiers."

Both Charlie and Guile looked at each other in tandem before rushing forward to attack Bison at once, something he took great humor in, cackling as he began dealing with the two.

As they pressed forward and mounted their assault he seemed almost bored as he dealt with the two of them. Any punch that seemed like it would have gotten close to hitting him was swatted away as he continued to just dodge and dodge.

The grin on his face was beginning to press on Guile's nerves as his fastest punch and kick speed didn't seem to be registering at all with the man. He began getting sloppy, sacrificing his technique for just wanting to knock Bison's block off with one good shot, "Oh, am I done waiting for your turn to end?" Bison taunted as he took notice of this and grabbed Guile's arm after one of his sloppy punches, spinning around and whipping him right into Charlie, sending both men flying away, "I guess I'll take mine then!"

Both Guile and Charlie untangled themselves from the pile they had been distributed in and got back up, "Focus!" Charlie shouted at his friend, "Don't let him get into your head damn it! Fight your way or he's already beaten you!" As Guile continued to stand up, Charlie took the initiative and headed forth to engage Bison once more.

"I beat you before I woke up this morning." Bison quickly subverted Charlie's attack with a stance-breaking backhand that knocked his hands away when he tried to block. It was quickly followed up with a punch that had Psycho Power generating around his fist.

Guile watched in shock as his friend was knocked dozens of yards away with a single punch to the face. That was impossible. He knocked a nearly 200 pound grown man away like a golf ball with a single punch. It wasn't like this was some weekend warrior kind of fighter that he had done it to either.

"Do you realize how useless your weak little fighting moves are?" Bison said, right at Guile's side. The man never even noticed his approach. In surprise, Guile tried to respond with a spin kick, but it was caught in Bison's arms. He couldn't even make a move before he found himself pulled into a crippling knee to the body, "This is child's play!" He followed up on the doubled over Guile with a hard downward elbow to the back of the neck that sent him face-first to the ground.

"Crossfire Blitz!"

The moment Guile's body hit the ground, Charlie was back in the fight and within range of Bison whom he immediately began unloading on with a furious assault, so fast that it looked like three different Charlies were attacking from three different sides, ending with Charlie and his two afterimages uppercutting Bison into the air.

He never fell back down to the ground though as he flipped through in the air and merely levitated out of Charlie's reach, scowling down at the man that had just managed to hit him. The sheer audacity of the action took the leisure right out of him.

And what was this? Hope? From the look on Charlie's face as he helped Guile back up it looked like he believed that they had a chance. That was completely unacceptable. Weaklings were to be crushed. That was all there was to it.

Seeing that Charlie managed to hit Bison put a serious spring in Guile's step, neither really paying attention to the fact that despite taking dozens of blows he was still unmarked.

Guile sprinted towards Bison's levitating form before sliding to a stop beneath him and launching into the air with a direct backwards kick instantaneous and hard enough to leave a blur of a trail where he had rotated, "Flash Kick!"

Bison had seen him coming all the way and had prepared a teleportation out of the way. Charlie knew that Guile had telegraphed his move and expected Bison to evade it, thus when he reappeared elsewhere in the air he was able to take aim for his own counter, "Sonic Boom!"

A swift bolt of ki flew and spun from one of Charlie's blurred swinging arms and flew at Bison only to pass clear through him, 'Afterimage? Are you kidding me? He can leave those?' He didn't dare and finish his thought, turning around when he felt the swell of energy from Bison's reappearance, "Somersault Kick!" Charlie threw a jumping flip kick of his own with a corkscrew thrown into it for a wider swing to it, but it missed as Bison drifted back and let him land on the ground.

Like a missile that had honed in on him, Bison swiftly hovered over to Charlie before stomping right on the top of his head with both feet, "Head Stomp!" While it was a devastating attack that drilled Charlie right into the ground, it was a demeaning method of displaying Bison's superiority. Seeing Guile coming back in to defend his friend, from where he was hovering just at where he had stomped on Charlie's head he spun around and kicked at Guile, knocking him back despite the fact that he blocked it.

Taking a series of deep breaths, Guile focused his ki intensely as he opened his arms wide. Bison laughed at the display loudly, "Well if you're presenting me with that much of an opening it would be rude not to take you up on such an offer!" He started charging forward before leaping at Guile and spinning his entire body, leading with his right arm as his entire form was engulfed in Psycho Power like a drill, "Psycho Crusher!"

'Well this is it.' Guile thought to himself before timing the release of his ki perfectly. He would need every bit he could generate to make this move work, "Sonic Hurricane!" If he screwed up he wouldn't release the attack in time and would be more than likely cut clean in half by the Psycho Crusher or he'd release it too soon and the apex of energy would subside without ever hitting at all.

Guile swung his arms inward for a normal Sonic Boom, but instead of firing one off he formed one massive ongoing blade of spinning ki in front of his body that made a loud noise, almost akin to a jet engine.

Bison's forceful energy attack crashed directly into Guile's own and began to get pushed back as it tried to cut through his cloak of energy. Sweat rolled down the blonde soldier's brow, but he could feel his own attack holding up… that was until it started running out of steam. He tried pushing more ki into the attack, but it was like trying to blow up a slowly deflating balloon.

"Running out of energy are we?" Bison shouted over the sounds of their conflicting attacks, "How unfortunate!" He then noticed that Guile's Sonic Hurricane wasn't losing power anymore. In fact it was seemingly growing stronger. Through his constant spinning he was able to see that Charlie had taken up a position standing behind Guile, "What do you think you're doing?"

Charlie ignored Bison and began focusing to channel his ki into Guile to bolster his friend's attack, "I'm not one for the power moves, but I've got energy to spare! Just finish him off!"

The skin on Guile's hands began wearing down, going up his arms as well, 'I was never supposed to hold it for this long!' He thought to himself as his breaths started coming out in an almost hyperventilating manner, 'Channeling this much power through my arms is a killer!' Like trying to direct the water from an open faucet through a straw, but there wasn't any other direction for the power to go.

"It's not close to being enough!" Bison yelled as the shoulder-pads of his uniform began to glow and generate black electricity that began to whirl around his Psycho Crusher, powering it further, "With the Psycho Drive… I'm invincible!" Guile's arms couldn't take anymore and he was running out of his own ki either way, thus his Sonic Hurricane failed.

This left Guile and Charlie at his mercy as they were unable to dodge once their defense against the brutal dictator fell. Both of them took the hit from the edges of the corkscrew as much of the ground was destroyed and carved up from the direct impact of the maneuver.

The dust settled and the two American soldiers lay on the ground barely able to move. Guile couldn't push himself up with his arms, but Charlie was still trying to get back up. While he was failing to get himself up past the point of getting past his knees, Bison grabbed the back of his head, palming it like recreational sports ball as he lifted the man off of the ground, "Raaah!" Charlie tried to pry the man's grip off as Bison slowly started squeezing his head with one hand.

"Hah, that was a good workout." Bison said as he seemed to revel in the shouts of pain from his defenseless adversary, "You actually made me try in the end. Feel proud. After all, I'm the strongest in the world."

"You're not the strongest. I've fought the strongest."

Bison's victorious grin fell and turned to a frown as he turned around and noticed a figure in a white gi walking barefoot towards him from the unkempt wilder area of the jungle on the outside of the base, "Ryu. I felt our little connection break. I figured that it was because you had finished your mission and Sagat had killed you after you had served your purpose. He was so looking forward to his rematch with you, to get his little revenge."

"Let's just say I found myself before it was too late." Ryu tightened his red fighting gloves on his hands before punching his fists together. His dark eyed glare was fixed firmly on Bison as he walked forward towards him, "I have to thank you actually."

"For showing you what a taste of real strength was?" Bison finished for Ryu, smirking as he threw Charlie away like trash, "You're welcome."

"No." A serene smile found its way to Ryu's face at that point, "Because of what you tried to do to me I realized who I am, the part of me that people believe in. I can't question myself as a fighter even with a dangerous power inside of myself. That in of itself is just another battle I have to fight at some point, because sometimes the most important battle is the battle within. But for now, before I master it I'll deal with you."

It was laughable to Bison that Ryu would 'deal with him' as he so bluntly put it. Did he not learn anything from the first time they had fought. It was just a few days ago, was his memory really that short, "And just what do you think has changed to allow you to… 'deal with me' my boy?"

Ryu uncharacteristically smirked when he set himself into his fighting stance without any fear whatsoever, "Well I haven't learned any new moves, I haven't even gotten to train, but I've seen your moves… and I've felt your Psycho Power. I've fought stronger."

Stronger? Stronger than his Psycho Power? Oh, he was just trying to get into Bison's head. Not a bad approach, trying to poke the bear and goad him into fighting angrily instead of his normal method. Either way it didn't matter because Ryu would be destroyed just like the two Americans would be once he was finished there.

XxX

(With Naruto)

Naruto looked abruptly over his shoulder as he could swear he had heard the hiss of a cobra or some other deadly, deadly snake of a poisonous variety. Oh how he hated snakes. They were without a doubt his least favorite animal. Getting eaten by one when you were twelve years old on top of all of the other negative snake experiences would do that.

And along with all of that, the jungle sucked. It was muggy and mosquitoey, and he was never going back again, "To hell with this. I trained for a completely different kind of forest. These ain't woods, this is jungle." Naruto muttered to himself. At this point he was on the grounds of the base, Henged into the form of a soldier around the edge of the area that he managed to separate and incapacitate.

He had dispersed clones every so often to set traps that they could hide and activate when the time appropriately came as it was still a lot of jungle even though much of it on the ground level was cleared out so that vehicles could easily be used and the troops had plenty of space to move about. It was pretty impressive. The trees were a lot like nothing more than pillars with the canopy and upper branches of them serving as the sky cover with the late afternoon sun barely visible through the dense leaves.

But Naruto's best efforts to walk around looking like he knew what he was doing belied his own thoughts on the matter, 'Gah! Where's Cammy? Where's Chun-Li, Charlie, Guile, anybody!' They'd separated at opposite points with Cammy splitting off last once she got everyone to soft entry points. Each to do their own thing as it were.

So what did that leave Naruto to do? Run around as a fake guard with a transformed stick in his hands to look like a rifle? Screw that.

It took a while to do it without suspiciously making a beeline straight for it, but Naruto made it to the main building of the base and decided to go in instead of puttering around outside like a fool. Maybe he'd find one of his party members, because if he were setting explosives he'd definitely have been going there as a priority. Eventually he'd have to come across someone.

The halls weren't dingy, they were well lit and well-kept, probably done by the grunts, with white tiled floors and extremely sturdy looking grey colored walls. He really hoped Chun-Li's explosives packed enough punch to take that place down.

All the while he was walking around, Naruto took note of the fact that there weren't any soldiers inside. The point was driven home when he was given a rather queer look by a trio of scientists that he passed in the halls. He ignored the look, but he had to recognize that there simply wasn't supposed to be a soldier in here.

At least not on that floor. Damn it he should have gone in through the basement or something.

He walked down a few more halls before choosing to duck into a doorway where an unseen puff of smoke gave way to Naruto emerging with a new scientist's disguise. But it didn't get him very far because at the end of that particular hallway he was stopped by five young women wearing the same attire that the two assassins Juni and Juli wore when they attacked his school.

One of them had rather dark skin, wild black hair, and held a spear along with a small golden monkey that she kept on her shoulder as a companion of sorts. Another was a Japanese girl with short black hair and a katana on her back. The next was a Chinese girl with her hair in a tight bun on her head as she brandished a set of nunchaku. The next girl had a small pair of claws in her hands and blonde hair in two braids similar to Cammy's, but he couldn't see her face due to a black mask covering it. The last one had neck-length pink hair and brandished something that Naruto had done a very good job of avoiding conflict against thus far; a firearm, though it was only a pistol thank goodness.

But still, you know… as far as the situation went for Naruto…

Crap. Son of a bitch. All of that good stuff to express how he was feeling at the moment.

Naruto nervously adjusted the fake glasses on his disguised face, and adjusted his voice accordingly with his disguise before speaking in English, "Yes? Is there something the matter?"

The girl in the black mask with the claws merely pointed at Naruto and then directly behind him, seemingly allowing him to turn and look. Naruto immediately palmed his face at the sight of a security camera and turned back around with a sigh as he dispelled his transformation and stood there facing down five female assassins, "Ugh… names?" He irritably grunted out, trying to stall and think of a plan.

In the order they were seen they all spoke in turn before finishing in robotic unison, "Santamu. Satsuki. Xiayu. Decapre. Février. Mission: to exterminate the intruder, now identified as Naruto Uzumaki."

Naruto nodded, expecting that much, before immediately turning tail and running back from whence he came. He was _not_ fighting five-on-one straight up, even against a group of very pretty girls, "Fuck this… Cammy!" He exclaimed as if she was somewhere where she could hear him as he ran away, "Get your Doll-sisters damn it!" And there were still supposed to be seven more around there somewhere?

A silenced gunshot came from the pink-haired Février as the bullet grazed Naruto's shoulder, getting him to turn his head around in time to see Satsuki advance on him and try to cut him down with the unsheathing of her sword. Naruto was able to twist his body and jump up towards the ceiling to avoid the slash where he kicked off, rolled on the ground, and swept her legs out from underneath her before he kept running as the other Dolls jumped over her and continued to chase him before she got back up.

The first corner that they saw Naruto turn, they pursued him only to find an ambush clone awaiting them that Xiayu was able to hit with her nunchaku before the rest of her body even got around the turn to make her vulnerable.

To Naruto's chagrin he managed to corral himself into a corner, but instead of stopping and preparing to defend himself, he started focusing his chakra into his right hand in its forceful spinning manner, "Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!" The impatient blonde teen drilled his signature melee ninjutsu straight through the wall to make a fake door into a stairwell.

More space. That was better than fighting against girls with weapons in a freaking hallway, but not by much.

Santamu and her spear filed through the hole in the wall first as she impressively tried to slash away at Naruto before switching to a stab that he backflipped out of the way of onto the railing of the stairs. He began to slide downstairs until the little golden monkey latched onto his face for long enough to disrupt him and force him to fall once he reached the lower landing, slamming his own body against the wall.

A shift of his head prevented two gunshots from Février from depositing themselves neatly into his skull. He then brandished a kunai to defend himself from the masked blonde Decapre's short claws. He'd just gotten through fighting Vega the previous night though, which meant that as good as she was with her claws it just didn't measure up to Shadaloo's most elite assassin when it came to his skills with them.

Naruto defended against a few slashes with his kunai before posting one hand on the railing of the stairs heading downward and kicking her in the face, allowing him to tactically retreat from the other girls again before they could surround and swarm him. So was this what it was like when he tried using his clones on singular people? Because he could see why it was either annoying or terrifying for his opponents.

He'd never been outnumbered before, but he was so experienced in outnumbering other people in the past that he could swear he'd seen and done pretty much every way possible to do it. That was some kind of an advantage, wasn't it?

Whatever. He was still running away until the terrain better suited him. Thus he continued to run downstairs away from the lovely ladies that would have wanted nothing better than to rip his heart out of his chest.

What else was new?

XxX

(Elsewhere in the Base – With Cammy and Chun-Li)

While Naruto was dealing with his trouble in his own portion of the base, the two ladies of the strike force would be enacting their own plan to take things down.

From a control room on the basement floor, Chun-Li watched the door as Cammy was inside working away at the computer within. Chun-Li had of course already set explosives in that room and in any structural place she could find until that point, but they found it prudent to enact another important method of destroying the base.

Their thinking was that there was a chance that the enemy would be alerted as to the fact that explosives sat within the base, thus the two of them infiltrated the control room where Cammy was able to work her magic over the systems.

She was not only able to jam communications around the base, but she was able to securely lock the doors to the point where only one of Bison's 'Grand Masters' (none of which were there) or one of the Dolls would be able to open them. No unwelcome advances from the outside guard would be crashing their party and anyone unable to get in and out would merely assume that Bison was on one of his control freak trips.

That would leave them mostly clear to plant explosives at their leisure. Only the people inside would pose a threat to them and that was more than manageable.

With her job complete for the time being, Cammy got up from her place at the controls and let Chun-Li know that she was finished, "If you're planting explosives I believe that the best place to go in order to ensure complete destruction of the building is the underground garage. With all of the fuel stored there the explosion generated will be massive, and if you can destroy the ceiling you'll bring down the floors above it."

"Alright, sounds like a plan. We can steal something to escape with from there after I set the timer too." Chun-Li said with a nod as they started down the halls again. So far Cammy had been quite trustworthy when it came to leading her along through Shadaloo's base as they had planted explosives in the extra buildings as well before making their way inside. She really just hoped that no one else had done anything dumb in the meantime.

Everyone else had split up in teams of two; her and Cammy, Guile and Charlie, all with the exception of Naruto who had gone off alone to be some kind of man on the inside. He had caught a soldier right in front of them, stole his credentials, and then performed a seamless transformation into the man much to everyone's surprise, so they let him do so.

All of a sudden Cammy stopped in the hallway, alerting Chun-Li as she turned around to face the girl with the scar on her cheek, "Is there something wrong?" She was really glad that she had declared as an Interpol agent that she wouldn't use guns, because with the nerves she had walking through that base she probably would have been shooting at shadows three times over.

Cammy's blue/green eyed gaze was fixed further down the hall as she wasn't moving, but Chun-Li's voice snapped her out of it and she grabbed the older woman's hand as she dragged her along behind her, "Come with me!"

Despite her curiosity, Chun-Li didn't ask any questions as Cammy had been invaluable thus far. Though she did wonder just what it was that set her off. Did she sense something off? Smell some sort of poison gas in the hallway? And then as they got closer to the garage, she realized what it was.

Opening the doors to the vehicle storage area saw Naruto(s) fighting twelve similarly dressed girls Cammy's age wearing similar black leotards and leggings as a uniform and using various methods aside from hand-to-hand combat to deal with him and his Kage Bunshin.

There were many cars, trucks, and military vehicles of various natures and uses all over the garage, and Naruto was doing his best to pigeon-hole them into a situation where he or his clones could defeat them. It wasn't really working too well, but it was keeping him out of trouble as almost half of the girls had weapons to fight against him with.

Cammy and Chun-Li were paying rapt attention to the battle in front of them and almost didn't notice that the real Naruto was trying to creep out of the garage behind them until Chun-Li saw him and whispered harshly at him as she grabbed his hood and kept him there, "How the hell did you do this to yourself? What, did you walk into all twelve of them in the cafeteria or something?"

"Oh no, don't blame me! Don't put that evil on me!" Naruto exclaimed quietly in a similar whisper, "I started out fighting five of them, and then more came when I led them here, and then it turned into this. Help me beat them or shut up!" Turning their attention back to the Dolls, they were stunned when Cammy walked right up to them and they seemingly stopped, "Cammy what are you doing?"

One by one she walked up to each of her 'sisters' and flicked them on the forehead, and they didn't try to attack her for doing so. Afterwards, Cammy just stood there as they all seemed unaware of what had just happened. But their aggression towards Naruto seemed to be nonexistent.

Chun-Li walked closer in an effort to support Cammy in case it was needed and Naruto reluctantly did the same. He had just spent the last few minutes tangling with those girls and it didn't leave him very excited to do it again, even with help this time, "How did you stop them?"

"I don't know." Cammy admitted, seemingly caught off guard by her own actions. It was something instinctual, "…I think the man that broke me of Master Bison's mind control implanted something in me to break theirs as well." As farfetched as she knew it sounded, it was the only explanation she had. She had to remember to look up the man Dhalsim again once all of this was over with.

"I'm still not going over there." Naruto said resolutely, dispelling his remaining and surviving clones as he sat on the top of an M35 military cargo truck where he could keep an eye on all twelve of the Dolls lest they attack again. He then found quite a bit of C4 thrown into his lap, almost getting him to freak out until he realized that it wasn't armed, "What's this?"

Chun-Li pointed directly up, "I need you to put explosives on the ceiling in strategic spots that'll destroy it and the pillars. I'll put a lot around the base of them and by the fuel tanks. Besides-." She knocked on the truck he was sitting on, "This is what we're taking to get out of here once we're done." She then found the C4 thrown back at her and frowned, "Why? You don't want to destroy this place?"

Naruto shook his head and pulled out well over a dozen explosive tags, "Save that, I'll use these for the ceiling." He sprinted over to a pillar and ran up it to reach said ceiling where he began applying them, "Look at this place though. I'll have to use the rest of my supply to make sure this ceiling comes down." Getting the right paper to make more was always a chore and a half for him.

'Paper… bombs? How in the world would he even activate them if they worked?' Chun-Li had to shake the thought out of her head as she watched Naruto tack them on all over the place. She still had her own C4 to apply thickly, and once she did she looked up and got a thumbs up from Naruto who had finished as well, "Right then. I need to set more explosives on the upper levels. I can't make this boom big enough to make sure this place comes down."

"Naruto I need you to come with me."

Looking down at Cammy who was looking up at him, Naruto jumped down against a pillar and slid down to the floor, still keeping a wary eye on the Dolls, "What do you need me for? You've got them."

Cammy fitfully shook her head in the negative, "No… they've just awakened. I don't think I've given them free will, I just think I broke Master Bison's control over them." She seemed rather upset that she didn't get it to go the whole way like hers, "They'll just follow me because I'm the only one that knows what I'm doing. Their actions are mostly instinctual right now, like my own were until I gained my bearings."

"So they won't attack me?" Naruto asked, standing guardedly in front of one of the Dolls and waving a hand in front of her face to get no real response other than a curious look from the girls.

"They shouldn't." That didn't really reassure him any, but Cammy grabbed a hold of his arm to keep him from continuing in his efforts to tease the Dolls without touching them. He was smart enough to know that making contact with them could have resulted in brutal retaliation, "I still need you to come with me. There's something we need to destroy firsthand and make sure is broken beyond repair. If we don't then this was all for next to nothing."

That got Naruto to stop playing chicken with the twelve female assassins in exchange for looking curiously at the one he was on a name basis with, "We're blowing this whole place to hell to begin with. You're telling me if we don't destroy this one thing in particular the other blasts won't get it?" They had set a ton of explosives just in the garage, and Chun-Li seemed to have considerably less C4 than she did in her bag at first.

Cammy shook her head and pointed up to signify that it was on a higher floor, "It's the heart of the base so to speak. Master Bison's most important tool/weapon, whatever you want to call it. It's in the most fortified room constructed specifically to house it."

Holding her temple in exasperation, Chun-Li walked up to the blonde pair and pointed at the copious amounts of explosives she had distributed and also Naruto's explosive tags that she somehow banked on working despite not knowing what they were, "Look, this whole place is coming down come hell or high water. Are you seriously telling me that a single room can survive the entire base crumbling in and collapsing after being blown sky high? And even if it did, what's so important about it?" They needed to go quickly. Charlie and Guile were still out there somewhere acting as a diversion.

"Because with it Master Bison can destroy whole towns from wherever he activates it from." Cammy responded in kind, taking what she was talking about very seriously, "The Psycho Drive; it's a machine created by Shadaloo scientists that allows Master Bison to channel and store his own Psycho Power either to charge it up or weaponize it." She seemed to get a skeptical look from Chun-Li while Naruto seemed to be enraptured with her explanation, "Shadaloo has a stealth satellite in orbit. With the use of both it and the Psycho Drive, Master Bison can amplify Psycho Power through a magnifying glass on the satellite and fire it directly at a target. He can destroy a small town in one shot with it."

Naruto's jaw dropped at that revelation and Chun-Li covered her mouth in horror of the thought of him possessing such a weapon, "If he's got something like that and he's supposed to be so evil then why the hell hasn't he used it yet to threaten anyone? That's ten times better than any bomb I've ever heard of!" The Kyuubi took deep offense to that statement as it could have done the same, but remained quiet, only snorting from within its cage.

Despite the surprise from the reveal, Chun-Li was still rational enough to generalize it, "Think about it. Once he actually uses something like that once, too many things will happen for him to proactively control. No… he's better to save something like that for when he truly needs it." Bison wasn't a dumb man. Despite his love of power, especially his own, he wasn't foolish enough to outright provoke a crushing military response even with a powerful deterrent like that. It wasn't smart, "I see why you're saying that we need to ensure that it's destroyed. And you know where it is?"

Cammy nodded, "I do. But like I said, I need help." She gestured towards the Dolls, "Look at them. As they are now they'd be a liability coming with me, but they're going to follow me no matter what. That's why I want Naruto to come with me. He can help." If nothing else he could keep an eye on them.

"And they _won't_ try to kill me again?" Naruto asked once more, making sure to keep both Chun-Li and Cammy between himself and the Dolls, "…At least they dropped their weapons…"

"They won't try to kill you." Cammy assured him for the last time before she began walking with the other Shadaloo assassins following her out, "…I think."

"I heard that!"

XxX

(Meanwhile – Outside of the Shadaloo Base)

Charlie's eyes opened to the sight of a battle raging on before him between Ryu and M. Bison. By all rights he figured that he should have been dead and tried to move from the position where he was sitting against a supply crate until a hand set itself against him to keep him in place, "Don't try moving." He looked up the arm to see a Japanese schoolgirl with short brown hair and a white headband keeping him there, "You and your friend were unconscious when we got here. I'm assuming you're part of the Interpol people Naruto had us working with."

"Bison…" Charlie weakly uttered, noticing Guile laying down on his back nearby, stopping his struggling to stand, "And the other soldiers."

"Ken is handling them." Sakura said, looking over the crate they were by to see Ken dealing with multiple Shadaloo soldiers that tried to get themselves involved to assist their leader. He was seemingly doing very well despite their use of firearms and the lack of his own, "And Ryu is fighting Bison."

Speaking of the fight between Ryu and Bison…

The fists of Bison weren't delivering their usual devastating effect against Ryu. Not only had the young man yet to crumble underneath his actual onslaught, he seemed to be thriving, matching him punch for punch and kick for kick despite the fact that neither of them had landed a hit yet.

That in of itself was staggering.

'Was he really serious?' Bison thought to himself as he pressed an attack against Ryu, watching with mounting anger as he was avoided deftly by his opponent, 'Could he really have found a way to improve his chances against me after only fighting me once?' It was unthinkable. Their last battle consisted entirely of Bison outright thrashing Ryu who never laid a hand on him once.

And yet here he was the one that hadn't laid a hand on Ryu.

Who learned how to deal with someone after outright getting their ass handed to them by that person? Only the most attentive of warriors could break down someone's battle processes while they were taking a beating.

At that moment Bison realized what the problem was. He had used a large amount of Psycho Power to survive Rose's go-for-broke onslaught only days earlier, and against Charlie and Guile he needed to use a significant amount to defeat their combined effort as well. He had even had to tap into the Psycho Drive both times and the energy he had stored within it. He had done these things without taking the time to heal and replenish himself in the Psycho Drive room.

His body was beginning to break down anyway, as his horrible power was beginning to exceed the limits of what his body was used to, having damaged it so supremely in learning how to master Psycho Power to begin with, and the constant uses in stressed situations weren't helping.

On the other hand, Ryu didn't understand quite what was going on as he blocked Bison's punches one after another, 'Is it really that I've gleamed that much from his fighting style, or what? He seems slower now for some reason.' A punch sailed past his head and Ryu instantly reached out to grab Bison's shoulders. From there he rolled backwards, taking Bison with him before throwing him away.

Once again, Bison caught himself in midair with his ability to hover and righted himself, glaring heatedly at Ryu for daring to hurl him. Holding in both of his hands he began charging a surging purple ball of Psycho Power before using one hand to launch it underhand at Ryu, "Psycho Shot!"

Nothing about the purple, pulsating orb looked friendly or advisable to take on directly under any circumstances, thus Ryu jumped back out of the way of its direction of fire. The purple orb exploded and blasted away chunks of ground, knocking Ryu further back than he intended to jump.

As a result of this he stumbled, and Bison mercilessly took advantage with a forward flip through the debris that came forth and smashed Ryu on top of his head with two kicks, one after the other. Landing on his feet with a fist covered in his Psycho Power, Bison punched Ryu straight in the stomach with an uppercut, lifting him straight up into the air on his knuckles. As the air, blood, and spittle flew from Ryu's mouth, Bison sneered up at him, "I expected that to go straight through you. It seems like you're worth something after all."

Ryu twitched on his hand and Bison dropped it out from beneath him before using his other hand to punch him into the ground with considerable force.

"Damn it!" Charlie stood back up, Sakura's best efforts notwithstanding and tried to hobble his way back into the fight only to attract Bison's attention.

With a derisive snort of dismissal, Bison charged up another Psycho Shot and launched it at Charlie. His intent to finish off the annoyance was plain and clear and would have worked had Sakura not moved in front of him and channeled her ki to her hands as if she were about to form a Hadoken without the pushing motion.

The improvised invisible energy shield layering her hands protected Charlie from the blast, but she was still hurt fairly badly as she was thrown back into him, sending them both to the ground. Bison smirked but then noticed Ryu about to stand again, "Where do you think you're going?" He asked in a taunting and rhetorical fashion as he delivered a hard soccer kick to his ribs, flipping the man over onto his back, "And you're supposed to be one of the strongest men in the world? But then again that's all you are in the end. You're just a man. Not something more… the way I am."

Ryu sat up and stood again as quickly as he could, stumbling once he reached his feet, "You're a monster… not a man. I'll give you that much at least. You think you're strong?" He confidently set himself in his stance again despite the beating that had just ravaged his body and the gambit that both his physical wellbeing and his spirit had been through over the last few days, "Yeah… you're pretty powerful. But your real strength is only equal to that of your will to win!"

And his was stronger than Bison's. He knew it was. He was not going to lose that fight no matter what he had to do in order to win.

It was then that Bison started to feel a dark presence within Ryu stir up, the same as the last time that they fought. Then he had been on the verge of knocking Ryu out so he was able to finish the fight before it manifested itself into any kind of battle factor. Here there was time to better analyze just what was radiating from Ryu.

It was the very thing that contributed to establishing such an easy control over the man the last time, and there was still a little bit left in there from what he could feel. It was more than what he needed to be effective.

'That power again.' A grin spread across Bison's face as he reached his arm out towards Ryu in a half-gripping motion, "Feel that strength within you! I can and will show you just how to unlock its true potential! Just return yourself to _me_!"

Something triggered in Ryu's head and froze him dead in his tracks as the latent dregs of Bison's previous brainwashing and mental control over him took hold once again.

Noticing that Ryu's body had stiffened up out of any sort of confrontational stance, Bison chuckled darkly and beckoned Ryu forward, "There we go. Now… dispose of that pest over there." He said, pointing towards Ken who was steadily decimating Shadaloo soldiers not too far away.

Shaky arms began to motion themselves into the correct posture for the Hadoken that he slowly began to charge up, though he was noticeably struggling against it. But it was a futile battle as not only was he building the ki for a Hadoken, he was building much more than normal, putting exceeding energy behind it to the point where he had to expand his hands just to hold the unstable attack.

Charlie sat up, as did Guile and Sakura, all of them noticing that the unaware Ken was about to get blasted from behind by his best friend, "Bison! Let him go you coward!" All Bison did in turn was cackle victoriously. He would have Ryu kill all of them, and from there he could only dream of what he could do with such a powerful commodity at his disposal. Maybe he could even take the power for himself? There was never such a thing as too much power.

"Goddamn it Ryu I didn't know you were so weak!" Sakura yelled at him abruptly, getting back up despite her exhaustion from the day and the wounds from her fights, "This is all you've got? I thought that you had guts! Conviction! I thought you had some fucking heart… but it looks like a toad like Bison has whatever heart you have in his back pocket!" It wasn't particularly like Sakura to curse aloud, but this wasn't the time to keep a limiter on her words, "If this is how it ends then you're not the strongest anything!"

Her words seemingly fell on deaf ears as Ryu continued building more and more power into his Hadoken as grit her teeth and shakily stood up, preparing to take matters into her own hands to stop him if she had to. Even though she was injured, she was still the healthiest out of herself, Charlie, and Guile who couldn't even move his arms.

"You're wasting what little time on this Earth you have left little girl." Bison taunted mean-spiritedly, taking delight in the attempt to mad-dog him with a glare that Sakura returned, "Anyone who opposes me will be destroyed… but you don't look useless. Perhaps I'll take you and make you into another of my Dolls?" He cackled again before giving an order, "Ryu, enough! Kill your friend already so I can put an end to the rest of them!"

"No!"

"Shinkuu Hadoken (Vacuum Surge Fist)!"

The smug, satisfied laughter was stuck as a choke in Bison's throat as a massive, crushing blue beam of energy hit him from behind and engulfed him instead of what had been Ryu's intended target of Ken, "RAAAHHHHH!"

Sakura's eyes lit up when she saw Ryu pouring every bit of ki he apparently had into trying to eradicate Bison. Even Ken managed to tear himself away from his fighting of the Shadaloo forces to witness his friend tear into the evil crime lord. After making so many suffer over the course of his days, the sounds of Bison suffering himself sounded like poetic justice to Charlie and Guile.

But Ryu was just focused on putting an end to this whole thing once and for all, "Always keep your eyes on your opponent, even when you bow! Who said I was done yet?" He had managed to break Bison's mind control far quicker than the last time after doing it once, and while it wasn't really his style, against someone like Bison he had to do what he had to do. If Bison was giving him his back to freely attack it was his own damn fault for being so overconfident.

Eventually the Shinkuu Hadoken subsided and he fell to his knees in outright exhaustion at using so much power to exterminate M. Bison.

"That's impossible!"

At that shout from Ken his head slowly tilted up when he saw what was a horrendously injured Bison's body, missing his arm up to his elbow, covered in blood and burns, uniform shredded, and shrouded in his purple Psycho Power before he suddenly vanished from their view in his teleportation technique. Ryu's eyes were wide as he tried in vain to get up quickly, "He's… he survived?"

XxX

(With Naruto and Cammy – Inside the Shadaloo Base)

Naruto, Cammy, and the slew of twelve other girls made their way back through the building's basement levels before reaching the ground floor and then the upper level, warily moving in case of indoor guards of which there had been more than a few. That was where Naruto and Cammy came into play as the Dolls did not attack.

Speaking of them, Naruto still found it rather disconcerting that the expressionless girls weren't really doing anything other than following Cammy. He kept thinking that one of them would snap out of whatever Cammy did and would turn on him to try and kill him again.

But you had to trust in your comrade, and Cammy hadn't done anything to warrant any suspicion since their little coordinated effort to bring down Shadaloo began. She'd been very good the entire time. She still could have stood to lose saying the whole 'Master' part of Master Bison, but once again he couldn't rightly knock her for that.

"We're close." Cammy said aloud, informing Naruto as they continued to traverse the halls of the upper level, "…I've never been in this room before." She stopped in front of a large pair of doors and found them to be locked. A frown crossed her face, but she wasn't about to let that stop her from getting in. It was fortified so she couldn't just kick it off of its hinges the way she wanted to, "Naruto, if you don't mind..."

"Rasengan?" He asked, getting a nod from the girl before he lifted his right hand to form the spinning blue orb, "Alright, move." Cammy did as he asked and he proceeded to slam the devastating ninjutsu into the center of the two doors, blowing them wide open forcefully, "Check out my skeleton key."

The entire room was nothing but an open and rather dim chamber with shiny, reflective dark tiles comprising the floor and walls that ran up into a concave ceiling. All sorts of wires and pipes of varying sizes and thicknesses ran themselves to a wall above a smaller door at the end of the far side of the room. The wires and pipes produced the little light in the room with the glow coming off of them making visibility possible.

It was pretty creepy, "Man… this place looks like it came straight out of a video game." Naruto commented as they walked inside, "Where is this Psycho Drive thing?" He asked, "Can I just start ripping up these wires and stuff?"

"If you want to kill us all then go ahead." Cammy said, revealing that she was carrying a bit of explosives on her person from Chun-Li, "This entire system is volatile. It's only meant for Master Bison's Psycho Power. If you don't want everyone in the room to die I'd just detonate the C4 with the rest of it when we get away from here like the original plan stated we should." She then noticed something amiss.

The wires shouldn't have been glowing for no reason. While she wasn't privy to the full-on mechanics of the device, she was knowledgeable enough about it to know that the purple glow emitting from them wasn't something that always happened. That meant that Psycho Power was passing through them. And the sound from behind the door showed that there was someone inside.

"**Prepare yourself."** Kyuubi's uncharacteristic warning shook Naruto into action, **"If you can't feel that presence in the next room then I can't believe that you've lasted this long in life as a ninja."** Now that the great biju mentioned it, Naruto could indeed feel an existence behind that door that made him feel somewhat sick at sensing it, **"If you really intend to destroy that drive then I believe you have a fight ahead of you."**

Electricity began to surge from the door at the end of the room before it slowly slid up, revealing a fully mechanical room behind it and a muscular figure in a new fixed red military uniform. Despite less than thirty minutes prior having been nearly completely obliterated to the extent where he had lost an arm, there seemed to be no trace of damage done to him at this point. With the incredible surplus of Psycho Power routinely stored in the Psycho Drive by Bison, he had found a way to regenerate his body as long as the drive existed.

Naruto and Cammy had no idea of his past battles, but Cammy knew absolutely who this was.

"Master Bison." She said, stiffening up in a bit of trepidation at facing off with her former master, who seemed to be crackling with pure power all around him.

"What a busy, busy day." Bison remarked as he levitated out of the Psycho Drive room calmly, landing on the ground in front of Naruto and Cammy. He then noticed all twelve of his Dolls standing behind them, "Welcome home Killer Bee. And you've shown me just how incompetent my concept of the Dolls were. They aren't murdering Naruto Uzumaki as I speak. That's a problem."

"They're not under your control anymore asshole!" Naruto shouted at him, using bravado to mask his own consternation at the man he was facing. He hadn't felt such unbridled killing intent come from someone so naturally since standing against Orochimaru during his two run-ins with him. But just like those times he could grit his way through it. He wasn't some weak little boy either, "You're that Bison guy that tried to have me killed and have Karin kidnapped, right?"

Bison at first ignored Naruto's words in exchange for just staring at Naruto and inspecting the power that he could feel within him, centralized around the young man's belly; the source of that wonderfully powerful red energy that Vega wasn't dominant enough to handle. But instead of a mere sample, within Naruto sat the whole thing, whatever it was.

"Within you sits something… beautifully intense." Bison said with a smirk, reaching an arm out in Naruto's direction and getting the boy to take a step back, "I've seen what a small sample of it can do. I wonder just what you're capable of… when you let it out." His solid white eyes began generating power to them, "You my boy are infinitely more useful than these useless dullards you currently find yourself in the presence of."

"We're not useless." Cammy replied, angrily narrowing her eyes at her former master, "We're people too. I'm not a tool."

"You're right!" Bison snapped at her, his booming voice echoing through the room, "You're not even a tool because a tool is only as good as the person using it, and you've all failed to live up to the reason I recruited you!"

'Recruited?' That was what he referred to it as? He said it as if he had put up a poster and those girls answered the call. The bastard, "You mean kidnapped!" Naruto yelled right back at Bison, not backing up another step, "You stole all of these girls from their homes! You murdered their families and turned them into robots just to kill for you!" Bison laughed at Naruto's heartfelt berating, and that wasn't exactly the reaction that Naruto was going for, "What the hell's so funny?"

"You're mostly right." Bison said, calming himself down from his laughing fit, "I did take all twelve of the girls behind you. I didn't kidnap the one next to you though. Killer Bee is… different from the others I should say." He placed a hand on his chest and grinned at her, "She's from me after all."

Cammy's jaw dropped and Naruto's eyes widened as he looked between the two of them, "Wait, she's your daughter? I think I was better off not knowing that." How something so cute could come from whatever Bison was… he didn't need to be informed of that fact.

"Not my daughter. No woman is worthy to bear my offspring." Bison arrogantly declared, "And any blood related child of mine would only be a monumental disappointment that could never live up to my glory. No, Killer Bee was different. Only here existing, meant to become my next body once this one finished breaking down from the might of my Psycho Power. But now she's useless, just like the rest of these disposable girls. And she'll have to be dealt with as such."

His rant was stopped when he had to lift a hand to casually block a punch aimed at his face directly from Naruto. Observation would note that his blue eyes were raging in anger at how he was casually dismissing the right of Cammy and the other girls just to exist.

On the other hand, Cammy was nearly beside herself in shock at this point, 'That's it? Everything I've ever done… it was meaningless. Having a name at all was worthless. The only thing I was ever supposed to be was Master Bison's shell.' It was a hard revelation to come to terms with, knowing that the detestable training and years of doing nothing but traversing the world to kill at Bison's orders were just because he hadn't deemed it time yet to take her body.

She had been thinking about herself a lot over the last few weeks since Dhalsim had scrambled her programming and had awakened her. It was times like that when she thought that maybe she was better off without self-awareness. Times like that when she thought that having emotions simply wasn't worth having the weight that was sitting in her chest at that moment.

"You need to shut your mouth already." Naruto growled out, nothing but pure venom in his voice at the man that had his fist in a rather tight and increasingly crushing grip, "Maybe Cammy would have ended up being your next body or whatever you called it, and maybe now that she won't follow your every order anymore she's not important to you now. But she isn't disposable and she isn't useless. None of these girls are! They're human beings!"

"And human beings are useless creatures!" Bison exclaimed, blowing Naruto away with a sheer expelling of his Psycho Power, sending it out in a purple torrent that knocked Naruto down and sent him sprawling across the floor, "Look at the lot of those vapid little girls there and tell me with a straight face that they have any use or benefit to mankind! No, their only use was to do my bidding, and now they aren't even any good in that regard! So thank your sister Killer Bee girls, because her busybody meddling with your programming is the reason you're all going to die!"

He started building power, intent on eradicating the sitting duck Dolls until they all got a look at his eyes and like a switch was flipped they all sprang into attacking Bison at once before he could muster an attack against them to kill them. Another anger-induced blast of his Psycho Power blew them all away before they could reach him, sending the twelve girls flying all across the room.

It came as a surprise to him that the Dolls attacked him, but after taking a moment to think about it he found that it did make some sense, "...The instinct to survive I guess… even the lowliest beings on this planet possess it."

Cammy kneeled down by two of the fallen girls that hadn't landed very well at all after Bison's authoritative show of force, trembling a bit as all he could see was her back, "…I'll never forgive you."

"What was that?" He taunted, feigning ignorance at what she had just said, "The words of an empty golem of a girl don't mean very much to me I'm afraid. You'll have to repeat yourself."

"I said I'll never forgive you!" Cammy stood up and turned around with an enraged look on her face and tears building in her eyes. She then did something that she never would have dreamed of doing in her life a short number of weeks ago. She gathered herself into her fighting stance and faced off against Bison.

The militaristic man merely laughed out loud until he felt a rather strong presence walk itself up next to Cammy to stand alongside her; Naruto. Naruto with his eyes red, and an orange aura burning around his entire body, cloaking him in it, "That feeling that you're feeling right now…" Naruto said to the girl at his side, "That's anger if you didn't know." He then glared over at Bison who seemed more amused than anything else that the two of them were going to fight him at once, and with the Kyuubi's power nonetheless, "The feeling he's about to be feeling after we're through with him… that's gonna be pain."

"No." Cammy said, shaking her head once as she cleared the tears that had been forming in her eyes, "I don't think people feel pain when they're dead."

"You two can't kill me." Bison said, standing in his own fighting stance with his power billowing as he decided not to even mess around when dealing with Naruto's red power as he had seen firsthand during his battle with Vega, "There isn't a force on this mortal plane that can kill me for certain. I doubt that a malfunctioning Doll and a single no-name boy can do it."

"We'll see."

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: M. Bison  
><span>Nationality:<span> Unknown  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 35 (April 17)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'11/254 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> A  
><span>Likes:<span> Dominating the world, obedience, his own power.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Weak people, useless soldiers, incompetent underlings.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Hypnosis  
><span>Rivals:<span> Chun-Li, Guile, Charlie, Cammy, Ryu.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Psycho Power-infused self made fighting style  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Psycho Crusher, Psycho Shot, Scissor Kick, Head Press, Devil Reverse, Bison Warp.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Knee Press Nightmare, Ultimate Psycho Crusher, Nightmare Booster, Psycho Punisher.  
><span>Background:<span> A self-seeking villain motivated by his own lust for power and domination of everything, Bison is an unfeeling and vicious dictator willing to do and kill anything he needs to in order to get supreme control of the world. Bison has no respect for human life with his constant use of physical experimentation to better his underlings that he sees as nothing more than pawns, and while he demands complete obedience and loyalty from all beneath him he shows absolutely none to them in return. He routinely uses blackmail, brainwashing, vulgar displays of force, and terrorism to get what he wants, reveling in the fear that those privy to his name often show. Due to the advanced and extremely devastating power at his command in Psycho Power (only enhanced by the creation of the Psycho Drive) he fancies himself as a god, but despite his outright strength that many consider immeasurable he has many dirty tricks and devices to make the best use of his abilities and intellect.

Name: Charlie Nash  
><span>Nationality:<span> U.S.A.  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 28 (June 19)  
><span>HeightWeight: 6'1/185 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> AB  
><span>Likes:<span> Justice, scotch.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Injustice.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Harrier maintenance, psychology.  
><span>Rivals:<span> M. Bison, Guile (friendly).  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Special Forces Military Training  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Sonic Boom, Somersault Kick.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Somersault Justice, Crossfire Blitz, Sonic Break.  
><span>Background:<span> A first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, Charlie is also a member of a secret military team and was dispatched undercover under the guise of going AWOL to deal with the Shadaloo problem with no borders or barriers of protocol to stop him. Trained initially as a pilot in the air force, he is confident and unlike his friend Guile he is markedly calmer under duress. One of the recognized most powerful fighters in the Americas, he is oftentimes a subject of 'fantasy booking' by rabid fighting fans that wish to see him go one on one with Ken Masters due to Charlie being the last man to win the U.S. Open Fighting Tournament before Ken did, Charlie having not entered due to his beginning trouble with Shadaloo. Due to his repeated run-ins with the organization he has a strong hatred for Shadaloo and especially the leader M. Bison.

Name: Guile  
><span>Nationality:<span> U.S.A.  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 29 (December 23)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'11½/189½ lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> O  
><span>Likes:<span> Coffee, American automobiles, John Wayne movies, his hair, his family.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> N/A  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Air Force Fighting Tournaments  
><span>Rivals:<span> None  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Special Forces Military Training and brawling  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Sonic Boom, Flash Kick.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Double Flash, Sonic Hurricane, Flash Explosion.  
><span>Background:<span> Guile is an extremely tough martial artist with something of a streak as a hothead, extremely loyal to the U.S. military. Trained by his senior teammate, best friend, and superior officer Charlie in how to execute his specialized techniques, Guile has his own way of performing them which while effective lacks the technical proficiency that Charlie exhibits when fighting. While on a mission in Thailand, he was captured along with Charlie, convincing them both that there was an inside man in the U.S. military that had informed their enemy. While Charlie took on a 'whatever it takes' mindset in dealing with the problem, until recently Guile went by the books until realizing that fighting Shadaloo in such a way would not work. Guile's impressive hairstyle is fixed up with a special-order hair spray to allow it to keep shape. This is something that Charlie makes fun of him for quite often.

* * *

><p><strong>Oh no, it looked like victory was well in hand, but Bison regenerated himself after Ryu's Shinkuu Hadoken with the help of the Psycho Drive making his powers stronger. Oh lord what is they gon' do?<strong>

**Well I already know the answer to that question, but that's not important!**

**What is important is that this chapter is complete and I can get back to getting my real world ducks all in a row. Now if you'll excuse me I've got to learn a shit-ton of things about what microphones to use in certain kinds of broadcasts and I've got to finish editing a 60 second promotional spot that I've got to shave 20 seconds off of before Friday and rewrite the script for it.**

**If you guys know anything about timing in broadcasting you know that 20 seconds off is a ton of time for any kind of commercial to be off (three seconds is actually a ton of time off). It's totally unacceptable, and Kenchi618 only accepts perfection because I'm probably going to wind up getting paid for work like that in the future!**

**Kenchi out!**

**God I need a nap!**


	17. Unlimited

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I don't own a six-pack either and it's pissing me off. It's like I'm genetically unable to develop visible abdominal muscles after four years of trying. I'm trying to get all cut up for summer here damn it. I'm so sick of situps...

What was I talking about again?

**Chapter 17: Unlimited**

* * *

><p>Outside of the Shadaloo base's limits, Ryu, Sakura, Ken, Charlie, and Guile were picking up the pieces of the latter two injured servicemen and had managed to make it well within the base while fending off the Shadaloo soldiers that were still sticking around to fight them.<p>

"Fucking cockroach!" Guile shouted, taking cover behind a jeep as gunfire burst into the sides of the vehicle alongside Sakura who had been hiding there first, "He ran away? He survived Ryu's strongest attack and he got away?"

Sakura nodded, taking a minute to peer out and see if it was safe. It in fact wasn't. She let out an 'eep' as she narrowly avoided getting a bullet put through her pretty little forehead, "It was impossible. He took the whole thing, stayed standing, and then he just teleported away. Who can do things like that?" Bison was barely a human being, but was he really immortal?

From the blindsides of the soldiers firing at Guile and Sakura's place of cover, a bombardment of Sonic Boom attacks blasted off of them from Charlie who had recovered enough to do the lion's share of the fighting once more. Behind him, Ken had a thoroughly exhausted Ryu over one shoulder, walking for his white gi clad best friend as they moved into the base, "I can still feel his presence saturating this place though." Ken said as Charlie's swift ranged attacks decimated the troops coming their way.

"Where's Chun-Li?" Charlie asked after ending his barrage of Sonic Booms, "She and the two blonde kids were supposed to be planting the explosives. Are you telling me they're not done yet?" His question was drowned out and replaced curiosity in his heart with alarm when he heard the sounds of a large vehicle's engine roaring, "Oh damn it!"

And right on cue, a large military truck sped into view around the main base building. Instead of beginning to stop in order to let off more troops to start firing at the lot of them the way that they had all anticipated it would, the truck started running down the Shadaloo soldiers, terrorizing them away from the area before turning around and sliding to a stop in front of the interlopers.

The driver's side door flew open to reveal a smiling and cheerful Chun-Li behind the wheel, "Hello, hello, hello. You all look like hell." She then noticed Ryu, Ken, and Sakura. She had not met the former two, and only knew slightly of Sakura by extension of Naruto, "What are they all doing here?"

"Long story." Guile said in relief at seeing the large vehicle being driven by the young Chinese woman, "Now move over, I'm driving." Chun-Li rolled her eyes and hopped out of the cabin of the truck and looked in the direction of the soldiers that seemed to be rethinking their situation.

"Where are the kids?" Charlie asked Chun-Li as she hopped out of the truck. She turned and looked at him owlishly at his question, "What happened?"

Chun-Li's head whipped back towards the main building of the base fearfully, "They didn't make it out yet? All they were supposed to do was plant explosives at one other important room and then leave. They should have beaten me out because I had to find something for all of us to get out of here in."

Sakura placed a hand on the woman's shoulder, "Well that's okay. I'm sure they're fine. They'll be out in a bit." It wasn't like Naruto and Cammy were inadequate or daft. Well… Naruto wasn't _too_ daft. Not about things like fighting and working anyway. Her words did little to soothe Chun-Li though.

"No, no… the explosives are set with a timer." She dreadfully said in return, "We had to get away from here in a hurry because of all of the soldiers and weapons they've got. I spared twenty minutes to grab a vehicle and get everyone out of here."

And they were still inside?

From his place on Ken's shoulder, Ryu's eyes widened. If he were a military leader that had just gotten maimed and nearly obliterated just outside of his base where would he teleport to after that? Well first he'd teleport to the other side of the world, but he knew for a fact that Bison's warp range was incredibly limited. Thus he would have left to go his inner sanctum to heal.

Tensing up noticeably, Ryu let out a tired grunt, "If they're inside… then Bison is with them. He has to be. He didn't escape in any vehicle yet, I can still sense him somewhere around here." That thought alarmed Chun-Li, but not the others so much as they had seen Ryu nearly blow Bison to kingdom come. Even if he was inside, Naruto and Cammy could deal with someone knocking on death's door the way that he was.

If they ran into him it would only take a second to end it.

Right?

XxX

(Naruto/Cammy vs. M. Bison – Inside the Shadaloo Base – Psycho Drive Chamber)

Going straight to his creepy red firepower? Bison liked that. His body still felt the aches and pains of his miscalculation against Ryu a few minutes earlier, but thanks to the regeneration abilities of his Psycho Drive he felt that he still had more than enough within him to toy with Naruto for a bit and break Cammy and the other unconscious Dolls.

Naruto realized that he was standing in front of someone staggeringly strong. It had been a very, very long time since he had stood before someone that he could just feel was stronger than him… and that was with his chakra cloak going. But he had help after all, even though Cammy looked just as nervous as he was as she stood at his side.

Well being nervous wouldn't do her any good. Maybe some brazen straightforward action could get some swagger beneath her. Aside from that he'd be damned if he'd let someone as strong as Bison make the first move on him.

Thus Naruto attacked.

Bombarding him with clones would do no good. He had seen as much already when the Dolls had been easily repelled in one move, so he had to be smarter about how he fought. And that meant that he needed to see just what the man was capable of.

Okay… he could use a few clones for that.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Five clones popped into existence in front of the original Naruto and Cammy before two charged forward with three backing them up.

Bison merely crossed his arms over his chest and chuckled before flickering purple and disappearing from sight. Naruto's eyes widened before he found himself tackled out of the way of what would have been a stomp that would have cracked some bones, as Bison dropped from the sky and narrowly missed him. Bison found the confused look that Naruto's misdirected clones gave him condescendingly adorable, "I've seen this technique of yours already. Killer Bee reported to me on it and I watched it firsthand when you fought Vega."

Cammy pulled Naruto up from the ground as the young man dispelled his clones. If they were useless for now in a direct attack he'd just have to find a way to work them in later for a sneak assault. That teleport move though, it didn't have much warning to it before it made him switch places. And it wasn't like the Shunshin no Jutsu that Naruto had seen strong ninja use and had tried to reverse-engineer the method to. He was really jumping from place to place.

But he noticed that there was a subtle warning that would occur before it happened. Thus he would be ready for it the very next time that it occurred.

"Thanks." Naruto said to Cammy as the two stood off against Bison once more, "I didn't think he'd go straight to me with my clones still up and around."

Cammy nodded in acknowledgment of his thanks, "Why would he waste time defeating your clones when he could just kill you directly and end it there?" Naruto didn't have an answer to that question, but it wasn't like Cammy stuck around to get one anyway as she chose to try her hand with attacking Bison after watching Naruto try.

Apparently Cammy had trained and had gotten faster since their last fight, because her short-range speed was even better than the last time. A blue and blond blur streaked towards Bison before punching at him with her wicked looking red gauntleted fist.

Bison casually caught the punch in the palm of his hand and grinned at the petite teenage girl as he squeezed down on it. Cammy gasped and pulled her hand away when she heard her gauntlet begin to groan and crack under the pressure of his grip. Not choosing to end her endeavor with a retreat, Cammy jumped back and then leapt at Bison, curled and spinning through the air to disorient.

She ghosted over him when he had been expecting an aerial attack and landed behind him, instantly sliding towards the back of his legs with a kicking tackle. Despite this effort, Bison merely hovered off of the ground just over her attempt to knock him down. A fancy little trick, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.

His overconfidence would bite him as while he knew how Cammy fought, she also knew more than a few things about him. When she slid underneath the hovering Bison, Cammy grabbed onto his feet and pulled him down to the ground before handspringing into the air for a straight-legged diving kick, "Cannon Strike!"

Bison grit his teeth angrily and teleported, making Cammy miss and crack the ground with the force of her pointed kick. She let out an irritated 'tch' before looking to where Naruto seemed to be standing around waiting, "Don't stand still when Master Bison teleports!"

The reason why became clear when Bison reappeared directly behind Naruto where he chopped at Naruto's neck, intending on decapitating him. The contact made and the give of Naruto's neck breaking was satisfying to the evil man, but when he disappeared in smoke, Bison realized that he had been hoodwinked.

It was even clearer when he turned and had to contort his body out of the way of a barrage of shuriken thrown his way from Naruto. He seemed almost offended that he had been fooled by the sleight of hand.

But Naruto was no combat dummy. Bison had already teleported in front of his sight multiple times. Whenever he was about to vanish, his entire body flickered purple for one complete second. It took him a second to build the power he needed to teleport. Well hell, a second was all he needed to bring his fingers up for a Kage Bunshin and prepare a Kawarimi simultaneously.

He used those techniques almost religiously at this point in his life, in conjunction a lot of the time, and practice made perfect.

Yeah, let his clone take the attack meant for him, especially since there was nothing in the room to switch with otherwise. Meanwhile the real Naruto would see Bison reappear from elsewhere and would counterattack accordingly.

This time he wasn't given the opportunity to do so when Bison teleported again, reappearing in the air. Naruto instantly created two clones and threw them both at Bison who punched them both out of the air before they could body-tackle him. He looked back down at Naruto and for some reason saw Cammy confusedly standing in place where he had been just a moment before. Looking at where he thought Cammy was, he saw Naruto cock his head back with his mouth open as he inhaled deeply.

"Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!"

Naruto licked off a shot of pure chakra at Bison who extended one had to block it just as it exploded off of him. The smoke from the blast cleared to reveal that Naruto had dealt burns and cuts to Bison's arm with his attack, also burning off the sleeve of his uniform up past the elbow with the Kyuubi's chakra intensifying his move. The man did not look pained though. More annoyed, "Is that the best you can do? I saw more power than this against Vega. If this is the best you're willing to try against me then I'll kill you now for such insolence."

In his hand he formed a basketball-sized orb of sick, rippling purple energy that felt as dangerous as it looked. But instead of Naruto, he threw it at Cammy. His anger at her for her little tricky maneuver that had actually put his back to the ground far outweighed how he felt about Naruto sandbagging his power thus far. All he needed to fix the latter was to show Naruto how helpless he was in the face of his might, and killing Cammy would accomplish just that.

"Psycho Shot!" With nothing but bad intentions behind it, the purple energy ball flew at Cammy who was finally aware of her surroundings once more though still confused as to how Naruto got her there the way he did. She jumped out of the way of the blast, but it slammed into the wall and blew it apart, knocking her away with the concussive force and dealing her cuts from the tile debris that flew away in her direction.

Cammy slid across the smooth floor on her side before coming to a stop when Naruto caught her and scooped her up, but perhaps the attempt at chivalry should have just been allowed to die as Bison leapt into the air and landed perfectly, seemingly gliding over to double-stomp on top of the standing Naruto's head.

The sudden pressure on Naruto's neck that was just as quickly gone from Bison's stomp snapped Naruto's head down and back up as he staggered momentarily, almost dropping the recovering Cammy back to the hard, unforgiving ground had he not found his equilibrium once more. And find it he did, only to see a darkly grinning Bison standing right in front of him before punching him hard enough to knock him through the air, slamming his back against another wall.

Naruto suddenly exhaled with the wind rushing out of his body along with some blood at the impact, though he still held onto Cammy, keeping her from taking any damage before he fell and slumped against the wall on the ground, "Ugh…" He let go of Cammy once she made to stand up and started getting up himself. If he had been punched any harder his ability to heal might not have mattered because he could have been killed.

"Thanks." Cammy said stiffly, angry at herself for getting hit and requiring saving. It wound up in Naruto getting injured, as the intensity of Bison's Psycho Power enhanced punch had burned a fist-shaped hole through the chest of Naruto's fighting gear. Through the mesh shirt underneath, a deep bloody bruise sat beneath it that was healing as fast as it could, 'He really is durable.'

Bison blew on his fist as if it were a smoking gun and chuckled as he could see the wound on Naruto's body heal. Very impressive. It made the recovery that Vega showed look like it had been going at a snail's pace, "I wonder… I'm curious. If I severed a limb, could you grow it back?"

"Fuck no!" Naruto shouted angrily. He wasn't some goddamned guinea pig to sate Bison's curiosity on him powers. This man just kept doing more and more to upset him, and it showed when his chakra cloak turned red and somewhat solidified into a bubbling, complete outline with a long tail at the end of it and ears to resemble a fox profile.

'This is what beat Vega.' Bison thought as he observed the intense nature of Naruto's raging chakra. Even Cammy took an involuntary step away from him. Naruto's entire overall presence jumped up well past beyond that of a normal human's. While she felt fear that she couldn't identify at it, Bison was getting more excited at getting to face him, 'So there are levels. Is there a level beyond this one?'

His thoughts didn't have much time to percolate within his head because Naruto was officially on the warpath as his chakra tail lashed out at Bison. The rangy maneuver didn't hit him directly as Bison got his arms up and dug his feet in, taking the hit only to slide back a few feet in a trench his feet carved in the tile floor. Naruto's chakra tail wrapped around one of his arms though and used him as an anchor to pull Naruto forward towards him with intent to maim.

"Psycho Shot!" Bison quickly used his free hand to fire another surging purple ball of energy at Naruto, watching it explode off of the advancing boy's body. But it did nothing to stop him from being propelled forward, and Bison fell prey to a skull-spinning shot to the face courtesy of Naruto.

And another Naruto.

And another.

As over a dozen of Naruto's started pummeling Bison with body rattling punches that would have rendered a normal human being to tenderized hamburger, "Uzumaki Naruto Mugen Rendan (Naruto Uzumaki Infinite Combo)!"

A cacophonous symphony of fists smacking off of Bison's frame rang out in the empty room. Punch after punch from the Kage Bunshin brigade kept Bison airborne as they kept taking shots at him, and they weren't giving him a single second to teleport away from the danger of being surrounded.

Eventually though, the attack ran out of steam and Naruto's clones dispelled, leaving the original alone as Bison's body fell to the ground, "How's that for a super combo? Did you count all of those hits?" As if watching someone rise from the dead, at that moment, Bison immediately rose back to his feet, "No way! I just beat you like a piñata! Stay down!" He had to have hurt him badly. There was no way he could just stand up to that kind of a beatdown. Naruto began forming a Rasengan to finish Bison the way he had finished Vega.

At the same time Bison began radiating more and more Psycho Power and began drawing large amounts of power from his Psycho Drive that was within easy sight of him. The telltale sign of this was the glowing of Bison's metal shoulder pads that began generating black electricity from them, "You've got guts! Let's see what they look like! Psycho Crusher!" A spinning purple drilling torpedo sped towards Naruto before he could put the finishing touches of the Kyuubi's chakra to the Vermillion Rasengan.

A direct hit landed against Naruto who was protected enough by the chakra shroud to keep from being ripped apart, akin to a suit of armor. But the Psycho Crusher still put him clean through the thick and durable wall meant to handle any Psycho Drive backlash.

Bison's driving of Naruto's entire body straight through the wall, creating a massive hole to the hall outside got Cammy's jaw to drop in horror. It looked like he had killed him, "Naruto! Oh God…" The sounds of debris falling and clattering through the holes that had been knocked three extra walls further than just out into the hall outside of the Psycho Drive sanctum rumbled as seconds had passed and not another disturbance could be heard.

It was getting scary. Cammy rushed towards the hole in the wall to find out just what was going on, only for Naruto to be hurled back into the room through another hole in the wall like a ragdoll. A ragdoll with two chakra tails now instead of one.

Striding back into the room of black tile, pipes, and wires that lay just outside of his precious Psycho Drive room, Bison was smirking at the destruction he had wrought even if it was on his own base. On his face lay several new deep slashes from Naruto's elongated nails as there were on his body that had shredded his uniform to bloody tatters. He didn't seem to mind it at all though, "I was right… he can get even stronger. Not that it's enough though. But it's still very intriguing."

He saw Naruto beginning to get back up and teleported into the air before dropping in a double stomp onto Naruto's back before he jumped off of him and soccer kicked him in the torso, sending him flying across the room again.

A sudden kick to his neck stopped him from stalking over to Naruto again to see just how much abuse the young man's body could take before it gave out. His eyes turned to the limb planted against the side of his neck, noticing the brown boot of Cammy as the source of the attack, "Do you think you can really hurt me with something like that Killer Bee? You know better than that."

"Shut up!" Cammy raised her other leg and planted the bottom of her foot off of Bison's face with force, pushing herself off of him so that she could backflip and land on the ground. But when she did he was standing right in front of her where he shot a nasty upward kick straight into her body that lifted her up into the air on the end of his foot. She let out a cough even as she was posted up in the air by her stomach, "Y-You're a monster. Do you know that?"

Bison sneered at his former loyal little femme fatale. He was not going to have his creation talk to him in such a manner. Thus he wheeled around and slammed his leg to the ground with Cammy still on the end of it, bringing her right down with it brutally. Her small blue military cap floated to the ground from where it was cast off of her head.

She let out a pained cry and writhed on the ground accordingly, "If I'm a monster then what does that make you? Just a piece of a monster." Bison pressed his hand to his own chest for emphasis, "You my dear are merely an experiment, infused with a touch of my power with great care to prepare you to hold the awesome might of my soul's Psycho Power once my current form no longer is able to hold up containing it."

Cammy jumped back up to her feet and attacked Bison furiously only to be blocked at every turn. It was absolutely maddening for her. At least Naruto was able to hit him and hurt him. Gritting her teeth in a bit of anger, Cammy threw a hard kick that once again was guarded against by Bison, only it knocked him back a few feet. Apparently surprised by the strength behind it, Bison narrowed his eyes on her.

It even surprised her that she managed to budge him to that extent when he had even been fully braced for it. It was then that she realized she had been fighting foolishly. While it wouldn't be nearly enough to match, she did have her own touch of Psycho Power within her to use to try and lessen the gap.

While she was apprehensive about using it, if Naruto could feel comfortable using his own strange red energy she could stomach using the little bit of power within herself. If nothing else she had to try, "Lock on…" Cammy lunged forward with her legs outstretched straight as she spun like a screw through the air, her legs coated in the unwanted energy that lay within her.

But for right now it would be what fueled and powered her fastest technique, making it her most devastating sudden attack to use as well. Bison was no fool and knew that he had to block or else he would have been in quite a bit of trouble. He was easily able to do so, outright overpowering Cammy's Spiral Arrow with his own imposing force.

She was not done however, as she contorted her body mid-move to place her hands onto the ground where she kicked up at Bison, driving her boot directly under his chin around his guard. She rose into the air along with him with the kick and made to wrap her legs around his head where she flipped back and slammed him on the top of his head on the ground with a crash, "Gyro Drive Smasher! Finish!"

The sheer amount of oomph she had to put behind her every motion to move Bison even a foot was considerable. It was like trying to budge a granite statue. But she got him. She nailed him with the crux of her combination and he would definitely be waking up with a stiff neck once it was all said and done, if he ever woke up again.

She doubted he would.

And that left her attention to turn towards Naruto who in the few seconds it had taken her to attack Bison managed to stand back up, still with his two-tailed chakra cloak up. As she approached him she was still rather wary of him and chose not to get too close, "Are you alright Naruto?"

Every so often Naruto would twitch from the discomfort of using the Kyuubi's chakra to that extent, but he managed a stiff nod regardless. He was still the one in full control. No angry bloodlust clouding his judgment past the norm due to his self-control. That was good. All of that training by himself in the mountains outside of Aohura City's limits to be able to reach and maintain a second tail's worth of the viscous chakra was well earned. He just hoped he wouldn't have to go any further because he wasn't sure if his limit could hold up

Still, Cammy was rather freaked out. Understandable because Naruto was on all fours, hands and feet touching the floor like some kind of animal.

In a flicker of purple energy, Bison appeared directly between the two, much to Cammy's surprise as she had never even felt him stand back up and Naruto hadn't seen him. Prioritizing Naruto as the one that was more dangerous, he grabbed Cammy by the back of the neck in a crushing grip and held her up in front of Naruto.

It was just short of both of Naruto's chakra tails engulfing him to tear him asunder, but he would have been doing the same to Cammy as well. The angry look in Naruto's eyes at having yet another comrade used against him in some way by Shadaloo was seriously wearing on his nerves, and when using the Kyuubi's chakra that was the last thing anyone wanted to do to him.

Bison's eyes lit up in interest as the whites of Naruto's eyes began to turn pure red and his chakra cloak began bubbling more intensely. His chakra was beginning to get so intense that the tile on the floor started melting beneath his feet, "And yet you have even more you haven't shown me?" His grin turned positively malicious as his own body exploded with waves and waves of Psycho Power, "So do I!"

His grip intensified exponentially and left Cammy desperately clutching at his hand around her neck, trying in vain to pry it off as he brutally choked her and attempted to snap her vertebrae.

"Die!" From the floor beneath Bison, a third chakra tail erupted and grabbed him around the ankle before pulling him underneath the floor, forcing him to drop Cammy to the ground. Naruto's third chakra tail dragged Bison through the underside of the floor, ripping up a trench in it before pulling him up and whipping him around where it hurled him straight into a wall hard enough to crack it from floor-to-ceiling and corner-to-corner.

Bison coughed blood and stood still facing the three-tail using Naruto who was staring and growling at him hatefully, "All that power and no control! It's pathetic! You're like a mindless beast!"

Well he had enough control to know that Bison was the person he wanted to render to a fine red paste, and that was all Naruto needed in his mind if he were able to think straight at that point. Naruto opened his mouth and let out a deafening roar that forced his pressurized red chakra out in a horrible shockwave that tore apart the floors, the surface of the walls, started bringing down the ceiling, and started cutting into pipes and severing wires, causing sparks and steam to fly all over.

Bison found himself pressed against the ruined wall behind him with crushing force. Despite the pain and the debris flying all about he grew angrier and angrier himself at Naruto's insolence. His uniform was rendered to tatters and his hat had been long since lost, showing his short slicked back dark hair that was very disheveled at this point.

He had not been honing his abilities for decades to be outclassed by some barbarian of a brat. His full-body aura turned black and dark purple instead of its usual light purple color and began radiating stronger and stronger from him, eventually crumbling the wall and pushing him out from Naruto's roar.

But Naruto didn't stop, and it looked like he was intent on bringing the entire building down as he continued to wail and expel chakra. But that all changed in a matter of moments.

"Final Psycho Crusher!" Bison came crashing back into the entire building, his entire body streaking at Naruto like a rocket or a meteor, complete with afterburners and atmospheric resistance, "I'll kill you, Killer Bee, the Dolls, and the other intruders as well! You're nothing to me!" A Psycho Crusher five times as powerful and encompassing slammed into the shockwave generated by Naruto's ongoing roar.

The human drill of Psycho Power punched a hole straight through the red outpouring of chakra and caused a massive explosion that blew apart the vast majority of the top of the Shadaloo base's main building.

XxX

(With the Others – Outside of the Shadaloo Base Main Building)

The top of the entire building getting blown apart clearly didn't go without notice to anyone.

All of the Shadaloo soldiers posted in front of it firing their weapons at the Interpol party were distracted with the blast and with the dodging of large chunks of brick and metal that fell to the ground from above. Thus they quickly fell prey to the able-bodied fighters that took them down within seconds.

"I thought you said you had the explosives wired to blow after twenty minutes! We've still got eight minutes left!" A limping Guile said as he walked up to the young Chinese woman, flanked by the battle-weary Charlie and Sakura. Ryu was still on Ken's shoulder due to his outright exhaustion from all of the things he had been through, leaving Chun-Li as the healthiest of the lot of them.

"That wasn't from my C4 dumbass." Chun-Li said, shooting a quick glare at Guile, "There wasn't a bit of fire in that explosion and if that blew up then everything else I set around this place would have gone up too. I triggered it all for twenty minutes."

Sakura tried squinting but there was too much dust from the ruined building materials clouding the scene of the blast for her to make anything out. Not only that, but it was high enough that she couldn't see anything past the edge, "I can't see anything. I think the entire top floor is gone." That was scary. And Naruto and Cammy were in the middle of that? Not for the first time, Sakura wished she could scale a wall like Naruto could.

Ryu got in touch with his senses and cringed at the smothering atmosphere that engulfed the area. Not only was it saturated with Bison's evil energy, but another powerful one as well… one that had a signature at its core that reminded him of Naruto.

It couldn't be that he was tapping into that supply that lay within him could he?

And just like that it was gone. The air seemed clear of malevolent presence. So was whatever happening up there over?

XxX

(Destroyed Top Floor of Shadaloo Base Main Building – Naruto/Cammy vs. M. Bison)

The shock of Naruto going all-out and exuding three tails of chakra managed to snap the Dolls out of their unconscious state and let them leave the Psycho Drive sanctum just as Naruto's chakra shockwave began tearing it asunder. They had also taken the time to assist Cammy as well as she was not exactly in top condition, but they had managed to evacuate the area before Naruto and Bison's clash.

Not that it mattered too much when the entire top floor of the building was leveled. It didn't matter which room they were in when it happened if it wasn't anywhere downstairs, because every bit of it felt the sudden outburst of their combined energies.

It was all just a pile of rubble up there, with the very glaring exception of the bulky Psycho Drive machine and the frame of the annex that it had been placed in surrounding it. That damn thing was seriously well made.

Cammy stood up as did the other Dolls, dusting themselves off and wiping the smudges from their faces as they looked around for any sign of the two combatants from before, "Killer Bee, do you believe any of them survived?" Juli asked, much to Cammy's surprise.

"You aren't in a haze anymore?" That came as a pleasant surprise to Cammy. So now they were starting to think a bit. Juli's nod confirmed this much. They were probably taking things in the same manner she had. It took her a bit before she was able to start stringing things together outside of the basic ways of self-operation herself, "I… don't know."

"Do you think they killed each other?"

"Naruto Uzumaki's strength was surprising."

"Where did their energies go? I can't feel Uzumaki or Master Bison at all."

Oh, so now the Dolls were chatty. Well stake curiosity as the first thing the girls felt apparently, because they were expressing it in droves with their monotone questioning.

Amidst all of this, elsewhere on what used to be the top floor a rather large slab of rubble that used to be part of a wall was flipped over to reveal Naruto in his tattered and beaten up fighting gear. Even his mesh armor undershirt had very large holes all in it, and the necklace given to him by Tsunade back in his world was still prominently on display around his neck underneath it all.

"Ugh…" Naruto groaned as he was caked in his own blood and grime from the previous destruction. The Kyuubi's chakra had receded when he possibly knocked himself unconscious momentarily (either he knocked himself unconscious or Bison did it during the explosion, he couldn't rightly remember, not that it mattered either way), "I don't… that was…" He didn't know quite what to say, not that there was anyone to speak to.

But from not too far away he saw Bison slinking towards the Psycho Drive. He had a noticeable limp and didn't quite look like the imposing, regal military megalomaniac that he had come off as when Naruto had first seen him.

All Naruto knew though, was that he and Cammy had discovered Bison when he had exited the Psycho Drive chamber, and now he was limping towards it like his life depended on it. Not today he wasn't. Naruto still had weapons on him and brandished a kunai that he let fly with enough accuracy to bury it in Bison's upper back.

The man howled in pain before pulling the knife out of his back and turning around to hatefully glare at Naruto, "You… can just die already!" He shouted as he started limping towards Naruto, but that limp turned into a berserk charge as his right hand flickered with what seemed to be his last dregs of Psycho Power, "Die!"

"You die!" Naruto shouted as he charged right at Bison as well. Though there wasn't much pep in his own step, unlike Bison he wasn't limping. And while he was just a touch short of running on an empty tank of gas so to speak, he still had all he needed to form a legitimate attack, "Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

The spinning blue orb held by the faster Naruto smashed right into Bison's chest, digging in for a moment before propelling him head over heels through the air. His body bounced off of the frame of the Psycho Drive chamber like a super-ball, the sound of his impact against the metal sounding off like a gong. His battered body flew back, falling to an uneasy rest on the ground.

Naruto walked over to Bison's motionless body as the previously observing Dolls and Cammy did the same. Naruto kept a wary eye on them, but Cammy gave him a look that told him that it was okay. Apparently with them being self-aware and with Bison's threat and follow-up attempt to kill them they knew well enough to let it be and refrained from attacking Naruto again. He wasn't their enemy.

That was good because he didn't know what he had left to give if he had to fight again.

A single kunai was drawn from Naruto's pouch as he drew nearer and heard Bison's labored breathing. All of the battles of the day were catching up to him. He had thoroughly exerted himself against Naruto and Cammy, and he had just recently repaired his body after having it decimated by Ryu earlier. If he could have just reached the platform of the Psycho Drive, then he could have began restoring himself again and replenishing his energy, something that Naruto couldn't do on the spot.

That was irrelevant though. Now he was unable to move from the devastation that Naruto's Rasengan dealt him, and said boy was stalking towards him with one of his black ninja knives intent on ending it all right then and there. But did he have the will to really go through with it.

From what he had seen during the battle, Naruto was unwilling to strike down an enemy at the cost of an ally. That was just perfect. He still had a chance yet.

A bloody cough came from Bison's lips as he grinned at the sight of Naruto standing over him with his kunai poised to finish the job as he grabbed a hand full of Bison's hair to hold his throat back. Oddly though, Bison didn't show any fear, as if he had another card up his sleeve, "Go ahead and kill me. I suppose you'll be digging thirteen other graves as well for the ladies with you."

"What?" Naruto stayed his blade just short of drawing its edge right across from ear to ear, "You didn't kill any of us. And when I kill you, you won't hurt anyone else ever again."

Bison's cackle was weak but was still mocking in its tone as he turned his solid white eyes to Cammy, "Killer Bee… you are a partial genetic clone of me as I've said already. Not only that, but the Dolls were also infused with a bit of my Psycho Power during the brainwashing process. I invested in a little failsafe in case my beloved bodyguards ever turned against me." His red-stained teeth shone through as he grinned, "If I die, due to my psychic meddling you'll die as well. We're connected you see."

Upon hearing that, Naruto abruptly let go of Bison's head and backed away from him. He let his kunai fall from his hand as he looked at all of the Dolls and their impassive stares. One man's death that needed to die in exchange for thirteen girls that never had a choice in the matter of how they lived.

'I… I can't kill him.' From Bison's victorious laughter, he obviously knew what Naruto was thinking. After all that. It wasn't like he could hand him over to be arrested either, because he'd be out in no time. He was strong enough to do so easily even without having an entire criminal organization at his back, 'But I have to. If I don't… who knows what'll happen?'

Naruto started looking from one of his hands to the other as if he were weighing the consequences of his possible actions next, but the abrupt collective cries of pain from the Dolls got him to turn around defensively only to see them all on the ground holding their heads in pain.

His gaze moved a bit further only to see Cammy on the ground in similar straits. Bison lay in the same place as before only with his lifeblood draining from his chest where his kunai was buried.

She did it?

Naruto walked over to Cammy and kneeled down by her as she was barely on her hands and knees, in obvious pain as she held her head and whimpered helplessly, "Cammy why? He said you were going to die if he-."

"I did things… terrible things." Cammy struggled to say in explanation, "We all did. It doesn't matter if we knew it at the time or not." Her strength finally gave out and she sank facedown onto the ground, "We killed so many people. Ruined so many lives. As long as he's dead… it doesn't matter if we are too."

"That's bullshit! One life isn't worth thirteen even if it is Bison's!" Naruto shouted angrily. Why was he powerless like this? In his rage he kicked repeatedly at Bison's lifeless body before picking him up by his collar and shaking him, "Goddamn you!" Naruto slammed his head forward into Bison's face with a vicious headbutt, "Wake up! Wake up so I can kill you again myself!"

He openly raged, but eventually stopped and started calming himself down as he threw Bison's body away like garbage. Not caring if his head and neck snapped violently off of the metal monster of the Psycho Drive. He wasn't going to respect that son of a bitch's corpse. He'd piss on it if it were the time or the place for it.

It just wasn't fair.

"…-cho Drive…"

Naruto could hear Cammy's voice and looked at her again to find her arm outstretched towards what was left of the Psycho Drive chamber and the large machine within it. He frowned in confusion, but realized that she wanted something with the Psycho Drive machine.

Scooping her up on his back, Naruto walked her into the frame of the machine and stood on top of a platform that seemed to be where Bison would place himself whenever he used the machine, "Why here?"

"This is what he uses when he brainwashes people." Cammy explained with her face twisted in pain, "I'm his clone and I have some Psycho Power, so maybe…" Biting back a pained cry, Cammy began trying to focus her energy the way she did whenever she utilized her Spiral Arrow attack. It was the only time she ever drew upon it.

It was a total long-shot of an approach. If Naruto were to take the realist approach he would say that he was horrified that he was about to watch thirteen sixteen year old girls die right in front of his eyes.

But then the Psycho Drive kickstarted.

Due to the damage that the room with the pipes and wires that held the task of stabilizing the machine had endured, mostly centered around the fact that the rood didn't exist anymore, sparks and dangerous bolts of electricity ripped and crackled from it all around them as Cammy's entire body glowed purple.

All of a sudden Cammy's body stopped involuntarily convulsing in pain and she went silent much to Naruto's alarm. He set her down and checked her over only to find her breathing evenly. Upon an observation of the other girls scattered around the ruined top floor it showed that they too were resting easily.

Naruto looked down at Cammy in surprise as he understood that she had merely chosen to wing it. She had been banking on the hopes that her composition as a clone made from part of Bison's genetic makeup and her installation of Psycho Power made her compatible with the machine, thus allowing her to will the mental connection between Bison and the Dolls away.

An astonished laugh left Naruto's throat before he stood back up and scratched his head, "She really did it…" He couldn't think of a time when he had formed the hand-seal for Kage Bunshin with any more relief in his system, "Alright, let's set the explosives for this stupid thing and get them all out of here."

XxX

The others had busied themselves with handily dispatching every last hapless Shadaloo soldier that had tried to put them down, managing to take out well over two hundred between all of them with the exception of Ryu and Guile as they were injured and exhausted.

Down at the front door of the base, the able-bodied members of the party took turns trying to blast the door open or to break open a wall, but it wasn't made of easily breakable material as they would come to find out, "What the hell is this base made of?" Ken mused. Breaking bricks was no sweat for him, but he was barely busting these at all, and he didn't even want to get started on that door, "Come on. We've got two minutes! We've got to-."

"Wooo!"

An even dozen Naruto clones came clamoring down the wall of the building, each one holding an unconscious Doll in their arms with huge victorious grins on their faces. They all looked like hell warmed over, but that didn't seem to matter too much to them.

The original descended a moment later with Cammy, still completely out of it on his back, "Killed him." He said plainly as if that explained everything.

Charlie's eyes widened in pure shock at what he had just heard, "You killed him? Him as in Bison?" Naruto nodded, only shocking him more, "All by yourself?"

The fellow blonde blinked in confusion before shrugging, "Well, Cammy and the Dolls helped. Oh, and Cammy's the one that actually killed him. It's a long story. Can we leave now?"

"Hell yes we can leave!" Chun-Li shouted from the military supply truck she had gotten behind the wheel of the moment that Naruto had shown himself to be alive. She pounded the metal door of the truck through the open window and hit the horn, "We've got two minutes left before we all die so load those girls up, hop in the back, and let's go!"

"NOT TODAY!"

From the air, a figure leapt down and crushed the entire hood of the truck, engine and all underneath their boots.

Everyone looked absolutely horrified at the sight, but Naruto was the first person to voice his own thoughts on the matter, "Stay dead like a normal person!" He shouted, feeling his fatigue come back ten-fold at the mere sight of a seemingly alive M. Bison, "You were dead! I felt it! You were bleeding out, you didn't have a pulse, you weren't breathing! Nothing, 'tebayo!"

He looked like he needed to be no place but in the hospital, but he was still standing and more importantly his body was producing Psycho Power again. Before he was killed he definitely didn't have anything left, and now he looked ready to fight yet again.

Chun-Li crawled out of the driver's side of the truck and fell to the ground, clutching an injured arm from where Bison had nearly crushed the cab, "Ah… I thought you said Cammy killed him."

Bison jumped down from where he had been on the hood of the truck and started stalking towards the others, "You can't kill me. It's simply impossible." He laughed loudly and looked at the unconscious Dolls, "When Killer Bee activated the Psycho Drive I was leaning against the outside of it. Thanks for that boy." He said to Naruto, "It's not much, but it gave me a jumpstart by mere contact."

He was dead. He was dead and Naruto basically enabled him to be defibrillated back to life when he chose to abuse the corpse of the wicked man. And they only had two minutes to get away, "I'll make sure you stay dead this time." Naruto said, though his shaky legs were telling another story. Just making the twelve clones to move the Dolls from the roof forced him to split his already pitiful last ditch reserves between them.

"You're first then!" Bison lunged towards Naruto to begin a Psycho Crusher but wound up getting blocked when Charlie got in his way, "Psycho Cru-!"

"Somersault Justice!" Charlie lashed out with an untraceable number of Flash Kicks that clashed with Bison's Psycho Crusher and knocked him back in something of a stalemate, "All of you go. He isn't stopping anyone today. Adults should be the ones to deal with things like this. Not kids." He said, shooting a reassuring smile to Naruto and Sakura who seemed extremely uneasy.

The first to dispute this was Guile, "No way! Why you?"

It wasn't a joking situation, but Charlie had to laugh at that question, "Between all of you, Ken has a concussion, the Sakura girl is hurt and just a kid, Chun-Li's arm is broken, Guile you can't walk a straight line right now with your leg and your arms are dead, Ryu's out of ki, and Naruto looks like he'll fall out any second." He then turned gravely serious and turned his attention back to Bison, "Now go! I'll be fine! Sonic Boom!" He let loose the brutal wave of ki at Bison before leaping at him and delivering a kick that the Shadaloo boss blocked.

"Come on!" Ken urged Guile on, dragging him by the arm to try and get him to leave along with the others who were willing to respect Charlie's choice to remain back and fight, "Go or you'll die here!"

"No! Let go!" Guile snarled, trying to fight himself from Ken's authoritative grip in vain despite his best efforts, "Charlie! Charlie we can beat him toge-!" He was then rendered unconscious by a precise shot to the neck from Ken.

XxX

The blades of a gunship helicopter cut through the high canopy of the deep jungle that had been concealing Shadaloo's base from sight. The force of the whirring propellers carried the vehicle as high and as far away as it could fast before a massive explosion erupted up and engulfed the entire area in flames, felling trees that lay within the base from the force of the blast.

Within the helicopter everyone remained deathly silent as they flew away.

While not proud of what he had done, Ken figured it was the best course of action given the circumstances. Guile would only have unnecessarily increased the day's body count if he had tried to stay back to fight Bison with Charlie. The two of them were easily outclassed when they had at first been healthy. And even if they had managed to defeat him, within less than two minutes to boot, there would have been no time to escape whatsoever.

It was lucky that another method of escape was nearby or they all could have kissed their asses goodbye.

Chun-Li piloted the gunship as best she could with one arm, using Ryu to help her when she was unable to do certain methods. Neither of them were speaking as well. There was nothing to be said. They would reach the village that Naruto's group had been using as a base camp of sorts within two hours before the sun would set.

In the very back, the twelve Dolls and Cammy lay still unconscious with Naruto and Sakura watching over them all, trying to keep their minds from straying too much towards the sacrificial actions of Charlie. They barely knew him and he put himself on the line like that so they could all get away.

Quite clearly Sakura was visibly shaken. She had never seen such a thing, someone giving up their life for others. Sakura had never seen anyone die in front of her before, let alone someone dying that tried to protect her.

And Naruto… well he thoroughly blamed himself for the way things turned out. Were it not for something he couldn't have accounted for, they would have all been going home right then. But now they were missing one. When Guile woke up and started freaking out the way they knew he would, he was very tempted to let Guile take out his frustrations on him. It was his fault.

Him and his damn temper.

XxX

(Four Days Later – Rural Village by the Deep Thailand Village)

Guile didn't say a word to anyone upon awakening. He barely waited a day for his injuries to patch up before he set out on his own to return to his home in America. He would have a long trip ahead of him only to report on his friend's death to his superiors. He hardly even said goodbye, but everyone understood.

Chun-Li's current responsibility as the only remaining figure of any sort of authority amongst them was to find out the origins of the Dolls, to find out if there was any family that she could return the girls to once they awoke. Ken and Ryu were still around if only for the fact that Ryu didn't really have a home and because Ken wanted to hang around at least until the Aohura City crew went back to their city.

In the meantime the small village continued to play host to them for a short time longer. Just a few more days. It was almost time to head home very soon.

Inside of the local medical clinic, Naruto sat in a chair wearing a set of recreational clothes now that the fighting was over; a navy blue t-shirt with a black leaf insignia on the front and a snug pair of jeans with white shoes on his feet.

The sound of crutches tapping against the floor let him know that someone else had just entered. He didn't bother looking, instead choosing to stare at the Konoha headband in his hand. Yeah he was a _real_ hero. He certainly was the best ninja in the world wasn't he?

And Dan Hibiki wasn't a total jackass.

A tanned-skinned hand swatted him over the top of the head, "Stop sulking. You're not even mourning over Charlie-san anymore. You're just pouting about how you fucked up." Pulling up a chair next to Naruto, Batsu took a load off and sat down next to Naruto, "I fucked up too. Look at me. I didn't even get to fight in the end… I got taken out before then." He tapped on the cast that sat around his entire leg, "You wanna sign it?"

"I got a man killed Batsu." Naruto said, busying himself at that time with watching the doctor walk around to check in on the girls that remained there, "We all could have gotten out of there. We could be laughing and partying right now…" He shook his head and clicked his teeth, "I screwed up."

"You got _them_ out." Batsu gestured towards the beds housing the remaining Dolls that were still with them. There were still eight from the original set, not counting Cammy of course, "If they were awake I don't think they'd say you screwed up." He chuckled a bit and put a small lecherous smirk on his face, "They're all hot too. I knew they would be. Even the Decapre girl in the mask that had burn on her face is pretty cute. I wish one of them lived near Aohura City… this is an automatic in for me."

Naruto rolled his eyes. Only Batsu would see this as a potential opening to take one of them out, "They're not normal girls man. What part of 'brainwashed assassin' don't you get?" He asked, "They're cool now, but they're totally brutal. If you try to mess around with one of them I bet they'll rip your junk off."

"I can think of worse ways to lose my junk." Idiotic comment aside, the two of them continued to just chill out in the only place in that part of the country by their guess that had A.C. "I'm glad that some of their families aren't dead… that's really good for them."

One of the Dolls called Noembelu got returned to her home; the Thunderfoot Indian tribe in Mexico. Apparently a man named T. Hawk had been looking for her for quite some time since her disappearance. Likewise went for the girls Aprile, Santamu, and Xiayu. Their families were very easy to reach out to as a matter of fact, as they had been the most recently taken out of the group.

"Speaking of women…" Batsu segued towards another point of conversation, "You haven't said anything to Sakura or Karin in days. Sakura's still pretty shaken up over the whole thing you know."

Naruto turned towards Batsu and raised an eyebrow, "Ryu isn't doing anything?" He figured that the hero worship thing would be reciprocated at least a little bit, but Batsu's shaking head gave him his answer on that front. Ryu was a bit unsocial even though he was a good guy and meant well, "…Goddamn it. Do I really have to talk to her about people dying?" That's not a particular conversation one endeavors to have with a teenage girl, "Why me?"

"Chun-Li's busy trying to get all of the Dolls situated with people to take care of them, and you're the only other person that's killed anyone before Mr. Ninja." But hearing Naruto whine again about something he didn't want to do was a good sign that he was starting to get back to normal. Yes… it was the job of the best friend to maintain his buddy's mental well-being.

Also his attempt at a laissez faire approach when it came to letting Naruto deal with the whisker-faced young man's own issues didn't work. Karin threatened him with even more bodily harm if he didn't do something positive because Naruto seemed to be intentionally avoiding everyone. Scary little rich girl…

Before they could continue to converse any further, the doctor spoke excitedly in Thai before motioning for both boys to come over to him quickly. Batsu grabbed his crutches and Naruto simply stood up and elbowed the sleep out of his legs before walking over.

A great bit of good news awaited them when they made it over. The first of the formerly comatose girls happened to be awake, and it was Cammy herself. Confused blue eyes looked around, eventually settling on another pair of blue eyes that seemed to be happy to see her, "Cammy you're awake! That's great!" Naruto said with a huge grin on his face. This was the first good news he had gotten in almost a week, "I can't believe you pulled off what you did back at the base, it was awesome!"

He didn't get an immediate response at first, only getting a bit of a blank look out of her. It wasn't the same blank look he had received back when she was soulless. This one was different. It was the kind of look that said that she didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Something that thoroughly threw him off because it had been the last time he had seen her or any of the Dolls conscious.

"I'm sorry…" Cammy said evenly in her British accent, feeling a bit uncomfortable because of how happy this exuberant boy seemed to be at her mere awakening, "…But I don't know who you are. Have we met before?"

Naruto's grin dropped and he just gave her a deer-in-the-headlights look at her very unexpected response while Batsu just palmed his face and muttered 'oh crap' under his breath, "Uh…what?" He asked Cammy a bit cluelessly, "Are you feeling alright?" She just raised an eyebrow at him as he pressed a hand to her forehead to feel her out for a fever or something. As far as he knew there was a chance she caught a nasty bug while skulking through the jungle, and he didn't know Thai that well so who knew what that doctor was saying?

Batsu on the other hand just shook his head and started hobbling out of the clinic on his crutches to go and tell someone about their rather startling discovery. He didn't need to be able to understand the doctor to know what was going on. Unlike Naruto who only owned a set for the novelty of it, Batsu actually watched copious amounts of TV, and he'd seen this scenario unfold enough times to know what was up.

"We can't ever just win can we? Noooo, that'd be too easy wouldn't it?" He griped on the way out, "The whole fucking world's against us dude, I swear to God."

XxX

(Undisclosed Location)

"Welcome to our base of operations master. We are of course at your service."

In response to the simpering underling that was sucking up to avoid a violent death from the very angry person, the door slammed directly in his bowing face with authority. The sound of heels clicking rang out through the room as the person walked into the bathroom and cast off the yellow scarf that until then had been draped around their arms.

The light flicked on and in front of the mirror stood Rose, looking at herself with a very hard gaze, seemingly judging and scrutinizing every single facet of her physical appearance with solid white soulless eyes, "It's so lucky her body was still unresponsive from running out of her 'Soul Power' while trying to destroy me. And it's so lucky that she was still within Thailand in a village near the temple I defeated her at as well." A sinister grin came over her face at that point, "It seems casting all of the good out of my soul into this created form was useful for more than just letting me master my Psycho Power."

Her body then began radiating sheer energy in the form of a sick purple aura around herself, as if to test it out in that form. The same energy of one M. Bison; Psycho Power. It was considerably weaker, but it was still more than present.

"She's so weak… but compatible enough with my soul for her to remain my temporary body until my scientists form me a new one to inhabit…"

It would take time. But then again time was something that Bison's 'immortal' soul had plenty of. He would always have a new trick right around the corner.

The sounds of the uncharacteristic cackles of an Italian female chilled many a Shadaloo employee in the same safehouse that managed to hear it. But then again… that was their M. Bison doing it from within her body after all.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter complete.<strong>

**Well, it looks like my summer is going to suck hard. And it used to be such a magical time too…**

**Between the classes I'll have to take, the job I have, and my attempts to train myself in southwestern Virginia with no money to afford membership in an actual gym that would help me do so it seems like I will be stretched very thin.**

**I love a challenge. It makes life worth living.**

**Still though, graduating is going to be hell on earth because where am I going to get a job?**

**Maybe… Canada?**

**I love Canada by the way. I've never been there, but I've heard great things.**

**And this has absolutely nothing to do with anything, so I'll just leave it at that. Later folks, Kenchi out.**


	18. The Lights Are On

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I am currently experimenting with a method to develop Blanka's ability to generate electricity. It is very slow-going and painful… but then again that whole 'stick a fork in the toaster and curl up in a ball' idea never really had legs to stand on to begin with.

It _did_ shock my brother too though, because he was touching me at the time and he got a contact charge, so I guess that's a start.

**Chapter 18: The Lights Are On…**

* * *

><p>"You've got to be kidding me!" Naruto exclaimed while all those around him covered their ears. At this point Naruto, Batsu, Sakura, Karin, Chun-Li, Ken, Ryu, and the remainder of the Dolls were onboard Karin's family yacht en route to Hong Kong once more now that their business was complete. But Naruto had just recently been informed of just why Cammy didn't know who he was or anything about what they had all been through, "Amnesia? How?"<p>

It was a little startling to say the least. The idea of amnesia never came to mind for Naruto because he had been with her the moment she had gone unconscious in the Shadaloo base. She had just gotten through talking to him before going under, and the next words out of her mouth the moment she woke up just so happened to be her asking him who he was and what he was talking about.

At least she knew her own full name though. That was something.

"How would we know Naruto-san?" Karin asked from a spacious couch in the game room of the yacht where the youngest members of the group were lounging around to converse on the matter at hand, "You were the only one that was there. No one else could have possibly seen what may have caused it."

Batsu held back a snorting laugh before making a comment as he tried to engage Naruto in a game of pool to mellow him out a bit, "What, did you drop her and hit her head while you were carrying her or something?" That crack resulted in Naruto breaking a cue-stick over his back while he was lining up a shot, "Ow! Fuck you!"

"Fuck _you_! That's not funny!" Naruto griped at his friend while he complained about the abuse to a disabled person. He then looked across the room at Karin who was giving him a dry stare, "Uh… I'll replace it."

A stiff nod came from Karin as she watched Naruto hand off the broken remains of the game playing tool off to Ishizaki, Batsu glaring daggers at him the entire time as he went back to trying to line up a shot on the other end of the table, "Let's stay focused here shall we?" For once she and Sakura were the civil ones amongst each other as Naruto and Batsu by now had started trying to hit each other with the billiard balls under the guise of taking actual shots, "Thus far our associate Cammy is the only one out of all of the girls to wake up, including the ones that have been returned to their homes. Who is to say that she is the only one suffering from her amnesia?"

The entire ending process of their little campaign against Shadaloo didn't leave Sakura with much of an easy feeling about her. Too many terrible things had happened for a complete feeling of success, and the amnesia of someone integral to their victory was just piling it on, "That's just terrible." She commented with a frown on her face, "She doesn't remember any of us. Do we have anything we can use that might jog her memory?"

"Other than her ruined clothes she wore before being treated in the village, no." Karin said, tapping a finger against her own chin in thought. There wasn't anything that they knew about Cammy outside of her background as a Shadaloo assassin, and even that was vague, "So… now what do we do? I do not think that bringing up her past would help her; we know nothing about it. For now we should just have an eye kept on her."

Everyone seemed to be in agreement on that point. Referencing Bison in front of her didn't do much other than get her to furrow her brow in thought. Even explaining who he was didn't do anything for her. She wouldn't take the accusation that she used to be a cold-blooded killer very well if that were the case.

A yell of frustration erupted from Naruto as he pulled at his hair and slammed his hands on the table. Apparently bouts of anger from very strong people were quite a common occurrence on that table because he didn't damage it in any way, "Why doesn't she know anything? The last thing I remember her doing is using Bison's machine to break his psychic link with them so that they wouldn't die when he did."

That was something he had neglected to mention back when he had originally started freaking out after being told that Cammy had amnesia, and the unanimous deadpan looks he received from everyone after he was finished talking spoke volumes as Sakura was the first to say something about it, "…Did she know how it worked?"

"She was winging it. They were all about to die in like thirty seconds."

A sigh came from Sakura as she held her temple. Dealing with Naruto ran the full gambit of really good to really bad, and that meant that sometimes he would omit certain things in the heat of the moment. Not that knowing this information any sooner would have helped anything, "You said she broke Bison's psychic link with them so that they wouldn't die. That's got to put some deep mental roots in their heads to work. She basically ripped the plug out of their skulls."

The imaginary visual image that stuck in the heads of Naruto and Batsu at Sakura's analogy got them both to cringe. Years of violent video games and movies intended for mature audiences would do that every now and again, "Well when you put it that way…" Batsu said, getting a nod of agreement from Naruto, "Man…"

"There's nothing we can do about it now." The reasonable, level-headed business-like logic of Karin came into play once again. Even if she too felt quite a bit of empathy for the situation of the Dolls, there wasn't much that they could do, if anything at all until they awoke.

If they ever did awaken. But those weren't the thoughts to have. They had landed in Hong Kong, they had sent them to the best hospital around where there were magnificent doctors there that were well-equipped to help them out, "Come on." Sakura said, getting up from her seat and motioning for the others to follow her, "Let's get going to the hospital." She dragged a disputing Karin to her feet and out the door onto the deck as Naruto and Batsu lumbered behind.

XxX

(Sometime Later – Hong Kong – At the Hospital)

They had made it to the hospital while Cammy was still in the middle of her tests with the doctors, thus they were forced to wait a bit before going in. While they were there, Batsu was also getting himself checked over for his week-old injury to his leg to make sure that everything was copacetic. Karin was outside for a bit of air as they had been there for a while and she despised the atmosphere of hospitals, thus leaving Naruto and Sakura sitting and waiting for the two of them to return in a waiting room.

In four years of spending time together in school, at home, while training, there were times when it was easy to tell that there was something wrong with the other one. Usually when one didn't have anything to say to the other it was a dead giveaway that there was something suspect.

But now neither of them were saying anything, and that meant that both of them felt rather bothered by something.

"How do you do it?"

The sudden question from the unusually reserved Sakura jolted Naruto out of the uncomfortable silence, getting him to turn towards her as he received a fraught look telling him that she really wanted his answer, "Do what?"

Fidgeting in her chair slightly, Sakura tried to find another way to word her question to be more descriptive without making her feel so dicey about it. Her eyes panned down to her lap where her hands were fidgeting with her skirt, "You said you saw Cammy kill Bison, but when you came down the side of the building you were grinning. And others said that you killed Vega in your last fight with him, but you didn't seem to care about that. I just want to know how you can deal with people dying so easily." She shook slightly in thought, "What we did… when that base blew up, everyone we beat up… most of them had to have been killed."

"I've seen decent people die in front of me I guess." Naruto responded with a shrug. He didn't know how to answer it. Death tagged along in one way or another with his entire life. He saw his first dead body up close when he was six, and he had his home village invaded with a full-scale battle going on between his fellow ninja right before his eyes at the age of twelve, "Guys like Bison and Vega… it doesn't bother me when they die. But Charlie, I didn't know him very well but he hung back so we could get away. And the only reason he had to do that was because I screwed up."

"So how do I get used to death? My whole body feels weak when I think about it. I couldn't make a fist for a whole day after we got back."

Why couldn't Ryu talk to her about this kind of crap? He was supposed to be something of a senpai to her wasn't he? Ask him about this kind of stuff. Ken didn't seem like the type to dwell on things too much so he might not have been the best choice to go to, but Ryu was responsible enough.

"You shouldn't get used to it at all." Naruto's answer to her inquiry surprised her a bit. There wasn't some big secret to it? How unexpected, "When someone dies it should always make you squirm Sakura-chan. Do your best all the time, but don't ever try to kill someone. You're a fighter and I'm a ninja so if you keep getting stronger eventually you're going to kill someone you fight. I have. And you might have to fight someone where the only choice you have is to kill them."

"I don't want to do that!"

"Then quit."

Sakura's face twisted almost instantly from outrage to shock that Naruto would say something like that to her, "I have to quit just because I don't want to kill anyone no matter what?"

"No, you have to quit because you're not gonna get an option sometimes!" It was times like then that made Sakura think that Naruto was probably smarter than he showed about certain things. When a fight started he was dangerous, even when he didn't act like it, "If it had been you that beat Bison what would you have done?"

Even Ryu tried to kill Bison when he had the opening. And Naruto had a huge point. Bison was a vengeful, drug trafficking, arms dealing, sociopathic, god-complex having, kidnapping, brainwashing, blackmailing stain on the fabric of humanity that had the power to crush an entire town in one move with his Psycho Drive and satellite.

The naïve schoolgirl part of her wanted to believe that if she had simply beaten him down and they ruined his Asian Shadaloo empire that this would simply end at that. But the part of her that had been dealing with Shadaloo since the turn of the year at the tournament, in the hospital afterwards, the attack of the Dolls on her high school that almost killed Ibuki and Naruto and kidnapped Karin, and everything that had occurred on their trip… all of that was a rather cold slap in the face, that there wasn't good in _everyone_.

And if you didn't make sure Bison was dead and gone, if you didn't incinerate that body beyond any sort of repair, then things would happen like what happened with Charlie. Bison simply would not give up the ghost and it cost them a life in return to take him down.

"I… don't know." Sakura admitted, a bit ashamed of her wishy-washy response, "Maybe if it was the heat of battle I might have killed him, an adrenaline thing, with responsive force or something. But I can't just kill someone in cold blood."

Her eyes turned to Naruto to see his blue eyes locked on her, hopefully not in disgust as the only thing she had really wanted out of him ever since the day they met and she found out that he was a skilled combatant was his respect as a martial artist. She was not let down when she saw him giving her a small smile before he rested a hand on her shoulder, "You know… I can't kill anyone in cold blood either. That's a good thing. At least that's what I think."

Now he was planning on killing Bison in cold blood and he wouldn't have lost a wink of sleep over it, but she didn't need to know that. There was an exception to every rule.

Another wistful sigh escaped Sakura as she placed her cheeks in her hands, "I need to train harder." She sounded absolutely despondent in her temperament as she said this, "When it came down to it I was totally useless at the end." She couldn't really be that far behind Ryu could she? When she fought him while he was brainwashed he tore her apart and almost killed her with a Shinkuu Hadoken.

"Yeah, well someone didn't die because of you Sakura-chan. Charlie died because _I_ wasn't strong enough."

"Naruto, Charlie didn't die because you were weak. He died because of bad luck. How were you supposed to know Bison could have resuscitated himself back from a contact charge from the machine? Cammy stabbed him in the heart from what you told us. You didn't know she was going to try to fire it up either until she did it." Naruto merely let out a grunt and turned away from her, almost pouting as he tried to wallow in his guilt, "You big baby."

The two continued to wait a bit longer and were eventually rejoined by Karin and Batsu where they proceeded to wait for a bit longer. Batsu and Naruto wound up involved in a rather violent game where one would take turns trying to slap the other while they were unaware, amid much eye-rolling from the two girls that were trying to ignore them. But the very pink cheeks of the two boys slapping the taste out of each other's mouths on the sly was something that just attracted the eye.

After what seemed like an eternity, a doctor walked into the room holding a clipboard, "Your friend is done with her tests." He said, "Aside from the amnesia I can't find anything wrong with her. Her brain seems to be fine. Her reflexes are… incredible actually. Superhuman as a matter of fact."

"How's her mind?"

"She's as sharp as a tack honestly." The doctor continued to explain, "She knows her own name, can speak multiple languages, at least English and Standard Chinese from what I heard. She just can't remember anything. I can't find a reason to keep her in the hospital if she wants to be released. Either way, you can go in to see her now."

All of them looked at each other in regards to Cammy being released, but went on into her room to find her sitting in a bed staring out the window in her hospital gown with her hair out of the usual twin braids she placed them in normally. She noticed them enter and while she didn't know them, they were still the nice people that helped her when she didn't know anything, "Hello." She greeted amicably.

"Hey Cammy." Naruto said as he moved over to the windowsill and sat down on it while Batsu took a chair and the girls took the others closest to her bed, "How are you feeling?"

"Confused. Amnesia is very startling."

"…Other than that?"

To keep Naruto from bombarding the poor girl with the normal questions that a person suffering from amnesia got asked upon the revelation of their affliction, Batsu interjected, cutting Naruto off before he could start asking all kinds of dumb questions that she couldn't answer, "The doctor said that you can leave. There's nothing wrong with you other than the… well, you know."

"Where in the world will I go?" Cammy asked, a bit dumbfounded, "I don't know anyone. I don't even know who I am." The only attachment to anything she had in the world were the Dolls, and she didn't even remember any relationship with any of them, working or otherwise. All of them were still unconscious to boot.

Now that was enough of that sad, pessimistic atmosphere that seemed to have Cammy and by default everyone else caught up in it. Naruto himself might have had a reason to feel all down in the dumps, but that didn't mean that anyone else had a right to be.

"Gah, I've had enough of this crap." Naruto said abruptly, suddenly hopping off of the windowsill seat he had taken for the duration of their visit so that he could start pacing in front of Cammy's bed, "You don't know who you are… but we don't know much about what you liked or anything personal either so we can't really help you there. We can help you find out though. Things like stuff you like… so come on."

As Naruto grabbed a bag that was by Karin's feet that he handed to Cammy, Karin herself spoke up with a smile of satisfaction on her face, "I took the liberty of obtaining new clothes for you since all you had with you before your memory loss were fighting clothes. There is no need to thank me." She added proudly.

"No one even said anything." Sakura muttered at Karin's pretentious attitude at doing something nice for someone only to get a passive look from the girl and then a nearly unnoticeable scoff that worked Sakura's nerves, "I am not in the mood for this today."

"It doesn't matter what you happen to be in the mood for." Karin responded, "Your opinion is not important enough to matter to anyone."

As if something passed between the two of them, both girls stood up and started butting heads, pushing against each other back and forth, "You're lucky we're in a hospital and you have the money to pay your bills, because they won't have far to take you after I-. Ow!"

The tension ended swiftly after Sakura's yelp of pain that led to her holding her backside as she turned and glared at Naruto growling at him as he stared right back, unafraid and expectant of his own safety, eventually getting her to back down for reasons only known to the two of them.

Karin looked at Naruto with a raised eyebrow as if to ask if he really just stricken Sakura's butt with his open hand, and he hadn't been put through the wall yet which was something even more curious.

Batsu's jaw was utterly dropped that Naruto had just spanked Sakura and had gotten away with it without having to swallow his knocked out teeth like chiclets, "What the fuck did I miss where this ended up being okay?"

"Sakura-chan just knows how to keep her word." Naruto explained cryptically as he turned his eyes around the room and quickly averted his gaze from the bed with his face turning beet red at the sight of Cammy changing right in front of them with no modesty whatsoever, "…And I know how to leave a room. Come on Batsu."

Waving Naruto off as he stumbled towards the door while covering his eyes, Batsu remained right in his seat, eyes locked firmly on a clear view of Cammy's chest as she sat straight up and cross-legged while calmly looking through the collection of undergarments Karin purchased for her to find what she liked, "Hey, if she's cool with it I'm cool with it."

He was then promptly removed from the room via physical intervention from all three other teens as Cammy continued to change, oblivious to the disorder her nudity was causing. Force was required when Batsu began swinging crutches for the right to remain in the room.

XxX

(Later That Day – Hong Kong International Airport)

"This place is called an airport." Naruto said with a big wide grin for Cammy's benefit as they were out and about trying to get her some fresh air and help her out a bit with getting her bearings, "Airports are where people get on those screaming metal death traps called airplanes and fly thousands of miles to get where they want to go. Don't get on one. Planes scare the hell out of me."

"You're so weird." Karin, Batsu, and Sakura said in unison as they all stepped off of the rail transport that took them to the airport.

A deadpan look sat on Cammy's face as she walked along with them wearing her new clothes; a pink skirt, white casual sandals, and a white short-sleeved button-up shirt, "Yes… I know what airplanes and airports are. I still possess most general knowledge." Aside from Naruto apparently not understanding the concept of amnesia with his well-meaning attempts to inform her of things, they were all nice people, and they were her age as well.

It wasn't like she knew anyone else to compare them to, but they seemed way more lively than the people around her that walked the streets normally. The difference in nationality from their current environment was duly noted as Sakura, Batsu, and Karin were native Japanese and Naruto was supposedly of American descent from what they told her. Well from the unconscious accent she held whenever speaking she surmised that she was British, and they honestly didn't know but they didn't debunk her either so she was probably correct in that assumption.

"So all of you live in the same town and are friends with each other?" After a couple of hours of wandering around, shopping a bit, and listening to them tell her stories of the things they had gotten into while living in Aohura City, Cammy had figured that they were at the very least pretty close despite the marked differences in them.

"Well… we're mostly friends." Sakura replied with a pointed look at Karin who merely stuck her tongue out in retaliation, "But yes. I met Naruto first, then Naruto met Batsu which led to me meeting Batsu… then I fought Karin-."

Naruto then sharply interjected with his hands resting behind his neck, eyes closed all the while, "-Which lead to Karin hiring me for degrading missions to get back at Sakura-chan because she beat her." He missed the formation of an angry tick mark on Karin's head at the reminder, "But now Karin's nicer so yeah, we're all friends."

"I am _your_ friend and no one else's." Karin corrected grabbing Naruto underneath his chin and shaking his head back and forth, "Being a friend of a friend does not make the other friend my friend. Understand?" She got a bit of a kick out of Naruto's blank stare indicating that he didn't understand.

A bit of a sad smile drifted over Cammy's face as she looked down while continuing to walk, "That sounds nice." The emotional conditioning that Cammy had been put through as one of the Dolls was clearly something that had been implanted in her because she wore her feelings on her sleeve now, "I couldn't tell you what it feels like though."

In a rare touch of insightfulness, Batsu was the one to pull the amnesia-inflicted young woman out of her bit of a funk in his own way, via changing the subject, "Dude can we take a break for a bit? These crutches chafe." He looked down at his cast covered leg and glared at it, "Six more weeks my ass. This thing is coming off in four." He complained as they walked through the airport terminal.

"Hey kids!"

The attention of the Aohura City crew and Cammy was obtained by Ken who was carrying a small carry-on travel bag, being followed by Ryu who was doing the same, "Glad to see you all could make it before we left." Ken said with a huge smile on his face, "We're about to get on out of here."

A frown crossed Sakura's face as she looked from Ken to Ryu, "So you're not going back to Japan for a bit before you continue travelling?" Ryu shook his head in the negative, eliciting a sigh from the poor girl, "Oh well…"

"Yeah I barely got him to come with me to America for a just a bit." Ken said, grabbing Ryu in a headlock and a noogie before being shaken off, "I finally convinced him when I said he needed to meet my girlfriend Eliza, and he agreed."

"It's been a few years since Ken and I had any time to catch up." Ryu said, rubbing his own hair back into place before smiling despite his serious façade, "It would be good to see how he's been living since we left our old master Gouken's tutelage."

"Trying to see if I'm slacking off?" Ken had a good chuckle at that as he gave his best friend a hard, good-natured pat on the back, "I guarantee when you see Eliza you'll see I have a good reason for it if I am."

Well there went her chances of getting some direct training from Ryu… again. Damn it.

"How about a match then?" Sakura suddenly blurted out before she knew what she was saying, but her mouth kept moving before she could even stop herself, "If I can win you have to come back to Japan to train me for a bit, but if I lose I'll never bother you about it again." She immediately covered her mouth to bite back a nervous squeak. Sakura had not intended to say that at all. It sounded better in her head, and apparently it sounded good enough for her brain to bypass the screening process when it came to talking.

Instead of answering immediately, Ryu looked a bit surprised at her request of a fight, especially since she didn't seem sure about it. That was just begging for her to get herself hurt, "…I'm afraid I can't do that Sakura." He said in return, actually surprising her back that he turned down a fight, "I can't fight someone that doesn't believe in themselves. If you don't have the will to fight your opponent then trying to force it will only end badly. I won't be a part of that. Next time maybe."

Upon being turned down so completely, Sakura's look of astonishment turned to one of reluctant acceptance as she nodded and backed down.

Someone else there wasn't going to let it go so lightly though.

"Next time, next time, next time…" Naruto started to say, looking none too pleased with the current turn of events, especially when that turn of events ended up with his friend feeling put out, "It's always next time with you. You didn't do anything the first time you met her two years ago, you didn't even bother sparring with her when you came to Aohura City to mess with me, and you won't even let Sakura-chan try to prove herself now when you're doing it again? Where does it end?"

Oh, it looked like Naruto was something of a hothead. Any answer Ryu gave the kid would only set him off more as Ryu wasn't much for eloquent social situations. It was a good thing that Ken was better with that, thus he tried to smooth things over, "Listen… training someone takes full focus on nothing but that so that your pupil's development reaches its fullest limits. You can't half-ass it with someone's instruction."

"Show her _something_ then!" Naruto continued to stress, not willing to back down from this, "Sakura-chan swears by Ryu, but I haven't seen any reason for it. Yeah, I saw him win that tournament against Sagat, but so what? I bet I could beat him right now if we fought."

And that wound up with Naruto being dragged away by his ear by Sakura until they were a good distance away where she finally let go of him and gave him a rather stern look behind a promotional stand, "What do you think you're doing?"

Naruto rubbed the side of his head where he had just been pulled and explained his stance on things, "Look, either he's gonna prove that he's worth all of this you bending over backwards for him, or I'm gonna knock his block off." He dodged her second attempt to grab him before he said or did something stupid and ran back out into plain view before pointing a finger at Ryu, "So how about this? _I'll_ fight you instead of Sakura-chan."

On the side, Batsu, Cammy, and Karin were raptly observing the scene unfolding before them. The temporarily disabled delinquent leaned in towards Cammy and started to explain for her benefit, "This kind of thing happens all the time. You get used to it after a while." Cammy just nodded and continued to watch.

"I could honestly live without it." Karin said with a sigh before she shrugged haplessly, "Oh well. If he wins this will more than prove that he's strong enough to be ranked highly in the world, and I can finally challenge and defeat him."

"You want to fight him?" Ken asked, bewildered at the brazen challenge from the younger blonde man, "Why?"

"For Sakura-chan." Naruto admitted before grinning sheepishly, "And because we never really finished the fight we were having back in Sakura-chan's backyard."

Ryu observed Naruto closely and the look of full confidence on his face before finally nodding, "Alright. We can fight. After all, you're right. We never finished our first match and I want to see what you can really do."

Sakura quickly interjected herself between the two, her arms extended to keep them apart as if they would have just flat-out rushed each other on the spot, "Hold on just one minute! I don't need anyone fighting for my benefit Naruto. If anyone's doing this I'll do it myself."

"He just turned you down. I'm defending your honor!"

"It's not your honor to defend, and he didn't even damage it!"

"Too bad. He already agreed. Everybody heard it. I'm fighting him."

"I'm fighting him!"

Though he was amused by Naruto and Sakura going nose-to-nose and looking as if they were about to scrap over which one of them got the fight with Ryu, Ken decided it would be much easier his way, "How about the two of you against Ryu and I? There's no need for either one of you to sit out if you don't want to."

Both Naruto and Sakura looked at him owlishly before choosing to converse amongst themselves, "What do you think? We've never fought as an actual team before." Naruto whispered, though if one really cared to pay attention they could have heard him.

"Is it that important? We know enough about each other's moves." Sakura argued in return as to why it wasn't a bad idea, "We can just wing it."

Winging it was pretty much the calling card of Naruto's entire career as a ninja, so he had no problems with that, "Sure. We've got chemistry right? We've kicked each other around so much we've got to know something about working together." At that they both turned around with looks of anticipation on their faces, "We accept. Bring it on."

Ken punched his fist into his palm, dropped his bag, and slipped out of the shoes he had been wearing, as did Ryu, "Alright then, I call blondie. He looks like he's fun to fight."

"Sakura is mine then." Ryu set himself into his stance at Ken's side as the two looked like mirror images of each other. Sakura looked excited to be fighting against Ryu, but an elbow from Naruto got her to focus, "Switch off when we need to?"

"I won't need to switch off, but yeah." Ken agreed before looking over to the kids, "Are you ready?"

Their answer came in the form of Naruto dropping a smoke bomb at his and Sakura's feet as a wild Hadoken came flying out of the screen that missed right between Ken and Ryu. It served the purpose of attracting their attention for long enough to get Naruto to slip out of their sight.

"Holy shit." Ken said in surprise at Naruto's absence, "Where the hell did he go? I didn't even sense him leave that area." He then noticed Ryu staring Sakura down intensely, "What's the matter bud?"

"That's not Sakura. The stance is off." Ryu said before he and Ken attacked in tandem, "Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" Both men fired their ki blasts at Sakura, mixing them together to cover a wider area and make it harder to dodge.

Impact was made, but upon being hit 'Sakura' dispelled in a puff of smoke to Ken's surprise but not to Ryu's. At the next instant, a random pedestrian with a suitcase that had been walking through the terminal until right then suddenly turned and lunged over a distance towards the two men with astonishing speed. After getting close enough, the pedestrian transformed into both Naruto and Sakura who both launched attacks at their pair of opponents.

Imagine Ken and Ryu's surprise when they turned and saw an average businessman had dashed towards them and covered incredible ground as if it were nothing, then seen said businessman engulfed in a puff of smoke with their two teenage adversaries flying out.

They weren't surprised enough to refrain from defending themselves as they got their arms up in anticipation to block, but in this instance it didn't matter too much as both Naruto and Sakura scored with flying kicks that landed right through their guards and smashed them in their torsos.

Both Ken and Ryu were knocked back head over heels onto the ground while Naruto and Sakura landed in a slide from the outright speed they had been moving at before. The observing populace took notice and cheered wildly at the sneaky attack idea executed by both boy and girl.

Both Naruto and Sakura spared a second for a high-five before the brown-haired girl shivered a bit in place, "That felt way too weird." Sakura commented on being a part of a two-person Henge with Naruto, "I don't ever want to do that again."

"You did fine with it though." Naruto assured her with a grin as both of them watched Ryu and Ken get back up, "Not bad for the both of us not saying a word before I did that. All you heard was Konbi Henge (Combination Transformation) and you went right along with it. It was cool, 'ttebayo."

"Aww… someone's excited."

"Oh shush up Sakura-chan."

Naruto didn't wait for Ken and Ryu to get back into prepared fighting stances, choosing to bull-rush them while they looked unprepared for any follow-up attack. Neither Ryu or Ken were that amateur-esque however, and seamlessly broke into their original plan of splitting off.

Ken directly cut Naruto off with a blast of a Hadoken that Naruto slid underneath on the slick tile floor of the airport terminal, aiming at Ken's legs. Seemingly impressed at the young man's body mechanics, Ken timed Naruto's slide and jumped into the air before planning to land with a falling knee and a falling punch to smash Naruto into the ground.

Channeling chakra to his hands to quickly friction himself to a premature stop that forced Ken's falling attack to miss him completely, Naruto kipped back up to his feet, shoving a front kick at Ken's stomach that was blocked before using Ken's blocking arm as a base to deliver a backflip kick that Ken barely leaned his head out of the way of, "Whoo!" Ken felt the wind pass by his face on that one, but Naruto was airborne, and he had an immediate counter in mind, "Shoryuuken (Rising Dragon Fist)!"

From his place on the ground, Ken launched at Naruto with a punch intensified by his ki to the extent that the end of his fist had a touch of flames on the end of it. He was soaring directly towards the midair Naruto that was descending right towards him.

"Oh hell no!" Naruto cried as the punch made contact and his body was burned by the punch. But then his physical form turned into a metal airport trashcan that had a hole punched clean through it and held touches of burns in it.

Ken landed and kicked the trashcan out of the way as it fell after he had finished his descent, "Damn it. How did he do that? Is this kid a wizard or something?" He then recoiled in pain when something hard hit him in the back of the head and landed on the ground beside him, "Ow! Was that a shoe?" He took note of the red woman's footwear that had just dinged him in the back of the head.

"All-purpose boot actually." The answer came from Karin as she looked a bit miffed that Naruto had managed to snake her shoe off of her foot with nary a fuss out of her whatsoever, "I do not see why you couldn't throw your own shoe Naruto-san." Whenever he threw random things he always seemed to take her stuff.

"I need my shoes." Naruto replied, a bit disappointed that the hard, sturdy sole of Karin's boot didn't knock Ken for more of a loop, "I'm the one fighting."

Carrying weapons into an airport wasn't a good idea, thus Naruto went without packing the vast majority of his gear for their excursion into town that day. No kunai, no shuriken, no caltrops, and no explosive notes. He had to improvise.

Speaking of improvisation, Ken backflipped behind the trashcan from before and kicked it with pinpoint accuracy at Naruto who dodged it with a jump to the side. Ken was anticipating such an action from the nimble little bastard, all he didn't know was which way Naruto would jump towards. Such a thing would tell him more than anyone could know at first glance.

After watching Naruto jump to the right, Ken quickly advanced on him only for Naruto to lash out with a swinging high kick. He used his right leg, something Ken anticipated as it was Naruto's dominant side judging from the way he dodged.

From the angle that Ken came in at, Naruto's kick never had a chance at hitting him and left the youngster wide open as he jumped at him, spinning in a full circle multiple times with his leg outstretched, battering Naruto's body thrice before kicking him away with force, "Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (Tornado Whirlwind Leg)!"

Batsu cringed and even Karin winced a bit at watching Naruto's body fly away and roll along the ground from Ken's spirited kick combination, "Ugh, he was doing so good too."

"Ken Masters is the strongest man in North America." Karin stated as she finally got her boot back and began putting it onto her foot, "Possibly the entire western hemisphere. Even if Naruto-san hadn't made a mistake he wouldn't have dominated him outright." She then noticed Cammy silently paying rapt attention to both theaters of combat with a shine in her eyes she hadn't seen out of her prior and wondered what was going through the former assassin's head, 'Has she retained her knowledge on fighting?'

Meanwhile Cammy's eyes were affixed firmly on the fight at hand with an analytical focus on the every move of the combatants. She didn't even know how she knew to look for the things she was identifying in the heat of combat, but she was pinpointing the minutest things about each fighter's particular personal nuances when it came to fighting.

Sakura's skills were rooted in a mimicked version of the style used by Ryu and Ken. She could control the size of her base Hadoken while Ryu and Ken could not, but in doing so she sacrificed range in the projectile. Her physical strength was not up to compare with the others currently fighting and she didn't have the flashiest technique, but it clearly worked for what she needed it for. Her ability to quickly counter appropriately was impressive.

Naruto was all over the place. It seemed like his fighting style, whatever it really was, was overwhelmingly offensive, defense other than dodging and blocking be damned. There wasn't much finesse to it. He'd attempt to hit you, if it failed he'd try it in another way from another angle, and again, and again until he finally teed off on you. It was so spastic, with no rhyme or reason for some of the things he did, but it all flowed. It was as if he had painstakingly broken down exactly what random moves would work for him and stitched them together to comprise his fighting style. And that wasn't even taking into account his extra abilities.

Ken was faster than Ryu and focused on the physical arts, linking combinations more often despite the fact they used the exact same style while Ryu was stronger and had more power to punish his foes. Despite the furious effort being put forth by the two youngsters, the older fighters seemed to be keeping their heads about them, looking for weak spots before taking advantage of their first opening.

This was what Ryu was doing as Sakura did her best to deliver a shot that would bring him to his knees. Her best attempts to get in close with Ryu to negate her limited reach in comparison to the man were thwarted by his impeccable footwork that cut her off by backstepping and taking sharp angles to get to her sides.

But he refrained from knocking her block off for some reason, just stepping away and waiting for her next move. It was like he was just observing her instead of fighting her.

All of a sudden while blocking a furious flurry of punches from Sakura, Ryu swept her legs out from underneath her, knocking her to the ground before moving into a spinning back downward-aimed elbow that looked poised to finish her off with one fluid motion.

Angry at how he seemed to be just testing her, Sakura was active the moment she hit the ground and kicked up at Ryu's elbow attack, breaking the maneuver before using a masterful move that showed that she knew her own strengths well, "Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" She fired a quick blast from her back directly at Ryu with no room for him to move away and with his balance thrown off by her forcing his previous attack to fail.

No aim was really necessary at how close the two were together, and the Hadoken hit Ryu right in the chest pushing him back across the floor as if he had been pounded in the torso with a hammer. He sharply inhaled at that exact moment as Sakura got up to her feet, 'She really has improved greatly.' Ryu thought to himself as now he was forced to contest with the punches and kicks of a more confident Sakura.

Even when he chose to retaliate with counterpunches and kicks after blocking one of Sakura's own, she was in the groove of the fight enough to be able to amply protect herself and continue forth. Sakura's hands moved for another quick Hadoken to shatter Ryu's base, but fool me once shame on you. He was quick to knock Sakura's hands aside before she could finish channeling the ki and forced her to misfire towards the ground, kicking up dust and broken tile debris that momentarily blinded her.

Taking advantage of this, Ryu grabbed Sakura by her collar and scarf and turned around to hurl her over his shoulder judo-style, slamming her hard to the ground and knocking the breath right out of her, "That's it. I see it now." He said, backing away as Sakura coughed and hacked, standing up to continue, "You doubted yourself earlier when you first asked me for this match, but then Naruto fired you up and now look at you. You get it. I see the will in your eyes to win, so come at me!"

Without needing further incentive, Sakura leapt right at Ryu before swinging her hands down in a double hammer-fist attack that Ryu had to get his hands up to block, "Sakura Otoshi (Cherry Blossom Drop)!" Not done yet, Sakura grabbed onto his blocking arms and contorted herself in the air like a gymnast to position herself to slam her knees into the back of Ryu's head, "Don't underestimate me!"

"That's my line!" Naruto shouted from his portion of the fight where he was dodging harrowing attacks from Ken by the slimmest of margins. A kick that Naruto had to bridge all the way back to avoid led to him kicking out one of Ken's legs, giving him an opening to get some space between them.

"Stop running away kid!"

"I'm not running! It's a tactical retreat!" Naruto replied before making sure he had Sakura's attention, "Sakura-chan, tag!" She looked reluctant, but nodded and began running towards Naruto to intercept Ken and allow Naruto to take on Ryu.

"Oh no you don't!" Ken put a little extra burst into his legs to speed up just enough to where he could leap right over Naruto and Sakura with a full front flip to ensure that Naruto would still be running right toward him. He would be damned if he let them dictate the pace of the battle.

It was just feint however, as when they were about to pass each other Naruto grabbed Sakura so that they were both running towards Ken instead of merely switching dance partners. Naruto's hands flew towards his seal for Kage Bunshin and two clones started running towards Ken along with them.

He never really anticipated that they had been faking him out, thus it was a credit to him when he was able to block the attack of the first Naruto that flew towards him with a leaping kick. As he only had two arms, the second Naruto blasted him right in the stomach with a kick, and the third jumped up and punt kicked him right in the face.

Not to be outdone, Sakura finished up with a jumping spin uppercut done in her own way; her Shou'oken, as both she and Naruto cried out at the same time at the conclusion of their joint attack, "Sakura no Arashi (Cherry Blossom Storm)!"

Both youngsters came to a stop as Naruto's clones popped out of existence around them. Sakura looked at Naruto strangely with a satisfied smile on her face, "I can't believe that worked, and we didn't trip over each other's feet either."

Ken and Ryu had been knocked for loops by these two kids. If Naruto had fought toe-to-toe with Bison and had managed to win that obviously meant that he was strong, but who knew that Sakura was packing that kind of firepower. While directly fighting head-to-head they both would have brute forced her into submission, she was more than smart enough to know that she'd never win fighting like that and used some Naruto-style misdirection to compensate.

Blood poured from Ken's mouth that he wiped away while Ryu got back up holding the back of his head, "Well, well, well. Who knew our cute little kohai had this in her?" The blonde said as he cleaned off his hand on his gi pants. He'd have to change clothes and clean up before they got on the plane.

Ryu nodded with a hint of a smile on his face despite how challenging the fight had grown to be, "Allow me to fight Sakura for a bit longer. I'll finish up with her. Can you hold Naruto off until I subdue Sakura?"

A snort of indignation emitted from Ken who rolled his eyes, "Don't insult me, I bet you I'll finish Naruto before you finish Sakura. That was just round two you know. They had to stage a bit of a comeback to make this fight worth talking about. This time it's a whole different ballgame. I've got that kid's kryptonite."

Big words, but of course from Ken it wasn't any different from how he normally saw himself. If he said it that meant he believed it, and that was all the assurance Ryu needed. He nodded and the two began to wordlessly conspire on how to separate both Naruto and Sakura, because they had terribly efficient teamwork.

Naruto was the hummingbird, fast and hard to predict, always moving around and threatening an enemy until they left an opening while trying to deal with him. On the other hand, Sakura was the observant and more reserved one of the pair, able to hone in on the openings that Naruto could and would create. That much was evident from their single team combination that they had busted out on the fly.

"Do you have another one of those random combos we did up your sleeve?" Sakura whispered to Naruto as they both stood with their backs facing each other as they prepared for Ken and Ryu once more, "Because I think that was the cleanest hit I landed today."

"I don't know. That one kind of came out of nowhere Sakura-chan." He may have dinged Ken one or two good times just a moment ago, but Sakura was the one that had landed the lion's share of the damage when she attacked him out of nowhere, and with Ryu back in the fight, isolating one or the other was going to be a tall order, "You use their style, so how do they fight?"

Ryu heard Naruto's query to Sakura and decided that then was the time to attack before they could work something out, "Using similar moves doesn't mean that our approaches to fighting are the same as well!" Ryu asserted before launching a Hadoken to split them up.

Much to the credit of both Naruto and Sakura as a unit they weren't going to allow themselves to be bullied by a single ki technique, and both held out single arms to block the blast and split the defensive impact between the two of them, making it no more damaging than catching a hard punch in their hands. As Ken tried to rush in and try his hand at seeing if he could break them up with his fists, Naruto took a quick position behind Sakura who crouched for him and allowed him to make his hand-seals and inhale deeply, "Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!"

Ken dodged to the side to avoid the glowing bright blue mouth-based projectile attack, but a crouching Sakura fired off a Hadoken since he was in range for it. Ken jumped clean over it and intended to land down on both Naruto and Sakura with a diving kick. Naruto stepped up off of the crouching Sakura's shoulder and launched up at him in the air.

Drifting up past Ken's kick, Naruto grabbed the red clad warrior's shoulders and placed his knees on them, tightly around his head and neck to drive Ken down to the ground on his back, "Chiruochiba Osu (Falling Leaf Press)!" He didn't get to finish his anti-air counter as Ryu jumped into the air and kicked Naruto off of his friend's shoulders, freeing Ken from the forceful slam that would have focused all of Naruto's body weight on his upper body.

Despite being kicked off as Ken fell safely to the ground, Naruto backflipped through and landed on his feet before dropping down to one knee, holding his bruised chin, "Grr… I thought I had him." He said, punching the ground in frustration.

"That was close though." Sakura was back at his side again, patting him firmly on the shoulder, encouraging him to get back up and not to lose his temper, "Come on. I think we can actually win this one." That was all Naruto needed to hear as he cracked his knuckles and nodded before the two rushed out at Ryu and Ken once more.

Ken got up off of his back quickly after being freed from what would have been the most devastating attack that Naruto would have hit him with in the fight, "Thanks for saving my ass partner. These are some wiry brats."

"I'm excited that the next generation is this talented." Ryu said with an excited smirk on his face as he saw an incoming Naruto and Sakura coming their way. He bounced on his toes in anticipation of their approach and watched Naruto make a clone that jumped into the air to initiate the conflict once more, "Shoryuuken (Rising Dragon Punch)!" He leapt up and hit his twisting uppercut that preempted whatever the clone was going to do.

The same motion allowed him to leap clear over Naruto, forcing Naruto to engage headlong into another hand-to-hand battle with Ken at a more furious pace than ever before. Ryu landed just as Sakura came to a stop, not wanting to run into a stiff attack. Ryu simply beckoned her forward, but she shook her head and wordlessly requested him to make his move.

A quick quirk of Ryu's lips was her only warning before he stormed forth and once again put her on the full defensive, blocking punches and kicks with brick-breaking force behind them. Every so often he would snipe at a weak point in her defense, periodically tagging the girl with sharp punches to the face and hooks and kicks to the body.

She almost preferred it when he had been taking it easier on her, but she quickly squashed that thought and kept fighting. It wouldn't do well to wilt now that the pressure was finally on her for certain.

Getting a second of breathing room, Sakura didn't hesitate to unleash a quick spinning jump kick that rotated her around twice, battering Ryu's guard, "Shunpukyaku (Twirling Gale Leg)!" She finished with an upward aimed side kick that almost took Ryu's scalp out had he not leaned out of the way, "Oh darn!" She knew she had made a mistake before she had even missed the last kick. It was a habit of hers to finish that move with one last kick for emphasis.

This time it bit her in a way that she just couldn't recover from as she very shortly thereafter found Ryu's fist seemingly trying its best to drive its way through her face. After being hit by him while he was brainwashed she knew he hadn't been hitting her as hard as he was really capable of, but after taking that blow the lights slowly flickered out in her head.

Her body flew a short distance and slid to a stop on the ground motionless. She didn't try to get up again simply because she was unable to.

Ryu exhaled sharply as he still stood in the strong position from the straight punch right to Sakura's jaw that knocked her out cold. He stayed there for a moment to observe and make sure that she was finished. He then wheeled around to where Naruto was fighting Ken and sat down on his knees to watch out the rest of their battle. He wasn't going to step into his friend's battle for something like this.

To Ken's surprise Naruto had no problems standing and trading back and forth even though he was taking the worst of the back and forth trading of punches and kicks. He would try for something off the wall like a kick that would not only allow him to get underneath a punch from Ken, but would also let him sit back on his hands and plant both of his feet in Ken's chest with a kick that would throw him off balance.

Naruto got back onto his feet and sprang at Ken, intent on taking advantage of what he had just done as he created four clones that surrounded Ken on all sides. Naruto first sprang off of one of his clones' back and shoulders to get air while the rest of them lined up an upwards kick that would knock Ken into the air, "U! Zu! Ma! Ki!"

The kicks never landed as Ken never let them get close enough to kick him into the air, "Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (Tornado Whirlwind Leg)!" His whirling dervish of an attack dispelled all of the clones, leaving Naruto airborne and dropping with no one rising to meet him.

That was alright though. Narutp planned on landing with some impact anyway as he formed his devastating spinning blue ball of pure chakra in his right hand, "It's not that easy! Uzumaki Naruto is the greatest ninja in the world, dattebayo! Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

Ken quickly dove out of the way, allowing Naruto to slam the Rasengan into the ground. That was what would have happened though, had Naruto not tracked him while he was moving. Naruto overloaded the Rasengan the moment before he would have touched the ground, causing it to expand and burst, pushing him off towards Ken, sailing through the air like a surface-to-air missile.

"That's how you do it teme!" Batsu shouted when Naruto was right on Ken without missing a beat, "Show him why we're a pair of finely tuned asskicking machines!"

An impressed Ken hunkered down, anticipating Naruto flying towards him for a brutal dropkick that would have sent him flying, "That was a good recovery. Very flashy too… but you blew your wad too soon on that one kid! Shoryureppa (Rising Dragon Destroyer)!" He had Naruto timed down to the very last split moment.

He threw one leaping uppercut that clashed with Naruto's legs and negated the boy's attack, throwing Naruto back into the air while Ken was sent back to land on the ground, but Ken immediately jumped back up with a faster, finisher of a sky-high twisting burning uppercut that caught Naruto directly under the chin and set him on fire for a split second before it was put out like a vacuum sucked all of the oxygen out of the flames.

It seemed like Naruto was floating through the air like moth before gravity took hold and he dropped to the ground, light burns lining his frame and his eyes rolled in the back of his head. He hit the ground as nothing but dead weight with an audible thud as the gawking public reacted vocally to the impressive battle as they started going back to their own business.

"Hmm…" Ryu hummed with an almost nonexistent nod , "I see. He's a very special young fighter."

Batsu slammed a crutch on the ground in frustration at the loss, "One damn mistake! He was doing great! I swear he could have won that fight!" He started hobbling over along with Cammy and Karin as Ryu carried the still knocked out Sakura over as well.

"He fought very well." Cammy commented. Several things she saw during that fight felt familiar, "Both of them did." She had seen both portions of the battle and was impressed by everything she saw, but watching Naruto fight dredged up fledgling thoughts of her going against him in the past. Nothing concrete though. As far as she could tell it could have just as easily been a daydream out of control.

"One mistake is all it takes." Ken said as he walked over to Naruto and crouched down, checking him to make sure that he hadn't hurt him anymore than just knocking him out. He noticed Karin had taken a spot by Naruto's head and had set it in her lap as she herself checked him over, "He's fine." She looked up for long enough to shoot him a quick glare before her attention turned back towards the beaten down Naruto, "Heh."

"Did you have to set him on fire?" Karin snapped while making sure that Naruto's eyebrows didn't get singed off of his face, "That seems a little much."

Hey, it was a fight, and Naruto had already proven to be as tough as nails. To knock him out you had to take that head of his out. No cumulative damage would do the job. You had to knock him O.U.T; out, no getting around it, "He was a tough out. I can only imagine how great this would have been if we had more privacy." How security never tried to stop them he would never know, "Besides, from how fast you just put him all nestled up in your lap it doesn't look like you mind too much."

"He is my investment." While her leering was a good attempt to hide her embarrassment at getting called out by Ken Masters, Karin still panicked enough to drop his head from her lap and onto the hard floor, "Oops."

Letting out a bit of laughter, Ken stood up and dusted off the legs of his gi pants, "Whatever you say. Just don't let that privileged girl thing define who you are as a person. Take it from someone else who grew up rich." He gestured towards Batsu and Cammy who was now holding an unconscious Sakura, "Remember that conversation we had back in Thailand."

Karin blinked and nodded for a moment as she remembered just a few days ago back before they had set out to return to Hong Kong to get everyone home

_(Flashback – Two Days Ago – Northwest Thailand Interior – Small Village)_

_A rather bedraggled looking Karin sat on her knees, breathing heavily and looking quite defeated. While practicing by herself just outside of the village to pass the time, Ken ran across her and challenged her to a spar of sorts. Of course, seeing an opportunity to test herself against the most powerful fighter in the United States she simply couldn't turn that down and accepted._

_As well of a fight as she put up, in the end she was still soundly defeated. Trounced even. And her frustration at the past few days coupled with her most recent defeat built up to something of a boiling point in her, "This is unacceptable!" She shouted as she stood up and threw a kick at a tree hard enough to fell the tree entirely, "I thought I was stronger than this!"_

_Waiting for the tree to safely fall to the ground with a cracking crash, Ken just observed her pacing about back and forth in a bit of a rage. This wasn't just because she had lost a fight, it had to have been pent up for quite some time._

"_I'm supposed to be the best. It's all I'm allowed to be." Karin said quietly as she sat against another tree and slid to the ground to take a seat, "All I need is victory… and I can't even get that any longer. Ever since Sakura-san… and him. I haven't beaten anyone important."_

_Distraught teenage girls weren't really Ken's thing. He liked to blame training almost like a hermit with Gouken and Ryu for over ten years. He missed prime time hitting on girls in his teen years in exchange for getting that roundhouse kick just right under Gouken's watch. How he even got a girlfriend was beyond him._

_Still though, for some reason Karin reminded him of himself; a wealthy family, trained extensively in the martial arts. Her attitude reminded him a lot of the way he used to be before Gouken's terrorizing training beat the entitlement out of him one punch at a time. Also like him she had people around her to more or less straighten her out. All he had was Ryu growing up. He counted three good friends for her._

_Ken pulled up alongside her and sat down next to her against the tree, trying to play therapist, "Winning isn't everything that you should take from the matches you find yourself in." He said to her, "Ryu's the oldest rival I've got, and we've kicked each other around so much we've lost count of who's won more."_

"_Easy for the United States champion to say."_

"_I admit, it's kind of dumb for someone like me to talk about losing." Ken acknowledged freely, "But I wasn't a champion when I was your age. Tell me, who exactly have you lost to other than me to make you act like this?"_

_Karin held up two fingers for emphasis, "Kasugano Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto."_

_Ken kept waiting for more names to be rattled off, but Karin gave him nothing else. The silence between them dragged before Ken gave her a deadpan look, "That's it? Sakura and the Naruto kid that helped beat Bison the other day? That's it?" Karin looked confused but nodded. She had engaged in dozens of street fights in between those two defeats, but they still stung, " Those are the only people you've lost to and you're all down in the dumps about it."_

"_It is not just the losses that matter." Karin got up from the tree and started pacing around, wiping a smudge of dirt off of her cheek from her previous fight against Ken, "I've been fraternizing with them since then. Socializing with my rivals! That goes against all business sense!" She slammed another kick against a sturdier tree and stripped the bark clean off of it as if her leg had been a whip, "They're making me soft."_

_Soft? That girl didn't fight like she was soft, and from what he had seen of her interactions with Sakura that seemed to be a step short of being an outright blood feud at times that didn't really prove much of her case as going soft either._

_But maybe it wasn't Sakura out of the two aforementioned that was making her soft. _

_Ah… kids._

_As she continued to pace about, she stopped when she saw Ken grinning at her, and for the life of her she couldn't understand why, "And just what is so entertaining about what I'm saying." She would then go on to be thoroughly embarrassed for the next five minutes. Picking out openings and weaknesses clearly didn't end only on the battlefield for Ken Masters as she would come to find out._

(End Flashback)

"You're going to need people like them to keep you grounded." Ken looked down at Naruto before he started walking away, "Tell him he did great, that he needs to keep cultivating that way of fighting he uses. It's different." He was a terror. A tactical nightmare. A little more polish and no one would question whether Naruto was a diamond or not, there would be no rough about it. That would only come with time.

Meanwhile, Ryu was looking down at the unconscious Sakura being held up by Cammy who didn't seem to mind bearing Sakura's weight until she woke up. He reached into his travel bag and pulled out a small notepad that he placed on Sakura's person, making sure that she had it cradled, "I can't stick around to train her. I'm still not ready to take on any kind of pupil. But make sure she reads this if she's really set on me being the one to teach her something. It should help."

Not really knowing what else to do other than accept it, Cammy nodded. These people certainly were strange, and she was quite certain that watching the team battle gave her something of an adrenaline rush, all without her being the one fighting.

It was a bit startling though, that when Cammy saw openings in any of the combatant's fighting technique she visualized herself countering them with her own specific maneuvers. Did she even have fighting moves? That had to be something she tested out later because for right then Ken and Ryu were leaving them behind to clean up and board their plane out of the country.

"Oh my jaw… and the rest of my head." Naruto moaned in pain as he regained consciousness first and sat up from his place on Karin's lap. He looked around and saw Ken and Ryu walking further into the terminal after the crowd had dispersed, blending in and fading away through the pedestrians, "Damn, I lost didn't I?"

"You fought a very good fight Naruto-san." Karin told him as she helped him back up to his feet, "Are you okay? You were out cold for quite a few minutes just now."

Naruto continued to hold his jaw and noticeably winced as he spoke, "Yeah, I'm fine Karin. My pride hurts worse than my face." He frowned when he saw Sakura in Cammy's arms as obviously she hadn't fared any better either, "We just got our asses handed to us." He mumbled through his injuries.

"It's really not that bad." Batsu said encouragingly as he hobbled his way over on his crutches with Cammy following, "You might have lost, but you can say that you both laid a pretty good beating on a pair of world-recognized champions. How many people can say that they did some shit like that when they were sixteen?"

"You curse a lot." Cammy observed randomly, taking the air out of Batsu's sails as he tried to cheer Naruto up, "But he has a point. You both fought incredibly well Naruto. That was really exciting to watch. It looked like you had him when those copies of you surrounded him." A genuine smile peeked its way through on her face, as just watching the fight seemingly cheered her up.

With a thumbs-up gesture towards the amnesia-afflicted girl, Naruto looked in the direction that he had seen Ken and Ryu walk off in, noting that they were both gone completely, "I've got to get stronger. Definitely. All of us do."

"And we will." Placing a hand on Naruto's shoulder in a supportive manner, Karin's stare then turned icy enough to get Naruto to shiver, "I will not accept being left behind again the way you chose to do during the final attack on Shadaloo's stronghold." Naruto just nodded once while Batsu started backing away from the scary girl, "Good. Now shall we return home?"

"I was wondering… no nevermind."

Everyone stopped their efforts to leave the airport when they heard Cammy prepare to ask a question only to balk at doing so before she got it out. Naruto walked towards her, getting her to look away bashfully at being put on the spot, "What's the matter Cammy?" He asked as he took Sakura off of her hands only to watch her fidget with them, "Come on. Say what you were going to say."

Being reassured did nothing for her nerves, and once again it had to be brought up that Cammy's instinctual emotions when not suppressed were much closer to what a normal person's would have been. She was clearly uneasy about what she wished to talk about. She swallowed heavily and figured that not asking at all would be worse than asking and getting a bad response as a result.

"Well… I really don't wish to stay in Hong Kong by myself." She started to say, "The other girls are having their homes found and are being returned. Aside from that they aren't awake yet. Even if they were I don't know anything about them."

"So…" It was kind of obvious at that point what she wanted, and that she was scared that they would say no to her. Naruto simply took it upon himself to finish her thought for her, "Do you want to come back to Japan with us?" She looked away but nodded regardless, "That's alright with us."

That came as a surprise to Cammy, "It is?" Wow, did she really know them that well before she lost her memory? They did all feel familiar to her, setting her with a bit of ease around them, but she simply couldn't pinpoint why and from where or for what reason.

Karin - "Yes, of course. It only makes sense since you do not know anyone else outside of us."

Batsu - "Where else would you go? You can definitely come with us. Aohura City needs more pretty girls anyway."

Naruto - "You thought we were just going to ditch you here? No way. We're friends Cammy. We thought you'd ask us sooner but we didn't want to force it on you. You can come with us and stay as long as you want."

She didn't know what she had experienced with these people to get them to treat her in such a way, but it made her feel good. Things could have been worse for her than not having a memory Cammy surmised. She could have been in a coma like the other Dolls, or with someone that would mistreat and take advantage of her, or on her own God forbid.

Those things weren't things she had to worry about though. For now she had somewhere to go, and when the others gestured her forth to follow them to the rail transport to begin their trek back to Karin's yacht to return home she didn't hesitate for a moment to follow them with a content smile on her face. She was still nervous, but there was more optimism than hesitance.

XxX

As they left that section of the airport, a man that had been observing them all from the moment the team battle involving Ken and Ryu began took note of this with great interest in the youngsters that had unwittingly put on a show for the entire airport and for him as well, "And here I was hoping to see a little something amusing, but this was something incredible altogether."

The old man had slick grey hair and a long beard going down his face. He wore a long purple Chinese shirt with long sleeves, a purple sash around his waist, as well as a pair of dark blue pants and a pair of red martial arts shoes. He got up from the seat he had been in on a bench, picking up his suitcase as he walked his own way out of the airport.

"Children these days are so interesting." He commented to himself, "Maybe one of them will get strong enough to be marked as a target by me one day."

The man idly walked his way home through the streets of Hong Kong, refraining from using public transportation, not using a personal vehicle to traverse the large city. The walk was nothing for someone like him. Barely a brisk little stroll around town, suitcase in hand or not.

Eventually though, he arrived home and walked inside, shutting and locking the door behind him and dropping his luggage at the door, "I'm back, and it was quite a fruitful trip. I found who I was looking for and fought him." He said, getting nothing but silence through the house despite the fact that he was speaking as if he wasn't alone, "…You could at least ask me how my trip went."

More silence.

"Such an ungrateful brat…" The old man mumbled as he walked through the house and made it to an empty room meant for meditation. It was pitch dark inside, but he could clearly sense the presence of a figure within sitting in the middle of the room. Without hesitation he walked inside and fonged the sitting figure on the back of the head, "Greet your master when he returns home boy. What kind of apprentice are you?"

"I'm not your apprentice, you just made me start living here when I was thirteen. I never chose to learn a thing from you."

"Oh ho, and yet it didn't stop you from taking what you saw at first glance whenever I found it prudent to teach you your manners with force did you?" The old man said with a smirk as he brushed his wispy beard with a wave of his hand and tossed it over his shoulder, turning around to head back to the doorway of the dark room, "It is your choice though. You can be labeled 'apprentice' or you can be labeled 'thief'. Either way it doesn't matter to me as long as you continue to pull your weight around here."

"Hm."

The jab at integrity was not risen to, not that it had been expected at all. This kid was usually as cool as ice, "I saw quite a good fight today at the airport when my plane landed. Kids are getting stronger all the time. It's like you're all so eager to rush to your deaths in battle."

"Hm."

"Japanese children, sort of like you. I only got the name of one of them though; a strange blonde child screaming about being the best ninja in the world, or something like that. Naruto is what I believed they called him. Honestly… what parent named that boy?"

"…Naruto." That seemed to ring through to the boy in the room who had been mostly inexpressive until that point. Now though, he was thoroughly interested, "Gen… the boy you're talking about. Is his name Uzumaki Naruto?"

"Hm? Yes I believe so. He was very impressive." The old man Gen flicked the lights on when he reached the doorway, "Do you plan on taking another mission soon? Your special brand of assassination is in high demand these days. It seems everyone loves the flashy stuff Sasuke."

Now bathed in the light of the outlets, it was clear that sitting in the middle of the floor was a young man with dark hair that was spiky in the back with bangs hanging off of the side of his face framing his cheeks. At the moment he was shirtless, but it was clear that he was a very athletically muscular teenaged young man with a tattoo of a red and white fan on his right arm and a small tattoo that looked like three separate tomoe on the back of his neck and shoulder.

"I'm not killing anyone that doesn't have a good excuse to die. I'll do one more, but then I'm going on a bit of a vacation Gen." Turning towards the elderly warrior, he looked at him with red eyes that had three particular markings in each of them, "You said that those kids were Japanese right?"

"Yes. Does this mean that there is finally something that's caught the 'great' Sasuke's notice enough for him to care about it one way or another?"

Sasuke stood up and walked past Gen out of the room with a roll of his eyes, "You wouldn't understand it at all. If I told you you'd never believe me."

As the young man walked away back to his own quarters, Gen merely shrugged and went back to his own business, leaving Sasuke to his own devices. The boy had always been strange ever since he had first arrived in the country a few years ago, 'That child is as strange as they come, and those mutated eyes of his… such a terribly effective gift had to be given to him by the devil himself at the cost of his soul. That horrible Sharingan.'

'Naruto…' Sasuke thought to himself as he reached his room. There wasn't much more than the bare necessities inside, but there was one personal trinket sitting by his bed on the nightstand. A piece of blue cloth with a metal band on it engraved with a leaf; a leaf with a scratch right through the middle of it, 'So you're here too.' A small smirk came to his face as he clutched the headband tight enough to cut his palm on the edge of the metal and stain it with his blood.

He knew Naruto hadn't died.

When he woke up after their final clash of attacks, Sasuke found himself alone in a canyon in America, no Naruto around him. He thought for a moment that he had been carried somewhere far away by the falls of the Valley of the End and simply started walking north… and north… and north until he was finally picked up by people he couldn't understand.

After an interpreter came that somehow spoke his language, Sasuke learned that he was no longer anywhere near his neck of the woods. He adjusted well enough, learning many of the languages, finding a way to put his skills to use for money until being found in China by Gen, who took him in after soundly thrashing him and gave him work as an assassin; only jobs that Sasuke chose to accept though.

Still, he always looked for a way to reverse his fortune and return to the Elemental Nations in vain. But now he finally found that he hadn't been the only one dumped there by the twist of fate that was their battle, "Well it looks like the world isn't done with the two of us yet huh?"

* * *

><p><strong>Bam! Chapter complete! Now how do you like that?<br>**

**It's been a hell of a week. I've created and solved so many problems over the last five days that it's ridiculous. I'm beat.**

**And with that I'll bid you all adieu until the next time… except for one thing. **

**To whom it may concern; don't ever tell me to do anything. I don't listen to requests really, much less a single-minded demand that gets shoved in my face every single chapter. **

**I already know what I'm going to do, I have no obligation to adhere to anything, and repeating what you want like a broken record gets you nothing, no matter how many capital letters and exclamation points you use. It's insulting, especially when the review is anonymous, forcing me to address you like this instead of directly and surreptitiously.**

**I'm f'n 20 years old. I do what I want, when I want. I'm not getting paid here. It's just a hobby, of which I have several.**

**That's all.**

**Kenchi out. I need some damn sleep.**


	19. Double Jeopardy

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I'm going to put up an ad on Craigslist to see if I can find someone that knows the secrets to chakra or mystical physical abilities to train under. I truly doubt some wise old hermit up in the mountains in Eastern Asia somewhere checks on Craigslist for things though… unless he's in the market for his own pair of New Balance Minimus shoes.

Damn acorns.

**Chapter 19: Double Jeopardy**

* * *

><p>Things were very civil after everyone's return to Aohura City. The routine became such once again and everyone fell right back into step after their return from impromptu 'Spring Break' of sorts that they had taken, and they were preparing for the rest of the school term to wind down and for summer to begin anew for the month that they would be off.<p>

Of course, now going to school had a new hazard to it that Naruto had not been prepared for upon his homecoming.

Rounding a corner of the stone wall that sat around the high school, Naruto clad in his school uniform turned around and began dodging a rapid flurry of punches from a girl with messy black hair in a karate gi before taking off his bag and using the strap to catch and trap his attacker's arm, allowing him to throw her back and run.

"Why the hell does this keep happening to me?" Naruto yelled as he hightailed it down the street, schoolbag flailing behind him over his shoulder as he did so, "Every Friday for the past month? Go away!"

"Stop running away you coward! I thought you were strong!"

Sakura, Ibuki, and Kei watched as Naruto sprinted down an adjacent street in a blur with a surprisingly fast and smaller one keeping closer than one figured a person could, "Did that karate girl catch him leaving again?" Kei wondered aloud as they made it out of sight, "I thought he was taking a secret way out this time."

"He did." Ibuki revealed with a frown as she had been the one to help him find a not-so-obvious way out of the school to avoid this strange Makoto girl that only seemed to want to kick his ass, "I don't understand how he could have blown it, but don't underestimate her. That girl is just too aggressive." She knew as much better than any of them. The urbanized kunoichi had been the one to soothe the savage beast that was Makoto's taste for fighting while her friends had been away.

Throughout all of that she found out that she was one scary-strong person, and from the times when Ibuki had to spar with her to try and make her forget about her self-imposed mission to find and defeat a famous fighter for publicity to her family's dojo she learned that lesson hard.

"I can only imagine…" Sakura mused aloud as she continued her walk home with her friends, "If this is what she's doing now, I wonder how bad it'll be when summer gets here." How did she even keep getting to town as well? That was another point that needed to be brought up. She was a year younger than they were and she had the money to catch a bus from her home to Aohura City every week, "God… he'll need to get a safehouse or something."

Ibuki's eyes lit up at the thought of Naruto needing to lay low somewhere else for a bit and she quickly interjected, raising her hand excitedly, "Ooh, ooh! I can see if I can take Naruto with me back to my village for the vacation. That's a good place for him to duck his head down for a bit." It would also be nice to introduce someone else into the monotonous hell that was going to be her having to do her normal ninja-in-training routine.

They always thought that she was just lazy about her training, but that wasn't true at all! She trained just as hard if not harder than everyone else. It was why she was granted the concession to come to regular school; because she had shown and repeatedly proven herself to be head and shoulders above any other possible student.

"Wait. Didn't you say that if Naruto knew where your village was they'd have to have him killed?"

"Duh, that's why I'd ask permission for him to go first. I wouldn't just take him."

XxX

(Later That Afternoon – Sakura's House)

"Would you stop fidgeting already? You know the drill by now, if you don't want me to cut something you want to keep then stop moving around." Sakura told Naruto as he sat in front of her in a chair in the kitchen by the back door of her home, a barber's cape around him as she went to work on his far wilder than normal hair with a pair of scissors, "Is that what you want? Do you want to have to go bald?"

"We've been here forever Sakura-chan." Naruto defended with a whine as clips of his hair fell all in front of his face, "I'm still all fired up from giving that Makoto girl the slip." She couldn't try to actually look for him again as she had to get back home. The chase had wasted too much time to fight him even if she did wind up catching him, "I think I'm training her by accident too, because I think she's getting faster."

With a roll of her eyes at her best friend's insight, Sakura blew stray hairs off of Naruto's head before continuing to dutifully groom him, "Why don't you ever go to a barber Naruto? I've been cutting your hair for years."

The first time she did it back when they were twelve was out of the rawest necessity possible. Naruto had gotten to looking like a sheepdog his bangs were so low over his eyes. It was actually what had motivated Sakura to cut her hair short since she was able to handle Naruto's so well to his liking.

"Because I don't trust anybody around my back with sharp blades." Naruto said as if it were obvious.

Letting some weird guy he didn't know go to town on his hair while his eyes were off of him? No thanks. People could get killed like that. It wasn't like people didn't know who he was. And he did not trust a clone to do it either.

First of all he didn't know how to cut hair to begin with. Second of all, and probably even more important, even if he did know how, whenever performing domestic acts his clones were totally juvenile, and one of them would probably screw him over while they were cutting his hair for shits and giggles.

You've got to make your own fun after all.

"Well who cut your hair before me silly?"

"Iruka-sensei found the time to do it usually." Naruto recalled fondly. When he was in the Ninja Academy the man would usually chase Naruto down when he was looking too shaggy and would proceed to cut his hair, after liberal application of rope to prevent escape of course, "Before that, I don't remember who did it."

Now there was something that grabbed Sakura's interest. Naruto's old teacher. He never talked about anything that happened to him before arriving in Japan and Aohura City. She had gotten used to it even though it still bothered her, but now there seemed to be a crack in that door once again.

"Alright, we're done." Sakura told him after checking him over a few good times to make sure it was all even. His spiky locks were back to their normal length, much to Naruto's satisfaction as Sakura handed him a mirror to let him see himself, "If you want a better job done you'd better go pay a professional to do it."

Without any other prompting needed to hop out of the chair, Naruto got up and rid himself of the barber's cape, making a clone to begin sweeping up his hair that was on the floor, "No, this is good Sakura-chan. Thanks. Do you want to go train now?"

"Yes, yes, and yes." Sakura wholeheartedly agreed, opening the door to her backyard as Naruto went outside with her, "That little book Ryu gave me has some seriously good stuff in it. You should see it. Some of those exercises it tells me to do are total killers, but I can totally tell that they're working. It's only been two weeks!"

Naruto was happy that Sakura was happy with her current method of training. While her ultimate goal was to earn Ryu's recognition as a powerful fighter, eventually obtaining the right to be trained by him, she was good with getting tips and help in the form of the book he had given her after she had been defeated by him.

"So this Iruka-sensei…" Sakura said as she began to stretch out to loosen herself up before they got started, "Was he your real teacher like a schoolteacher, or was he the person that trained you to be a ninja?"

"A bit of both really." Naruto chuckled as he started limbering up and cracking his knuckles and finger joints for his hand-seals, "Our system was kind of like Ibuki's. You had to go to school to be a ninja where they taught you all kinds of stuff until you were able to pass a graduation test. Most of us do it when we're twelve, but you can do it earlier if you're that good."

"So you get your fighting style from him!" Whoever this Iruka guy is, he had be the man that taught Naruto his hand-to-hand fighting style. He could teach someone how to fight the way Naruto did? He was either completely insane or he was an evil genius. Probably an unholy combination of both, "That's incredible! I can't even think about what your style looks like when it's mastered."

A confused Naruto blinked and scratched his head before trying to clear some things up, "No… Iruka-sensei didn't teach me how to fight. He instructed kids on getting into ninja shape and how to move. Basic stuff. We pretty much all gave ourselves our own technique in taijutsu stretching out from the basics unless you had a clan."

In the middle of stretching out her knees and hamstrings, Sakura furrowed her brow as she put together what Naruto was saying, "So no one taught you how to put together your punches and kicks, or your arsenal of fighting moves?"

Naruto realized early on that in pure taijutsu competition against other kids they all got tired while he was still just warming up… so he took advantage of that with a never-ending attack that he started putting some polish to once he made it his own. All killer and no filler, "Other than one person that taught me two of my ninjutsu, no. A ninja sensei isn't really supposed to give us moves, they were really supposed to teach us how to be good ninja."

"That's so sad… you never had a real master either."

"It's not sad." Naruto replied, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked down at his friend warming up, "You don't need a trainer to be strong. You didn't need Ryu to train you and look at you."

"But my moves suck." Sakura said with a pronounced frown, "You pick on my Hadoken all the time. I don't do it right. It doesn't go that far unless I keep from charging it, and when I do that I can't even aim it."

"Your moves suck compared to what?" Naruto verbally fired right back, "Just because you don't do them like Ryu and Ken… put your own spin on it damn it. Don't be cookie-cutter. Come up with your own way to use your attacks. That's what's holding you back; you want to be like them too much. You can make your regular Hadoken way stronger than Ken and Ryu can, even if it is slower and doesn't go as far as theirs. Use that."

Sakura stopped stretching and sat down in the grass looking up at Naruto before smiling a bit at how serious he felt about this, "It sounds like you've thought about this a lot Naruto."

"I used to want to learn my second sensei's signature technique because it was a strong ninjutsu." There was a time when he was a kid where he would have begged Kakashi or Jiraiya for a jutsu, but after creating several of his own he didn't have that desire any longer. He could do it himself, "But now I'd rather be styleless than learn someone else's moves. I've got my own. I'd rather do whatever I want, whatever I think will work when I want it to. All of the fighting moves I know… I'll use them any way I feel like."

"You're your own master I guess." Sakura giggled before getting up and patting her cheeks to fire herself up, "A quick spar. No heavy stuff today, okay? Tomorrow's Sunday and I don't want to be too sore to hang out with Kei-chan."

"Whatever you say Sakura-chan." As they both stood in their fighting stances in their socks, Naruto could only think about how he'd been doing for so long, 'I'm way stronger than I was when I first came to Aohura City. All of the fights I've been in kept me sharp and all the people I've seen let come up with enough new techniques all on my own.'

And Sakura was about to see one or both of his newest ones. He had started developing them during the trip and started training to learn them upon the end of it. Thank goodness he had clones that could work on the mechanics of a jutsu while he was at school. Everyone always thought he was sleeping because he was a lazy-ass... no, it was because the mental backlash from his fatigued and dispelled clones knocked him unconscious.

How else would he have fallen asleep at midfield the other day during soccer in gym class? He didn't have narcolepsy or anything.

But just wait for her to give him an opening. She'd never know what hit her, and then she'd bow down to his awesome ingenuity and originality. Just say go already. It was time to get that spar underway. He was so ready for it.

"So how's Cammy getting along this week? I haven't seen her since Wednesday."

Oh fuck, Cammy. He forgot about her. That wasn't good.

"Shit!" Naruto immediately chose to forgo sparring and ran back into Sakura's house like a bat out of hell, "I can't believe I didn't go get her! I was supposed to go home first before anything else after school was over! Stupid karate girl chasing me all over the neighborhood!" He shouted, his voice clear for all to hear through the open door. It took another few seconds before Naruto came running back out with his shoes back on his feet and his bag slung over his shoulder, "Got to go Sakura-chan! I'll call you later okay?"

Shaking her head in exasperation, she watched Naruto rocket off of the ground into her tree and then onto the rooftops as he sped home, "Why'd he have to be the only one that it was possible to leave her with?"

XxX

(Naruto's Apartment)

Naruto's feet touched down on his landing on his floor of the apartment complex and he quickly opened the door, pasting a huge smile on his face to try and play off the fact that he was two hours late getting home, "Cammy, sorry about that. There were some things that happened and…" He trailed off when he saw Cammy sitting on the couch watching TV as if nothing was wrong.

That was cool, but the fact that her clothes were pretty torn up as if she had been in a fight wasn't cool. Her dark green blouse had a few dirt stains and frays, and her black skirt seemed mighty disheveled. The only thing that didn't seem messed up was the red beret that was sitting in her lap. And she was totally calm with it, just staring at some weird game show that was on TV until she noticed that he had come in, "Oh. Hello Naruto."

"Hey." Naruto said as he kicked off his shoes at the door and noticed that Cammy's were there too. Was that a bloodstain on one of them? Nonetheless he walked in and sat down next to her on his couch to get a better look at her, "What did you get into today while we were at school?" He asked warily, 'Please tell me you didn't kill somebody out of instinct.'

At the utterance of his question, her face took on a pout and she crossed her arms over her chest, "I was going around Aohura City to get my bearings and learn where things were by heart, the way you all told me I should have. You have some very rude people here."

That was all Naruto needed to hear. There was no need to explain anymore, "You met one of the gangs didn't you? Yeah, sorry about that." It wasn't that he was concerned about Cammy's well-being. Hell he was more concerned about the idiots that thought that the petite western-looking girl was easy pickings, "Don't go around the arcade area unless you actually want to fight. They like to think they own turf around there."

"Well that's good to know. I'll remember that."

"…Why didn't you change clothes when you got back?"

"I was going to… but then I sat down and started watching this show. It's really kind of funny and this is the third straight show like this. These tasks don't look that difficult, but none of these people can do them."

"That's because they're all normal Cam."

"Ah, I knew that."

Upon returning to Aohura City there was an immediate problem that needed attention before anything else. The problem of course being the location of Cammy's lodging for the duration of her choice to stay in Japan.

The obvious first choice was Karin's home. It was huge, with way more space than she would ever use. An easy call, right? But her family checked in with her like no one's business after the little stunt at school with the Dolls trying to kidnap her. No way they'd allow a guest to stay with her that they knew nothing about, and any background on Cammy's actual origin that they could give them would only end poorly.

Batsu lived with his mother, and they didn't have room for a guest, even if his mother would have tolerated a girl her son's age living under her roof with him. More drama than was needed on all fronts.

Sakura lived with her mother and her younger brother, so once again there was no room for a guest.

Thus it fell to the only one of them that lived alone, had tons of space since he didn't really own much, and had absolutely no supervision or prying eyes that could get past that reinforced, booby-trapped front door.

As far as roommates went, Naruto could have done far worse than Cammy. She was a good girl, and even though he had to clean out the extra room that he'd been using as a bit of an armory (no big deal because that's what sealing scrolls were for) and buy a bed for her to boot, the company was nice for the two weeks that she had been living there.

There was of course an adjustment period, as Naruto had to get used to the fact that he had to wear pants around his home now, and he also had to get used to not being the only person that had to use the bathroom in the morning so he couldn't just sleepily slog in there without being fully aware. He had done so twice, and Cammy was an earlier riser than him. It led to some awkward moments when he caught her in the shower.

For him… because Cammy had little to no shame when it came to her body. She didn't brutally kick his ass out or anything, she just calmly told him that she would be out in a few minutes, not even sparing him anything more than a passing glance.

Those things and other facets of sharing a home with another person were things that had been, and still had to be worked out. But for the time being things were going as well as could be anticipated. She was a pretty quiet girl and she was rather serious about most things, not to a point where she was obsessive or a buzzkill to be around, but she tended to focus on anything she was doing quite easily and get absorbed into it.

Like the TV show they were watching. Kami, he hated cable TV…

Hey, that was how he could find out what kind of things Cammy liked. If there was something that could get her attention to the point where she could block out the other inconsequential things that were going on around her they could start getting her some hobbies or general interests.

"These shows suck." Naruto commented, motioning towards the remote in Cammy's hand, "Change the channel. If I want to see people act like jackasses I'll make clones and tell them to study." Cammy turned to him, giving him an inquisitive look to which he gave her a flippant hand gesture, "Just do it. We're gonna find something cool for you today, and we're not leaving this room until you see something you like."

Well if he insisted, and from how he didn't look like he was going to get back up until he got what he wanted, Cammy did as requested if it really meant that much to him. It wasn't like she had anything that she could really do until Karin obtained an identity for her with matching ID, "Okay… what else is there to watch then?"

XxX

(The Next Day – Aohura City Arcade/Shopping District)

Sunday wasn't just his day off from school, it was Naruto's day off from working and training. Ibuki was in her village until the weekdays again, Sakura was spending the day with Kei, Karin had flown back to her family's compound in Tokyo to visit them, and Batsu had ditched school early for the last two weeks to go on a training trip with his father, who was actually extremely strong.

Naruto knew because he had fought him a long time ago back when he was a crazy principal kidnapping students from all over the city in some major conspiracy. Another story though…

But that left Naruto friendless with the exception of Cammy, and they still didn't know what she liked. They had watched so much TV the previous day, by the end of it Naruto felt like chucking the set out of his window. Eventually though, he fell asleep on the couch while Cammy threw a sheet on him and left him there for the night. How embarrassing.

And none of it bore any worthwhile fruit. Cammy still didn't seem to get too into anything that they had seen, be it any kind of commercial for anything or the topic of any sort of show outside of marginal interest. Not good enough, and today didn't seem to be turning out to be any better.

The girl was like a brick wall in that regard. Maybe sending her with Sakura and Kei for the day would have been a better idea? They were all girls, they could have come up with something that she liked, right?

He was a ninja, not a damn sociologist. How was he supposed to break down things that Cammy might have found fun?

However it was clear she didn't like video games though, because when Naruto had wandered into the arcade to play a few games… and when a few games turned into a dozen or so, she was long gone by the time he looked up and realized how much time had passed.

That was a new low; being ditched for being boring by a girl with amnesia.

It didn't take long to find her though. Clones were very useful in that regard, and with a pinpoint lock on where Cammy was, Naruto went right to her, finding her standing at the window of a storefront, looking inside as if a spell had been cast on her. More normal clothes for her; on this day she wore a black button-up blouse with a few buttons undone at the top, a pair of small red shorts, white shoes, and a red beret, "Cammy. You could've said something before running off."

She didn't register that he had said anything to her at first until she realized that someone had said her name. Turning in Naruto's direction, she snapped out of her wide-eyed glance just like that, "Oh. Well I did… but you weren't listening so I just left. You didn't seem like you were going to be moving anytime soon." She then pulled out her cell phone that had been given to her by the others to check the time, "And I was right. It's been forty-five minutes since I left you playing video games."

Oh. Well that was his bad then. Naruto's attention then swung towards the store that Cammy had been looking into, "A pet store?" He asked rhetorically, getting a nod from Cammy who returned to looking through the window, "You like animals?" That didn't really seem like an assassin kind of interest to have… unless the pet was a cobra or a Forest of Death sized animal or something like that, "You don't want a cobra do you? I hate snakes."

Cammy looked appalled at the thought of owning a snake as a pet, "Not a chance. How can I hug a snake?" That had to have been a joke. He couldn't have been serious. Why in the world would she have wanted a snake? A sheepish expression on his face from being rebuked told her that he had been serious in his questioning, "That's not what I was looking at."

He moved next to her for a better point of view where he saw a clear view of a mess of kittens, looking absolutely adorable. Naruto himself had to block a very unmanly 'aww' from passing through his vocal cords… and while he wasn't particularly a fan of cats, kittens were different. They weren't old enough to be outright mean to him yet.

But it would grow to hate him, just like all of the others did. All cats were ingrained with an instinct to cause him pain and misery.

"You want a cat?" He had never seen Cammy nod so eagerly before. Damn. Naruto did _not_ want a cat around his house. But it would have been the first definite thing since coming to Aohura City that would have made her legitimately happy. What a conundrum. He needed to stall, "…I don't know if the landlord allows pets. I've never seen any around my place."

Score. Pass the buck to the next guy. The perfect way to avoid problems and awkward conversations.

"Well could you check just in case?" Son of a bitch… a heartfelt request. And it wasn't like he was broke and needed to save his money. While he wanted to keep saving for another exploratory excursion to search for a mystical way home, hopefully one without an entire criminal organization trying to take his head off, buying a freaking cat and a few starter goods to help her take care of it wouldn't have dented his monetary reserves.

And it wasn't like Cammy had anything else to do during the day while he was at school for the last few weeks of it. So as much as it hurt him, he'd have to see if it was possible for him to have pets at his place, "…Yeah, sure." Naruto said, trying to keep the dejected tone out of his voice as Cammy pumped her fist victoriously and started looking for which one she wanted to take home once it got cleared.

She'd pick the one that would grow up to be the meanest to him, he was sure. Oh well, it could have been worse.

She could have been a snake person.

Why couldn't girls ever be toad lovers? He could get her a gigantic toad just like that.

XxX

"Is that the guy? That's the guy right? Every little bit of asking around we did says that this guy is the guy." An impatient looking young man with a pink kung fu shirt, yellow wristbands that covered his forearm up to his hands like fingerless gloves, and black pants leaned against a railing. His brown hair cascaded directly outward in a series of impressively spiky bangs that extended a few inches in front of his head, "So let's go tell Sasuke already Yun."

His colleague, Yun, looked just like him facially, but that was where the similarities ended. He had long brown hair in a single braided ponytail down his back, covered by a blue baseball cap with a yellow visor. He wore a sleeveless white kung fu shirt with long front and back tails to it, dark blue pants, and similar wristbands to the other young man's.

"You go do that. I want to see just what makes this guy so special." Yun held a pretty confident look on his face as he had a skateboard propped up under his foot, "Sasuke usually doesn't give a crap about anyone or anything, so what's with this Naruto guy that makes him want to find him so much? Aren't you curious Yang?"

Yang loved his twin brother dearly, but he was just too predisposed to fly off the handle at times. It was annoying, "He already didn't want to bring us because he said we'd make a mess of things. Do you really want to prove Sasuke right?"

They had 'befriended' Sasuke in China not too long after he had began to live with Gen, the old man that took part in training the two of them in the advanced aspects of their respective martial arts styles, and he repeatedly kicked their asses at the same time whenever they tried to test themselves against him. Thankfully he never used any assassin moves against them, but it established who was the alpha out of the lot of them.

Sasuke wasn't particularly the most sociable guy, but he was never outright nasty to them… it was more like he tolerated their presence at first and eventually got used to them enough to where he wouldn't try to periodically leave the room or inch away from them in public. If anything they felt that Sasuke was like their third older brother that they kept trying to catch up to. But if they were ever emotive enough to tell him that he'd just roll his eyes and walk away.

Aloof bastard.

"Well I'm pretty sure Sasuke didn't want to come all the way out to Japan to waste his time." Yun wasn't going to be convinced that leaving Naruto alone was the best option. It would really piss off the assassin that was Sasuke when he found out that Yun had screwed things up, but he wasn't having any of that, "Be right back." With that he began pushing off on his skateboard, weaving through pedestrians and ollying over random obstacles in the direction where he saw Naruto walking off with some girl.

"Wait!" Before he could reach out and grab his impulsive twin, Yun was gone, "Damn it." Yang muttered, snapping on a pair of inline skates to go after him quickly, "Sasuke's gonna kick our asses straight back to Hong Kong…"

XxX

"What's a good name for a cat?" Cammy thought aloud as she walked back home with Naruto. In her whimsy over the possibility of owning a cat she didn't seem to notice that Naruto was one step away from banging his head into the sturdiest object he could find.

Naruto let out a desperate groan and ran a hand through his hair, "Don't you think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself?" He said, trying to get her to stop chattering about a damn kitten. Cammy might not have said so much in one sitting since they'd met. She must have really been excited, "We've still got to find out if the landlord even allows animals."

"I think I can convince him if he doesn't." Cammy muttered, punching into her palm with a gleam in her eye, "I'm not sure, but I'm certain I can be very persuasive."

"No." Naruto stated, firmly grabbing her hand and lowering it down out of its fist form, "You're not beating the crap out of the landlord… he'll just kick us out when he gets out of the hospital." And if he said no Naruto would act outraged but would do a mental victory dance for dodging the cat bullet. In return Cammy begrudgingly nodded. It wouldn't do to get her friend kicked out of his home of four-plus years over a pet that she didn't even have yet, "We'll just ask him."

"Whoa, I didn't know he had a sister. She's really kind of cute too."

That voice was accompanied by the sound of wheels clacking on the grooves of the sidewalk, and Naruto and Cammy dove away from each other as a blur on a skateboard passed through where they had been walking.

"Another gang member?" Cammy ventured as a guess as the skateboarding young man with the long black braid powerslid to a stop a few yards away, "Why do they keep coming after us? Do you really have that many enemies?"

While he was getting used to having people want to kill him or beat him up, that didn't mean it was any less annoying. Still though, "I don't know who this guy is. I never fought him before." Unless there was some new blood rising in Aohura City, this wasn't anyone from there. The clothes were kind of a giveaway as well.

Stepping on the end of his skateboard to shoot it in the air before catching it, Yun let out a chuckle and grinned their way, "Hah, that's great. You were able to get out of the way in time. That's perfect. At least I know you aren't a slowpoke. It would suck if I came all the way from Hong Kong and you couldn't dodge that…"

Naruto raised an eyebrow at hearing how far this person came just to apparently mess with him. Man if he lived in a hidden village it would be way harder for people like this to get to him.

"And your sister could dodge it too." The boy from Hong Kong said, tilting his hat in Cammy's direction as a form of salutations, "The name's Yun."

"Cam's not my sister." Naruto said as he kept a wary eye on Yun. Both he and Cammy began moving to get an angle on each other to attack Yun if it really became necessary to do so. It was a good thing that the one useful thing she retained memory of was her skill in fighting… that and the fearlessness that came with it, "She's just my roommate for right now. Why are you here to fight me?"

Yun tapped on the bill of his cap before abruptly pointing out at Naruto, "So how'd you do it huh? It's been four damn years and me and Yang couldn't get him to give two craps about anything, but he'll drop everything and come looking for you just like that? Who are you anyway?" Naruto just tilted his head and gave him a quizzical look as Cammy just looked between the two of them, "Don't give me that look! You know what I'm talking about!"

Not only did Naruto not know what he was talking about at all, he was just confused enough to not care about fighting any longer. The aggression had been sapped from his body by his own puzzlement. Thus he simply walked over to Cammy and grabbed her hand before walking away, confusing her even more because she had been prepared to defend herself if need be, "Wha-? We're not fighting him?"

"I don't even know who he is, who he's talking about… anything. He's weird." Naruto said as he walked past a stunned Yun who had been expecting a fast-paced explosion of physical confrontation… not the object of his challenge walking away, "I don't fight crazy people."

"You fight crazy people almost exclusively."

"You be quiet. You haven't been around here long enough to know that yet. Do you want to ask the landlord about your cat or not?"

"Yes please."

Getting ignored as the pair of blue-eyed blondes walked off down the sidewalk, Yun turned around and began shouting at Naruto's back, "Hey what are you doing? You're missing a perfectly good opportunity to throw away a few years of the physical prime of your life in a violent street fight!" He stomped his foot on the ground before planning to go after them on his skateboard again to goad him into a fight when a pink blur scooped him up and kept going forward before jumping over both Naruto and Cammy's heads.

Both of them seemed prepared for another possibility of a physical altercation as Yang stopped in front of them with a bit of an apologetic look on his face, holding Yun under one arm as his brother cursed at him in Chinese, "Sorry about that. We just wanted to meet you and make sure you were who you said you were. Hothead here figured that involved fighting you."

"We can beat this guy Yang, he doesn't look that tough." Yun said as he tried to break his twin's tight grip but only got swatted on the top of the head, "Ow! He doesn't!"

"You don't look that tough either you jerk." Naruto shot back, forcing Yun to begin struggling more and more to get free and try to get at Naruto, "Yeah, get out of that and I'll kick your ass in fast-forward."

Cammy tapped him on the shoulder and leaned over to whisper in his ear, "Didn't you just say you didn't want to fight?"

Being caught acting contradictory to his own words, Naruto rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, "Yeah, but I'm mad again now."

Yang rapped Yun on the head again to get him to chill out before setting him back on his feet, "Well we're gonna leave, but since you're really this Naruto guy we're definitely going to tell our friend that you're really here. He wants to find you for some reason."

"To kill me?" Naruto asked with narrowed eyes. That was the reason that most people seemed to want to find him. Either that or to just beat him up, but he was starting to group the two reasons together.

"No… he would have just said it back before we left if he wanted to kill you. He's blunt like that." Yun answered nonchalantly, readjusting his baseball cap properly back atop his head, "…Honestly, we probably would have tried to stop him too if that was what he was coming all the way here for."

Yang reached out and gave Naruto some pats on the shoulder with a grin, "Don't worry about it. He actually seemed excited to come looking for you… it's hard to tell that he was, but I think he was."

"Still don't see why though…" Yun muttered before setting down his skateboard and taking off swiftly, leaving his brother as well as Naruto and Cammy behind, "Whatever."

"Later Uzumaki Naruto." Yang said with a half-assed wave before taking off and following Yun on his skates just as quickly.

They both disappeared from sight and left Naruto and Cammy looking after them before turning to each other, both just as lost as the other on exactly what was the point of what had just occurred, "I don't want to raise a pet in such a dangerous environment." Cammy told Naruto sternly as they started walking again.

"It's a _cat_ Cammy, it's not a damn child or something!"

XxX

(The Next Day – Tamagawa Minami High School)

A yawn came through the receiver on Naruto's cell phone as he was currently in the middle of a conversation before school started that day, _"You really call early. You do know it's like 6:45 here don't you? You're an hour ahead. I haven't even eaten yet."_ A female voice said over the line.

"Whoo. One hour." Naruto sarcastically responded, glad that the 'strongest woman in the world' wasn't there face-to-face with him at the moment, otherwise he might have paid for it, "Anyway Chun-Li, I need your help. These two guys from Hong Kong came here yesterday and said they were looking for me for someone."

"_Triads?"_

"…No." How was he supposed to respond to that? And anyway, no actual serious big-time gang operated in Aohura City. Yakuza didn't touch the place. It was the most useless market for any kind of criminal activity. It was the perfect urban center of boredom if you could ignore all of the super-strong, ki-technique hurling teenagers fighting in the streets all the time, "They were named something like Yun and Yang."

"_Oh hell… I was wondering why I hadn't heard from those two in a few weeks. I know who they are… but why would they want to look for you?"_

Naruto's phone was on speaker so that his surrounding friends could hear the ongoing conversation, and at this point the interest of everyone in the room was piqued even if they tried to hide it accordingly, "What are they dangerous or something?"

Ibuki pouted and flicked Naruto's ear as he was leaning near the phone and didn't notice her, "Did you piss off more international criminals? Last time it didn't go so well for everybody sitting here if you remember correctly."

"I didn't do anything to anybody in China!" Naruto replied, waving his arms indignantly, "I didn't even do anything the first time to set Shadaloo off! People seem to want to travel abroad just to fuck with me! I'm not even important like Karin's supposed to be!"

"Uzumaki-san!" The homeroom teacher admonished, getting Naruto to meekly nod and mutter an apology.

"I am important." Karin asserted, crossing her arms over her chest as she sat in her place next to Naruto with prim posture, "I don't know how to put this, but I am kind of a big deal."

Sakura looked mostly unresponsive from her desk with a hand on her cheek and a bored expression on her face, "Really now?"

"People know me." Karin continued, mostly for the benefit of the other students around her that treated her as a major deal and were paying rapt attention to her since she seemed to be addressing them… not so much though for her circle of friends that didn't seem to care, "I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books, and my manor's personal study smells of rich mahogany."

"_That's nice… I don't care though."_ Chun-Li said over the phone, thus she missed Karin puffing out her cheeks indignantly,_ "Anyway Naruto, like I said, I know who they are. The Lee Brothers are more or less harmless."_

"One of them challenged me to a fight." Naruto argued in return, "That Yun kid seemed to really think he could beat me down."

"So what?" Kei interjected from her seat next to Sakura, "You get challenged by someone every single day. You're getting famous for some of the people you've fought. When was the last time you went to that website we showed you from before and checked your ranking?"

"_Yeah, but Yun and Yang are seriously tough. I should know. They try to get me to spar with them all of the time. They're not some run-of-the-mill punks. They're actually really prominent figures in Hong Kong's underworld, and they were trained by a friend of my father's; Hong Kong's most feared assassin. Good kids really even though their benefactors are noted crime leaders. Anyway, whatever they're there for it isn't to _kill_ Naruto. I can vouch for that. I'd stake my own life on it."_

That sounded way better than having an entire organization that wanted him dead. Naruto nodded, not that Chun-Li could see it and stroked his chin in thought of a new question, "Well do you know anything about a third person? They said someone wanted to see me."

"_I wouldn't know anything about that. Look, don't freak out about it. They're weird and a serious handful, but they wouldn't deliberately harm you guys… outside of trying to see how strong you were with a fight. I'll talk to you soon okay?"_

"Alright, bye." The phone conversation ended with the tap of a button and left a more chipper Naruto than there had been when he had woken up that morning. Optimism was back in his outlook for the near future as he leaned back in his chair, grinning upside down over Ibuki's desk, "Well I got way better news than I was expecting. Maybe I've just got fans… or maybe a big time client is looking to hire the best ninja in the world and was scouting me out first?"

"Yeah, yeah, down boy." Ibuki replied with a good-natured smile, pushing his head forward out of the airspace over her desk just as the bell to start the day rang, "Just… don't let your guard down too much. Things like this are never that simple, you know?"

"They can be." Naruto said with an affirmative spin on his point of view, "Like right now. Most people would think that having the only guy friend that I have that doesn't want to beat me up every day out of town would be bad, because then I'd be surrounded by nothing but girls and I'd turn into a sissy." Oblivious to the glares he was now receiving from all four of his female he continued, standing up on his chair as he was starting to get into it, "But not me. No, Uzumaki Naruto is the greatest ninja in the damn world! And like my last sensei told me once, a great shinobi doesn't fall to the graces and the wiles of women! Eyes always on the prize!"

A cheer went up from all of the other boys in the class while every girl tried to bore a hole through Naruto with their eyes, "You'd think losing a fight would make him drop the whole 'greatest ninja in the world' thing." Sakura remarked with her head down as Naruto was standing directly behind her on his chair and desk.

"Well in theory he did not lose a fight to a ninja so I guess his statement still stands." Karin commented, trying to ignore Naruto's loud idiocy, '_This_ is my closest confidant?'

"What's the prize Naruto?" One of the other male students asked, swept up in Naruto's grandiose monologue.

"Detention!" The teacher said firmly from the front of the classroom with a twitch in her eye, "Is that the prize? Because that's what you're getting today." Naruto just stared back at the woman with a slacked jaw while still standing on his elevated platform, "…Class started before you began your little speech. Of course if you have a problem with that you can take it up with the principal."

Naruto was about to take it up with her by way of further running his mouth, along with the liberal use of strategically placed curse words, but getting his legs kicked out from beneath him by Karin sitting next to him got him to fall back into his chair where Ibuki held his mouth closed from her seat behind him, "No… no… he's fine. Go ahead and start class sensei." Ibuki chirped in disarming cheerfulness as Naruto wriggled futilely to get himself free.

XxX

(Naruto's Apartment)

A curious Cammy had infiltrated Naruto's bedroom and had found something interesting, infiltrated being a more elaborate word than simply saying that she just walked in through the open door some time after he left with Sakura for school that morning. Due to the fact that she hadn't planned on leaving the apartment that day, Cammy was dressed in what she deemed to be comfortable; a green legless and sleeveless leotard akin to her battle gear that she wore before as a Doll.

Much to Sakura's vexation on the day that they got the former Shadaloo assassin situated in Aohura City, and not helping to disprove her theory of Naruto being a secretive pervert very apt at hiding it, he had absolutely no problems going out and getting as many of them as Cammy wanted in whatever colors she wished since she only really wore them around the apartment. A housewarming gift apparently.

Right then though, Cammy was wondering how in the world he sealed all of those weapons of his that had formerly populated what was now her room freely. How many different kinds of ninja magic did Naruto possess? It was mind-boggling, "I don't get it." She said to herself as she unfurled one of several scrolls and only saw a sealing array that she didn't know the meaning to, "How did he place all of those weapons into these things?"

There was a knock at the door that thankfully got her to stop wondering over the secrets of the sealing scroll before she got impatient and just ripped one up to see if that was how she was supposed to get the weapons out.

Hopping up from where she had been crouched on the floor by Naruto's bed and his pile of storage scrolls, Cammy jogged to the door and checked through the peephole, catching sight of the person standing outside before opening the door. She felt no ill intent from him, nor did she see any intended aggression in his body language, "Yes? Can I help you?"

It was a young man with spiky black hair, upright at the back almost like the tail of a fowl. He had dark eyes and was admittedly rather handsome if Cammy actually cared for that sort of thing. He wore a pair of black pants and black sandals. Strange. They had the same kind of sturdy support around the heels and ankles and traction on the soles that Naruto's combat sandals had. In addition to that, he had on an open black long-sleeved Chinese-style shirt with a high collar and a white tanktop beneath it with a dark blue sash around his waist.

The thing that got Cammy's attention and held it with authority happened to be the sharpness of his eyes. She already knew that in the time it took for her to merely size him up he had done the same and had formed a preemptive opinion of her and possibly how much of a threat she was. This person was a fighter.

He had a cool, calm expression on his face as he tried to peer past her into the apartment, only for Cammy to shut the door a bit if he happened to be casing the place, "Well I'm looking for someone. An old teammate of mine. I found out that this was his address. This wouldn't happen to be Uzumaki Naruto's place would it?"

This person knew Naruto. And yet Cammy still couldn't find any intent to harm the blonde in anything on this stranger. If she had found it she would have sent him away already… or in worst-case scenario removed him with extreme force and prejudice, "He's not here right now. Naruto won't be back for a while… more than several hours I'm afraid." To her surprise he just turned around and walked away, "Wait. What do you want Naruto for?"

"It's not important if he isn't here right now." The young man said as he casually strolled towards the railing overlooking the outside, "If Yun hadn't been screwing around yesterday he and Yang could have told me he was actually here sooner while I was working. Just tell Naruto that Sasuke was here." He turned around just enough to let Cammy see him smirk as he jumped up onto the rail, "I've got to go to Tokyo to finish my job but tell him I'll be back soon."

Before she could stop him from doing so Sasuke leapt from the railing, and by the time Cammy reached it and looked down there wasn't a trace of him, with the exception of something pinned against the outside wall underneath where she was standing with a kunai; a blue headband with a metal plate on it decorated with a leaf insignia. Just like the one that Naruto wore regularly except it had a mark slashed horizontally through it.

So this person really did know Naruto. The headbands must have been some method of identifying one of the same brood or something along those lines. And here she thought it was just some personal touch of his. An accessory that he liked to have on him at all times.

Cammy pried the kunai free and took it and the headband back into the apartment to wait until the afternoon for high school to let out. Naruto really couldn't get out of there fast enough for her tastes on that particular day.

XxX

(Elsewhere in Japan - Uninhabited Island - Kiga Cave)

A worthy opponent. That was all he wanted. The fight itself wasn't enough, nor was it enough to know that he was the strongest. He wanted to test it and prove it in battle against foes that could possibly take his life the way that he wished to take theirs.

Ryu... if only he would accept the Satsui no Hadou into his life... if he did then that would be the fight to end all fights. A true encounter to test his mettle and set his blood as a martial artist to boil. Until then he would never have a worthy opponent. He hadn't since killing Ryu's master and his own older brother Gouken two years ago.

Well it seemed like it was time to find a prospective challenge again. The world was vast.

Surely there was someone out there with the strength to match up and make an entertaining fight against the 'Supreme Master of the Fist'.

There had to be someone out there with enough power to stand up to Akuma.

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Cyclonic Youth<span>

(Four Days After the End of the Trip Around Asia)

After that day's school, Naruto had gotten a phone call and then departed quickly, Sakura in tow, with the greatest haste imaginable for the two of them to have. They hadn't even taken the halls to get outside, Naruto just opened a window and they jumped out to clear the stone wall surrounding the property.

Such behavior wasn't that surprising from Naruto, he did things like that just to get a rise out of some of his classmates until its effects wore off, but from Sakura it was something else entirely.

Ibuki, Kei, and Karin had borne witness to this strange act of solidarity from the two and didn't know what was up. As a matter of fact, they had been acting weird since they had walked into class that morning.

So when Ibuki and Kei who had chosen to hang out for a bit after school and go to the arcade and shopping district of Aohura City, they didn't really expect to see a veritable army of Naruto clones carry several very large cases of drinks each, with Naruto and Sakura directing the march down the sidewalk as if it were a parade procession, "What the hell are you two doing?" Kei asked, locating the original Naruto because he was with Sakura herself.

Naruto had a two liter bottle of some kind of liquid that seemed to be glowing between blue and purple inside of a dark tinted plastic, probably to hide just how startlingly bright the glow was because the tint did very little to hide it. And at the moment he was downing it gulp by gulp with wide eyes while Sakura had a can and was watching him do so until she noticed Kei, "Kei-chan, Ibuki-chan! Hey!"

Ibuki just watched the litany of Naruto clones carrying cases and caught notice of what they were, "What is this? What's Cyclone?" Kei just paled at hearing the word 'Cyclone' and seemed a bit frightened.

"No." Kei said, walking up to Sakura and trying to pry the can out of her hand in vain because Sakura was twenty times stronger than her, "No, no, no, no, no… they stopped selling that in Japan. You two can't have that."

"It's fine." Sakura asserted, though there was a slight jitter to her that was quite abnormal, "We're not twelve anymore Kei-chan. We're mature and we know how to handle ourselves now."

"Then why do you have so much of it?" Taking advantage of a slight opening, Kei snatched the can out of Sakura's hand only to find that it was empty as she looked back at a smirking Sakura, "That's addiction! You two are addicted! And you were doing so well! Three years clean!"

Ibuki poked at Naruto and tried to take the two liter bottle he was drinking down like an open drain from his hands only to find his grip on it was iron-tight, "No one's answering my question. What is this?"

"The greatest/most dangerous soft drink ever made." Sakura and Kei said respectively before Kei rolled her eyes and continued to explain, "Cyclone is a soda that was made in America, and now it's illegal there and in six other countries because the caffeine levels were unhealthy. _Absurd_ unhealthy. We all used to drink it when we were younger… for six terrible months." The commercials were just so persuasive.

Sakura shook her head in amusement and gave Naruto a few hearty pats on the back, "Aw, those times were great. Remember? That was how Naruto and I really became good friends." What she didn't mention was that they weren't the only ones that enjoyed it. Other Aohura City punks did too, and it led to them all nearly tearing the city apart for those six months with repeated aggressive street fighting, followed by a three month lapse where they were the consensus laziest children in all of Japan, "We would drink this stuff and just train all day."

"And night…" Kei followed up dryly, "…And into the next morning. And longer. Then you'd both black out under a tree in the park for twelve hours straight and go do it again. Great summer." She finished sarcastically, "Not again. How'd you even get that much?"

"Naruto did a job for a guy that owned a surplus warehouse and he chose to get paid in Cyclone because he had soooo much of it since it's illegal for stores to carry it nowadays." Sakura said, grabbing Naruto's cheek as he ignored her and finished off the rest of his two liter, breathing heavily to catch his breath that slowly began turning more and more aggressive.

From her point of view, Ibuki didn't really see what the big deal was. They didn't seem to be acting that much differently. Sure, Sakura was a lot more animated than usual from how she was teasing Kei and refrained from holding still for longer than half a second, but that wasn't so bad. Naruto had just taken at least eight straight servings of this drink of theirs without taking a single breath. He seemed totally docile.

If they had been that bad before maybe they had indeed outgrown it.

And then Naruto placed the bottle back to his lips and randomly blew into it until he forced it to explode loudly, getting everyone to cover their ears as he began to shake uncontrollably before letting out an indignant yell, "RAAAAAAGHHHHHHH!" He then slammed his head directly into a streetlight post and dented it with his skull enough to make it bend slightly, and then his mini-freakout ended just like that, "Okay, I'm good."

"Good God…" Ibuki muttered at seeing Naruto just walk off like he hadn't slammed his head into pure metal at full impact, "Are you okay?"

"You see? He's more mature now." Sakura said with a grin, pointing at Naruto and the nasty blue bruise on his forehead that he was ignoring in exchange for starting in on a new can of Rush, "When we were thirteen he would have tried to flip a parked car into the street or something after drinking all of that. This is way better." Sakura finished before joining Naruto on the walk back home, "You'd better share a case or two with me Naruto!"

* * *

><p><span>Name:<span> Yun Lee  
><span>Nationality:<span> China (Hong Kong)  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 15 (September 9)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'8/136 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> B  
><span>Likes:<span> His twin brother Yang, steamed meat buns.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Slackers, century-old eggs.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Skateboarding.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Yang Lee (friendly), Sasuke Uchiha (friendly), Chun-Li (friendly), Naruto Uzumaki.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Kung Fu based on Bājíquán.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Zesshou Hohou (Lunge Punch), Kobokushi (Tiger Twin Palm Strike), Zenpou Tenshin, Tetsuzanko (Shoulder Charge), Nishokyaku (Flying Twin Kick).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Genei Jin (Illusion Team), You Hou (Hoisting Roast), Sorai Rengeki (Continuous Thunder Lance Attack).  
><span>Background:<span> The older of two honored twin brothers separated from their parents at birth, they were taught the basic martial arts by an acupuncturist grandfather and were given a more refined and destructive fighting style by the legendary assassin of the Hong Kong underworld Gen. The Lee Brothers themselves are prominent figures in the Hong Kong underworld, but for more positive reasons than for anything else, known as local keepers of the peace in their neck of the woods. Yun is the more energetic and outgoing of the two brothers; quicker to anger and to action. A very mobile young fighter, Yun always has doubts that any of his opponents are ever fast enough to keep up with his motions and fighting techniques and is quite confident in his ability to out-quick any adversary.

Name: Yang Lee  
><span>Nationality:<span> China (Hong Kong)  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 15 (September 9)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'8/136 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> B  
><span>Likes:<span> His twin brother Yun, movies.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Impatient people, smelly tofu.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Inline skating.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Yun (friendly), Sasuke Uchiha (friendly), Chun-Li (friendly).  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Chinese Kenpo.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Tourouzan (Mantis Slash), Kaihou, Byakko Soshoda (White Tiger Twin Palm Strike), Zenpou Tenshin, Senkyutai (Drilling Bow Thigh).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Seiei Enbu, Raishin Mahhaken (Lightning Quake Devil Breaking Fist), Tenshin Senkyutai.  
><span>Background:<span> Yang is the younger twin of the Lee Brothers. Along with Yun and due to the financial backing of their wealthy underworld godparent benefactors they own a restaurant in Hong Kong where they centralize their community-pillar operations from called Shinryuken. Their training with Gen diversified their fighting styles and allowed the brothers to branch out into different focuses of fighting. Both brothers enjoy the prospect of battle, but Yang is more level-headed than Yun, able to think things through. He is still prone to getting overly worked up and swept up in his brother's own excitement, but he would still be considered the thinker of the two… for what that would be worth. Yang's speed is similar to Yun's, but he specializes in motion-stopping attacks that force his enemies to slow down, making them easy targets for follow-up moves.

Name: Sasuke Uchiha  
><span>Nationality:<span> China  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 16 (July 23)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'8/149 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> AB  
><span>Likes:<span> Tomatoes, developing techniques, fighting skilled opponents, hawks.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Sweets, big-talking weaklings, teamwork.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Training, taking walks, working assassination missions outsourced by Gen for living money.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Naruto Uzumaki, Gen, Fei Long, Chun-Li.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Ninjutsu/Self-developed fighting style based on dozens of effective hand-to-hand techniques seen over the years.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Kunai/Shuriken, Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Jutsu), Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu), Katon: Housenka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Phoenix Flower Jutsu), Shishi Rendan (Lion's Barrage), Chidori (One Thousand Birds), Chidori Senbon (One Thousand Birds Senbon).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Katon: Gouryuuka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Jutsu), Taka no Ame (Hawk's Rain), Gouki Kagizume o Oshite (Grand Talon Press).  
><span>Background:<span> Formerly a ninja of Konohagakure no Sato on the same team as Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke was brought to a different world through similar mysterious means during their battle years ago. Eventually settling in China where he was able to make a well enough living based on his skills as a shinobi, Sasuke eventually caught the attention of legendary assassin Gen. During a fight where Sasuke was handily defeated by the old man, Gen was greatly impressed by Sasuke's abilities and the boy's ability to perfectly mimic some of his fighting moves at a mere glance. Since then Sasuke has become a feared name in the criminal underworld of East Asia, as an assassin that only pursues missions that meet his morals, usually destroying wicked men. He waits patiently for an avenue to return home and dutifully trains his body and skills for the day when it happens.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter done. I would have made it longer, but if I had continued there wouldn't have been any decent place to stop it for another 10k words so I didn't. Oh well.<strong>

**Man there isn't shit to read. It's kind of annoying to think about to be honest. I'm getting sick of doing this if nobody else I'm interested in is too. It's messing with my thinking process dude… I'm bored to death here.**

**Alright, that's enough about me, let's talk about me.**

…

**I've got nothing.**

**Later. Kenchi out.**


	20. Last Man Standing

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. Damn it Capcom, raffle it off or something. Be fair you bastards. You don't need any more of that money. Share the wealth with the world.

**Chapter 20: Last Man Standing**

* * *

><p>Every single day.<p>

It happened every day.

Naruto would sleep through most of his classes, wake up for lunch, eat, go back to classes, sleep some more, wake up for gym, and that was all he did all day. No teacher could really say anything because he wasn't really failing any classes, mostly because he cheated on every test with liberal use of clones and the mental feedback he would receive, learning what they learned when they dispelled.

It got on the nerves of those that knew how he did it relentlessly, but they couldn't really do anything about it. Kage Bunshin no Jutsu was Naruto's hard-earned technique, and he could wantonly abuse its properties any way he wished.

He could have at least stayed awake to give off the illusion that he cared about school in the slightest, but only Sakura really knew that the only reason he even went to school in the first place was because he was forced to when he first showed up in Japan, and then he only went to high school after the last year of middle school because Sakura was planning on going and he wanted to hang out with her some more so he enrolled as well.

The thought of going to a university was the farthest thing from Naruto's mind, which was a damn shame because he had the money to pay for it without a scholarship and he could definitely cheat his way through college too if he didn't want to put the effort forth. It would have been no sweat.

But that was the future, and it was still quite a ways off. They were sixteen after all. If it really became an issue of importance, Sakura, Karin, and even Ibuki were sure that they could rope Naruto into going to college somehow. In the meantime school had just let out and the lot of them, sans Karin who had been picked up in her limousine, were walking home.

"Why in the world do you have that tattoo Naruto?" Kei asked, drawing attention to the leaf tattoo on his upper right arm. It was hot enough that Naruto was sick of wearing his uniform jacket and wrapped it around his waist for some ventilation towards his upper body, thus bringing his tattoo into discussion, "I still don't understand why you got it. Do you actually want people to think you're some kind of Yakuza?"

"It's a leaf." Naruto defended, poking at the tattoo in question, "If you see a leaf on some guy's arm and you think he's a gangster you've definitely got more serious problems than him, dattebayo."

Why a leaf? Naruto never really told anyone why a leaf, and he usually wore clothes that covered it so it wasn't really an issue with any authority figures.

"You forgot about the one around your belly button that shows up and disappears randomly." Sakura chimed in, getting a glare from Naruto for bringing that one up, "Come on Naruto, you're acting like I haven't seen you without a shirt on like a million times already. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not. It's weird, so of course I remember it." She said idly, not knowing that she'd stirred up a miniature storm.

"Ibuki hands off! Personal space!" Naruto was doing his best to keep what little self-respect he chose to hold by keeping a grip on his shirt to keep Ibuki from prying it up to ogle his torso.

Not giving up in the speedy, small-scale hand duel with Naruto, Ibuki pressed the issue, "You have a tattoo on your stomach and I've never seen it before? Talk about stingy. Now I'm pretty sure all of our other friends have seen you shirtless but me, so how is that fair?"

"Screw that! Let me see _you_ shirtless and maybe you'll have some ammo to use here!" That got her to let go and give him some space with a cherry red blush on her face. He wasn't some department store mannequin. Seriously though, if she was cool with him seeing her shirtless he would certainly be down with that. That would certainly be worth letting her see his seal and giving the long explanation on what it was.

Mercifully, Naruto's phone went off and directed attention away from his 'body art' and the newfound interest it seemed to generate. And it was his personal phone too so it wasn't about work, "Hey Cammy, what's up? Do you need something before I get home?"

"_No, I'm fine. This is about you though."_ Cammy said over the line in a calm but inquiring voice, _"Naruto, do you know someone named Sasuke? He was here trying to find you earlier, an hour ago. He looked like he had come a long way too, because those clothes he wore… they weren't local, from China if I had to guess."_

Naruto's heart dropped into his stomach at the utterance of that name and everyone with him saw it, but he quickly gathered himself. There could be other people named Sasuke, "Sasuke what?"

"_He didn't say. He had black hair, was our age, and he left a blue headband that looks just like yours. You know; the one you always wear around. He pinned it with one of those kunai knives that you always carry."_

A nervous lump in Naruto's voice was swallowed before he could bring himself to speak again. How was that even possible? Sasuke, the Sasuke that he had fought four years ago at the Valley of the End, the last person from his home that he saw before waking up in this different world. He was there too?

His mouth felt dry. He was quite certain that he looked a sight to the girls judging from the worried expressions on their faces, but he just didn't care. The mortified look on his face was well within reason.

"_Naruto? Are you still there? You didn't hang up on me did you?"_

"Naruto?" Sakura asked him, tugging on his arm to try and snap him out of it, "What's wrong?"

Shaking his head to assuage her for the moment, Naruto coughed and talked to Cammy again, "Um… he didn't leave you a way to get in contact with him did he? An address, a phone number, anything?" Why didn't she call him after it had happened?

"_No. He said he'd come back after he finished a job of sorts that he had in Tokyo. I would have told you sooner, but nothing suspicious happened afterwards, and you were in school. Getting you in trouble just because someone stopped in for you didn't seem like something important enough."_

Ah hell… well she didn't know who Sasuke was. It wasn't anything she could have known without him telling her, and Sasuke hadn't been a topic to bring up to anyone else ever. But it was officially problem-solving time.

Sasuke went to the apartment an hour ago. He had a job in Tokyo. Uncharacteristically, Naruto's mind began pasting together the times and different methods to get out there from his town. The train to Tokyo didn't stop at the station in Aohura City until 4:15 pm, driving would take longer, and running all that way would not only take longer as well, but it was a pain in the ass from his own personal experience.

Something in there clicked, and he had no time to waste. Train was the only smart and timely way out of Aohura City, especially since Karin was the only person anywhere near town that had a faster means of travel to a place that far off.

"Cam I'll be back sometime tonight. I'm going to Tokyo." Naruto said abruptly to his roommate, "Sakura-chan'll be over in a bit to check on you. Call me if there's something that you forgot to tell me." As he hung up he noticed the look on Sakura's face at how he had just volunteered her for something, "Please Sakura-chan? It's on the way to your house."

She wasn't upset at being asked to do something so simple. That wasn't the issue. The issue was that Naruto was going to run off to the capital just like that without her? Without anyone? It didn't add up. Things had been normal and then he got that phone call and he turned all serious, "Naruto, what's the matter? Talk to us."

Of course he gave her one of those damnable reassuring grins that screamed that there was something wrong but he didn't want anyone to know about it. Damn it, she told him about doing that crap around her, "Nothing's the matter Sakura-chan, I've just got something to do. Really."

Something to do? Bullshit.

She gave him a hard stare before finally waving him off, and he wasted no time before taking to the rooftops, rushing in the direction of the train station.

Also wasting no time, Ibuki locked eyes with Sakura and got a nod from the girl before the kunoichi grinned and took off after him in pursuit. Ibuki was the only one that could keep up with Naruto over any kind of distance, so even if Sakura did want to chase Naruto herself he'd have lost her in a matter of moments.

At least whatever Naruto was into wouldn't be dealt with alone. And if she was going to go to Naruto's apartment they were definitely going to be finding out just what the big issue was since they hadn't heard Naruto's phone conversation with Cammy, "Are you coming with me Kei-chan?" She asked her normal female friend who had been there the whole time simply observing.

"Uh… yeah." It wasn't even a question of if she was going or not. Naruto was weird, had been around them for years, and other than the hard to believe demon in his body thing they didn't know much about him, "There needs to be some kind of normal perspective amongst you people."

XxX

(Aohura City Train Station)

School let out at 3:50 every day and Cammy called him around 4:00 while he had been walking home, so that left Naruto more or less fifteen minutes to make it across town to the train station. Something he did with great haste as he had no time to spare, making it just in time as it was being boarded by everyone heading to the big city. Sasuke had to be on that train if he was going to Tokyo.

Amidst the crowd of people commuting to and from Aohura City boarding and getting off of the train, Naruto used that confusion to knock out a train worker and Henge into him, getting on for free and allowing himself the chance to move throughout the coaches freely. The guy hadn't done anything wrong, true, but sometimes if you wanted to make an omelet you had to break a few eggs. He'd wake up soon enough and everything would be cool.

The train departed right on time and began speeding towards Tokyo before Naruto could really begin searching.

As he walked through the aisle and casually scanned through the people sitting in their seats he didn't even know where to begin, but he knew one thing for sure, he had to find Sasuke before that train let out because if Sasuke made it to the city streets he was never going to catch up to him and he had just wasted his afternoon and evening for nothing, not even mentioning that he'd have one hell of an explanation to give once he got home.

He already knew that there would be questions from everybody after he got back. Sakura wasn't going to let something like that just slide. Neither would Karin once she found out. Batsu would probably be back from his training trip in a few days and when he was and he found out he'd hound him too. Cammy was his roommate and she was the one that picked up the message for him in the first place, so he definitely had to explain some things to her. And Ibuki was a ninja, and by nature a ninja had to be nosy and into information-.

"Hey Naruto."

"Hey Ibuki."

Wait… speaking of Ibuki…

Naruto grabbed the girl from where she had been casually sitting in an empty set of seats and pulled her towards a crew area, luckily one that was empty because Naruto had knocked out the guy that was meant to oversee that section of the train, thus they had privacy.

Privacy for him to have a mini-freakout, "What the hell are you doing here?" Naruto asked a low, hissing whisper of a voice, "Did you follow me?"

"Yeah. I even saw you knock that poor guy out." Ibuki said with a shake of her head, "Did you have to transform into that hot blonde girl version of you just to lure him somewhere private? That was demeaning to women." It was definitely a kunoichi move though so she wasn't going to knock him for that. It was just weird and seriously out of place for a boy ninja to seduce a guy… she'd have to pick on him about that later.

"Heh, you saw that." Naruto said with a sheepish chuckle before he regained his focus, "No. Damn it Ibuki go home. Won't you get in trouble if you aren't back in your village by a certain time?"

"Pssht, screw that." Ibuki quickly waved off Naruto's lame excuse to make her leave, "I'd much rather get a look into the dark and seedy past of the mysterious, fascinating, and slightly degenerate ninja-for-hire Uzumaki Naruto. And besides, the train's moving already. What are you gonna do, throw me off of a speeding bullet train?"

Cringing at that thought, Naruto shook his head. Even if he were enough of a jerk to hurl his favorite female ninja off of the bullet train, the damn thing moved 200 miles per hour… so no. She was too pretty to go splat on the Japanese countryside.

So she was along for the ride. Well at least that would leave one less explanation to give later.

Ibuki poked and prodded at Naruto's transformed appearance and frowned at how good it was, "Man this is so unfair. How do you do this stuff?"

"I've got to focus to hold it and keep my chakra steady to stay like this." Naruto said, letting her get her fill of checking out his Henge, "Fighting with it on is hard to do because it directs your focus, and in my village a good ninja can tell if you've got one on anyway so sometimes it doesn't matter."

A sound of understanding came from the bubbly kunoichi before directing brown eyes upward into train-attendant Naruto's false visage, "So tell me, what are _you_ doing here? You ran off pretty fast."

"I'm looking for someone, now come on." He grabbed Ibuki's hand and directed her out to walk back amongst the people again, "This actually helps me look a bit less suspicious. Just be cool. If we can move from car to car without being seen when we do it we can make it look like we're just looking for your seat." Getting a nod from Ibuki the two of them began search for Naruto's person of interest.

XxX

(Elsewhere on the Train)

'Why did they have to come with me?' Sasuke asked himself as he tried to be calm and stare out of his window, watching the landscape speed by. Across from him in the adjacent seats, sharing the area with him he had Yun and Yang, 'Damn you Gen… why'd you have to tell them I was coming to Japan?'

"Man…" Yun said, looking around the train with a frown on his face, "Isn't there someone that's supposed to come around with a cart to ask us if we want something to eat or drink? I'm hungry."

Yang rolled his eyes at his twin brother's attitude, "We left like ten minutes ago. Give 'em a bit to get set up bro." Despite saying that, he had to pat down his own stomach as he was pretty hungry too, "Hey Sasuke, what are you going to Tokyo to do anyway?"

"You know what I'm going to Tokyo to do, remember?" Sasuke said as if it were a chore to talk about it, "You're both not dumb. You know what I do. You even told Chun-Li about me, remember?" He said, putting a bit of a glare on the two of them.

It was all their fault that he wound up getting some name notoriety. Somehow his name came up when they had been talking with Interpol agent Chun-Li, and she was interested as she was trained a bit by Sasuke's landlord Gen. Anyone that Gen actually tolerated living under his roof had to be somewhat interesting.

And that led to her snooping around his assassinations. He even had to fight her a few times. Never fun. And he couldn't copy her best special moves either. Not only did she not use hand-seals which no one in this world seemed to in order to manipulate their chakra/ki, but her fighting style required more physical ability with his legs than he had. Her kicks were sometimes too fast for him to even see.

"We said we were sorry about that." Yun defended weakly, glad that at least he wasn't using his Sharingan to stare them down. Those stupid red eyes of his were scary, "And yeah, but we want to know exactly _who_ you're after in Tokyo. We thought you were looking for Uzumaki Naruto, but he doesn't seem like any kind of gang leader to me, especially one that would need to be assassinated."

Sasuke shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest nonchalantly, "I'm looking for Naruto for personal reasons. But this job isn't about him. There's a nasty little militia being built up in that region right now, but they're not going to stay there. Tokyo's too big of a city to try and dominate like that without getting into a straight up gang war with Yakuza influences. They're dangerous though, and I need to find and take out the ringleaders before they move and I have to find them again, or else things'll get harder for me to finish."

A militia? Like a private citizen's army? Wouldn't that be something that would be left up to the JSDF to handle? But it wasn't like Sasuke was taking on the whole group by himself. He was just going to put down the ringleaders.

Wait. That would mean that he might need their help!

And with that both Yun and Yang started grinning, getting Sasuke to raise an eyebrow at the spirited brothers and their behavior. He didn't even want to know. At least they were finally shutting up and letting him get some peace and quiet. He didn't want to have to try and block them out for the rest of the trip. He'd already had to do it for the first thirty minutes of it.

Whatever. He just wanted to get the mission over with and done so he could look for Naruto again. Four damn years. Four years, and he had no idea what had happened to his former Team 7 teammate. He figured that he had lost the fight due to how his right arm had been so badly injured once he woke up, but not waking up in Konoha was major, and then realizing that he was somewhere else completely nearly caused him to go into shock.

But that was then and this was now.

And right now as his eyes looked around the train he couldn't shake this paranoid feeling that he was having. You didn't ignore a feeling like that, because when you did you wound up dead. He remembered most of his marks verbally remarking on having such feelings right before he assassinated them.

Going off of this sensation, Sasuke looked around and found that despite it being the end of the day, there weren't very many people that looked like the common commuting crowd that one would see riding such a thing at that hour. There were many of them with no briefcases, business-casual wear, travel bags, nothing.

And he noticed that many of them were looking his way.

If his reputation in underground circles as an assassin stretched further than Hong Kong they probably knew he was coming, even if they didn't know what he looked like. The fact was that he was dressed in Chinese clothing and he didn't exactly look like the friendliest person that anyone could ever meet.

And as a few of these out of place characters stood up Sasuke had to sigh. He hated just doing jobs outside of Hong Kong, let alone outside of China altogether. It made it harder to get closer to his more attentive targets who had people around them. Did this mean that they had already been onto him from the start?

Somehow he knew that this was Yun and Yang's fault…

"You guys didn't use my name when you went asking around for Naruto the other day, did you?" Sasuke asked, barely keeping from gnashing his teeth in frustration. This was why he did things solo! He did not play well with others!

"Not a chance." Yang said, proudly rubbing underneath his nose at how he and Yun had kept from putting Sasuke's name out there dangerously, "We know better when you're here to take down some Mad Gear bigwigs, so we didn't use your name at all."

Yun followed up with a nod of his head, loudly backing Yun up so that Sasuke didn't call them idiots again, "Yeah at the most we just said that there was some scary guy from Hong Kong that was interested in finding someone that seemed out of place in Japan, a fighter-guy, maybe a gang leader or something… I don't know, but we never used your name."

After hearing that apparently Sasuke was there to take down some Mad Gear leaders, that was enough to get quite a few people's ears burning. Thus they stood up to address this. Sasuke of course wanted to wring a pair of necks that belonged to some Chinese kids, but other neck-wringing took priority when they started drawing weapons; small lead pipes, daggers, even switchblades.

That couldn't have been what he had really been hired to stop… they didn't seem very militia-like. More like regular thugs. Hey, maybe they _were_ commuting. If they were a part of the real-deal group that his employer was worried about then they were the absolute bottom of the totem pole, not even grunts, probably pledges looking to actually be members later.

Quickly jumping up onto his seat for a better view of the entire train car, Sasuke lashed out with a barrage of shuriken that hit a few of his would-be attackers in their throats and chests, killing a few that got hit in the most vital of areas and wounding the others.

Needless to say the normal people on the train started freaking out when the bodies started hitting the floor.

After seeing Sasuke move so suddenly, Yun and Yang were out of their seats and cleared the aisles with swift flying kicks that knocked other enemies into each other, "What the hell?" Yun said as he started defending himself. Dodging a few stabs and swings of a knife, he grabbed the man's shoulders and flipped over his head before chopping him in the back of the neck and turning his attention to the others, "It's starting now?"

"You don't ever say the name of your enemy out loud in their territory you idiots." Sasuke was strictly relegated to nothing but hand-to-hand fighting and careful weapons usage. No ninjutsu he could pull out to fight with would be safe for the civilians in the vicinity and he wasn't about to have the blood of innocents on his hands.

"We're not even in Tokyo yet!" Yang replied as rolled underneath the swing of a pipe and pushed off into the air, delivering a fast series of rising kicks to the face of his victim that slammed him in the ceiling where he took more kicks and was easily rendered unconscious, "Senkyutai (Drilling Bow Thigh)!"

"This is a train _to_ Tokyo!" Sasuke yelled as if he were talking to three-year olds as he grabbed two foes by their necks and drove them back down the aisle far enough to push them straight through the tightly shut metal door at the end of the train car, knocking them out.

Unfortunately their bodies didn't clear the space to the next car and fell underneath the train… as if he cared. They shouldn't have tried to join Mad Gear, they shouldn't have drawn weapons on him, and they shouldn't have attacked him period…

…That was three strikes and as far as he was concerned that made them three time losers.

Turning back to the interior of the train, he saw that Yang and Yun had finished up with their foes, having been notably more merciful than he had been from the looks of how they were all still alive. Unconscious but alive. And the looks from the normal people on the train, still shocked and frightened by what had just occurred and horrified at how a sixteen year old boy had killed three men, wounded four more and had thrown two underneath the train.

"I'm going to a different car…"

XxX

(With Naruto and Ibuki)

The little act of theirs seemed to be working so far, with Naruto leading on the misplaced high school student, played by Ibuki, looking for her friends on separate cars they managed to get through two different cars of the ten.

Ibuki though, seemed to be playing up the ditzy schoolgirl thing to the hilt just for kicks as they walked past everyone's seats, "Oh, we never should have skipped today just to go all the way out there! If I lost them and we don't get back together I'm dead sir!" She exclaimed desperately while clinging to the Henged Naruto's arm. Wasn't the whole point of doing this to not draw attention?

"It'll be okay miss." Naruto said, trying to sound as professionally adult as possible. Rather hard to do as he wasn't professional, nor was he an adult, and he had one of his arms clasped tight in Ibuki's grasp between her breasts, "We'll find them before the ride ends, I promise."

"You're so kind." Ibuki said, feigning a swoon, "Do you live in Tokyo? Maybe if we don't find them you can give me a ride home yourself? I don't know the transportation system that well honestly." So not cool. She was definitely messing with him now, "I'd be very grateful."

Well if that was how it was going to go down who was he to change things up any? It wasn't like he was suffering any getting his arm shoved against her boobs. But if any more blood rushed to his face his Henge was going to be disturbed and fall, "You're enjoying this way too much." Naruto said under his breath, and for the life of him he couldn't tell why. Was messing with him really that much fun?

"I don't know what you're talking about… I'm just doing my part." Ibuki replied slyly, "You know… selling the deceit and what not."

Yeah sure. That was believable.

Both Naruto and Ibuki froze in place though when they heard loud radio chatter from a train employee that was near the end of the car, _"There's danger with a group of troublemakers on the train. Be on the lookout for gatherings of passengers that don't have any signs of meaningful traveling purposes. They've been riding the rails back and forth all day with no signs of ever having gotten off at any of the stops. Threat is anticipated. First priority is passenger safety."_

They thought that the radio message was meant to expose them, but once the loud radio message went through the handhelds of the employees on the train, some older teenagers and punkish-looking young adults stood up and showed that they far outnumbered the three train security members that could have stopped them, and they were armed with rudimentary melee weaponry to boot.

"Yeah, you heard the man." One of the punks said, "The first priority is passenger safety, so if you don't want a bunch of these innocent folks to get hurt unnecessarily you should just stand down and let us do what we came to do. All we want is to kill one pesky little gun-for-hire that we figured was gonna be on this train this afternoon, that's it. No concern to any of you."

"Kazegiri (Wind Gili)!" A sudden motion from Ibuki ended with her using a bicycle kick to punt two of the thugs into the air, smashing their heads into the unforgiving ceiling where she herself flipped up before she bounced off of and sprang herself at two more enemies that she pummeled with kicks, knocking them all out.

The remaining dozen thugs on the train car looked at the regular looking high school girl that moved like an assassin, "What the hell? Is she the one we were supposed to be on the lookout for? I thought it was supposed to be a guy!"

"Rasenrengan (Spiraling Serial Spheres)!" Naruto blasted two of the thugs from behind with a Rasengan in each hand that sent them barreling into their comrades as he let his Henge fade, revealing that he had changed into his fighting gear before arriving at the train station and taking on the disguise of a train worker. There wasn't enough room to make clones and have them be useful, so he had to handle things himself. No problem.

Ibuki finished off the downed enemies that had been knocked down by the collateral damage done by Naruto's Rasenrengan via landing on their heads respectively and driving them into the floor as they tried to get back up, "Naruto…" Ibuki started to say, shaking her head with her hands on her hips in a chiding manner, "Who'd you piss off this time?"

"Me?" Naruto said in disbelief, "How do you know it was me? Why can't it have been you? You're sort of a gun-for-hire too." That and he was pretty sure she hadn't been doing nothing the entire time he and the others had been on their grand tour of southeastern Asia.

"Because they're not from the Geki Clan. Those are the only people that would want me dead and these clowns were like low-level street thugs. That would be in your wheelhouse of making enemies." Ibuki reasoned, though Naruto had recently stepped up in regards to his enemy-making. Now instead of simple street gangs he made enemies out of major crime syndicates ala Shadaloo.

"It couldn't have been me." Naruto calmly rationalized back, tapping his temple in thought, "If they've been riding the train all day looking for the mercenary that they want I'm definitely not the one. I decided to get on this train right after school let out. That was just an hour ago." It was a snap decision, so how could anyone laying an ambush have scouted that out?

One of the thugs that had been soundly thrashed by the ninja pair happened to still be conscious and went for a gun from where he was laying on the floor, managing to pull it out and cock it. Naruto and Ibuki heard the sound of the firearm being prepared and wasted no time before both speedily punt kicked him directly in the face, sending teeth flying all over and knocking him to the far end of the train.

His hand was still on the gun though, and he tried to weakly lift his arm to point it at his targets again before he found his attempt to do so stopped by Naruto's grip on him. A tight grasp with Naruto digging his fingers into the soft spots on the underside of his wrist forced him to drop the gun to the floor while Naruto had him held up against the back wall by his collar, "I hate guns… any loser can shoot somebody."

"You don't know who you're messing with." The captured man mumbled through his missing teeth and swollen face, "Mad Gear's gonna take over the whole country… one region at a time. A bunch of punk kids can't beat the bosses. And when we get our heavy weapons shipped in not even the JDSF (Japan Self-Defense Force) can stop us."

A confused Naruto looked back towards Ibuki, "What's Mad Gear supposed to be?" He then frowned when he noticed that Ibuki was in her normal brown ninja attire, "…Did you just change in front of all of these people?"

"Oh calm down. I did it so fast no one saw a thing." Ibuki said, waving off any accusations of being an exhibitionist or something, "Seriously, you'd have to have eyes that can see the world in slow motion to have even caught a flash of skin when I switched clothes." Rubbing the back of her neck and making sure her bandanna was secure around her head she thought hard about the groups that she knew of, "I don't know anything about any Mad Gear group. From the name I don't think they're native to Japan anyway."

Shrugging Naruto decided to ask the guy in his grasp only to note that he had passed out. Damn. Well wasn't that just peachy.

Ibuki stood over the other beaten Mad Gear members and motioned Naruto over to her to tie them up with some of his ninja wire, "This can't be all of them. They're just covering one car, that's stupid if they're lying in wait for someone. You've got to cover your bases. That's Ambush Tactics 101."

"You had that class too?" Naruto idly queried before getting back on track, "Fine. So we're clearing train cars now?" That was going to sidetrack him in his search for Sasuke, but this was begrudgingly more important to make sure that these clods didn't hurt any passengers trying to find whoever they were looking for, "Thirty minutes to Tokyo, so let's get started then." By the time those doors opened this train needed to be safe.

XxX

(Aohura City – Karin's Personal Manor)

"-And I just told Naruto that the person that came by looking for him was going to Tokyo today for some kind of job and that he'd come looking for him again later." Cammy explained as she sat on a chair in Karin's entertainment room, "Then he said that he was going to Tokyo right then. That's not normal is it?"

Sakura frowned from her spot in another chair where she was sitting next to Kei, her lips pursed in thought at what she had just been told by Naruto's new roomie. She thought to take this to Karin as well for something of a meeting of the minds, "Well he's a hothead and everything, but he wasn't mad. And he never just cuts and runs off at the drop of a hat like that."

"Who is this 'Sasuke' person you spoke of?" Karin asked, not knowing anyone like that by name. It wasn't anyone she knew of. Cammy motioned for something to write with and Karin managed to get her a notepad and a pen. It took less than a minute for Cammy to draw up a rough composite sketch of Sasuke's mug shot from what she could remember, "I see…" It was remarkably well detailed. Who knew she could draw?

On the table in front of the girls happened to be the headband that Sasuke left in order to prove that he was someone that Naruto knew. It was most definitely something that was made just like Naruto's accessory of choice, right down to the insignia on it.

"Is it from a gang?" Kei asked aloud, "We don't know anything about Naruto before he came to Aohura City, so maybe he was a part of some kind of gang or something… in the past of course." Because he definitely wasn't a part of one now. But it would definitely explain the tattoos; the one that everyone close to him knew he had on his arm and the one that only Sakura had apparently seen on his stomach, "Maybe that's why he doesn't really talk about anything he did before meeting us?"

Most people would tell stories or share past experiences… but Naruto never did. He never told any stories about him being a ninja, which was what made it hard to stomach at first that he was one. Even to that very day there was some skepticism because of his lack of background. The whole 'Iruka-sensei' thing Sakura got out of him the other day last week was the closest anyone had ever gotten out of digging up something.

A frown adorned Karin's face once she picked up the headband and studied it as if it held some kind of answer, "He holds no gangster tendencies, either from this country's culture or from America's. I just don't see it." Sasuke used the same kind of weapon that Naruto used regularly, and he even disappeared from sight without a trace according to Cammy, "Perhaps this person was a ninja alongside Naruto-san?"

"He did say that he was an old teammate of Naruto's." Cammy recalled, though much hadn't piled up and pieced together yet, "But if Naruto's been here for years why show up now? Is he here to take Naruto back to their home? Perhaps he was in exile and his time is up."

"Well if they didn't want him for four years they can't have him now. Exile or not." Not a chance. In Sakura's opinion if that was indeed the case, and Naruto was dropped in Japan by himself for four years with no link, no attachment, no nothing to his place of origin, then it wasn't on them to decide it was time to bring him back, "Not if he doesn't want to go."

If that was what was happening then Sakura hoped that the reason Naruto went to Tokyo was to tell this Sasuke character to just shove it, that he wasn't going back. Who would exile Naruto anyway? He was as loyal as they came.

Or maybe it was like that thing that Ibuki told them about. The _other_ reason that Naruto could have been in Aohura City with no link to his ninja background. He could have been a runaway.

The shinobi and kunoichi both repeatedly hammered home the fact that for a ninja, abandoning their clan or secret village was a crime punishable by death depending on the number of secrets one contained. Well having a demon in your body that could fuel your powers seemed like a pretty big damn secret. Definitely something worth killing over. So maybe Naruto was heading out to face his fate head-on and fight it off as best he could.

No matter which way things were going to shake out, Uzumaki Naruto was the most pain in the ass best friend that could have ever possibly existed.

"Well are we going or not?"

Everyone turned towards the doorway of the room where Karin was standing with her phone in her hand, "Naruto-san is very traceable as long as he has his cell phone on him if you have forgotten as much." With that she left the room to make sure that Shibazaki prepared the helicopter for a trip to Tokyo, "I hate Mondays…"

There had better have been some answers waiting too once they arrived, because Karin's patience was wearing thin with all of this cloak-and-dagger crap in regards to Naruto and his previous activities in life. It was like peeling a damn onion with all of the layers that came with him.

XxX

(Tokyo, Japan – Chiyoda Ward – Tokaido Line Shinkansen Station)

By the time the doors to the bullet train opened up and the frightened passengers spilled out and the police poured in, every Mad Gear member had been subdued or disposed of either by the party of Sasuke, Yun, and Yang, or by Naruto and Ibuki.

The groups responsible for defeating the hooligans on the train waited until everyone else got off in order to avoid any attention, waiting for the platform to mostly clear before getting off and trying to go about their own way.

As this occurred, Naruto had a rather disgruntled look on his face. Because of the whole Mad Gear mess he had missed his chance to find and corner Sasuke on the train, if he was there to begin with. But with a left turn of his head a look crossed Naruto's face as if he had seen someone that had been brought back from the dead.

Standing between Yun and Yang looking around for an opening to leave the station without any eyes on him stood Sasuke. Though his attire was different to fit the environment he'd been spending his time in, it was unmistakably him. He had the same indifferent look on his face as ever, and that same damn haircut. No doubt, "Sasuke…"

Hearing Naruto's barely audible statement, Ibuki looked in the same direction that he did only to go slightly wide-eyed at the sight of Sasuke, "Wow, that's Sasuke?" She hadn't been expecting anyone that good looking. While Naruto was a rougher brand of good-looking that was harder to appraise for one that didn't have her innate skill to do so, Sasuke was a flat out pretty boy, 100% bishonen status, "What village do you come from? Can I go?"

If there was a place that produced two different shades of hot boy like Naruto and Sasuke there would definitely have to be more, and that was a place she wanted to check out.

Feeling a pair of eyes on him, Sasuke turned towards Naruto and locked eyes with him. He looked different in the fact that he looked bigger and stronger, something to go along with his growth in age, but he didn't have time to inspect this at the moment, 'Crap… how the hell did he-? Ugh, it doesn't matter right now. I don't have time to do this, I'm late.' Business before personal issues, and Naruto wasn't his business right now.

Without a hint of warning that Naruto's eyes could spot, Sasuke vanished from his spot in a swirl of wind and leaves, a Shunshin, but Naruto had dealt with actual teleportation techniques in the recent past and he could see through the little sleight of hand to locate where Sasuke had gone to in an attempt to escape. Not wasting another second, Naruto went right after him, jumping over the crowds of people as he went to exit the station and give chase.

"Hey!" Ibuki shouted at Naruto before going after him as well, "Wait a second! Naruto, I'm supposed to keep an eye on you!" As she made it outside and saw the orange of Naruto taking to the rooftops she made to follow him before she had to duck a kick from behind.

Yang slid to a stop in his inline skates right in front of her after missing his kick that had been aimed at her. This was so not what she needed right now. She could already feel Naruto and that Sasuke guy moving farther and farther away and it was making her antsy that she could lose the blonde bomber.

Standing straight up, she tapped her foot on the ground impatiently as she waited for Yang to either get out of her way or attack her. As long as this whole thing sped up so that she could get moving. She had a perturbed look on her face that just screamed that she was saying, 'Well? I'm waiting.'

Having seen that look multiple times in the past from a girl he liked in his neighborhood, Yang was still sort of reluctant to stand in front of an agitated woman, but he stood his ground regardless. Fighting skill notwithstanding, if he got his butt kicked by an untrained girl when she was upset with him what in the world was going to happen when he tried to tangle with a trained one that was upset with him?

"Look kid, your name was Yun or Yang right? Move out of the way." Ibuki said with a displeased appearance, "I don't feel like kicking your ass right now. I need to catch up with Naruto."

Kid? She couldn't have been that much older than him and she was calling him kid? That wasn't going to fly, "I can't let Naruto catch up with Sasuke." Yang said with a shrug, "Not right now. It's not a good time. You guys are going to screw everything up if you confront him now. Can't this wait?"

He and Yun already screwed up Sasuke entering Tokyo under the radar so that he could properly do his mission. Yes, they ran damage control on the train, but his element of surprise was blown and he wouldn't be getting it back. He needed to make sure that he and his brother tagging along with Sasuke on his trip wouldn't be remembered as the time that they made him fail a job.

But for Ibuki, no it couldn't wait.

Clearly, because Naruto had run all the way across an entire city within thirty minutes and snuck onto a train to meet up with this Sasuke he wasn't just doing it because it caught his fancy at that exact moment. And with having to beat down dozens going onto upwards of one hundred punks on a train she wasn't in the best of moods either. That time on the train with him was supposed to be _her_ time to hang out with Naruto by herself outside of school.

Ibuki shifted into a fighting stance and pulled her facemask up over her mouth and nose. She clearly meant business, "In that case since you aren't getting out of the way I hope you'll be alright with getting some bruises."

In return, Yang reluctantly put himself in his Chinese Kenpo stance and cracked his neck to the side in preparation to face off with the teenage kunoichi, "...Alright, let's get this started."

XxX

"Sasuke!"

Well wasn't this scene sort of familiar?

Sasuke stood on a water tower of a rooftop with his back turned to Naruto who was on the surface of the different rooftop behind him, a pretty long drop to the streets sitting between them in their current urban setting in the streets of Tokyo. Different from a waterfall, most definitely, and it was nightfall so it wasn't really a mirror of their previous showdown, but it was close enough.

And once again just like the last time, Sasuke turned around to face his orange-clad Team 7 teammate in the staticky night air. A storm was building, "I told your roommate I was going to come back after I finished my mission, which I'm still in the middle of."

It was really him. Naruto was instantly overwhelmed with how good it was to find that he wasn't alone and that he hadn't been the only one that wound up in this world away from the Elemental Nations.

That failed to manifest itself in his first words though as he pointed at Sasuke accusingly, "You son of a bitch! You shoved a hand through my chest, set me on fire, and piledrove me headfirst into waterfall rocks! What the fuck was that about? And now you're just gonna give me that look? I should be beating the Sharingan out of you right now!"

Same old Naruto.

"Hm." Sasuke grunted out indifferently. That was a completely different situation compared to then, "Well it's not like I can run off to Orochimaru now never to be seen again, so just let me go and when I come back then we can talk. I'm busy right now."

Naruto wasn't having any of that though, "Then why didn't you wait until you were done before dropping the bombshell on me that you were _alive_ and _in this world_? You thought I'd just sit down and wait for you to roll back into Aohura City after hearing that? You're a dumbass!"

That caught Sasuke off guard. Enough so to break his usual aloof persona. And when Sasuke had his cool disrupted he went to the next default standby of his when it came to his emotions; irritation and/or anger, "Tch… whatever. I'm out of here. Go back to your apartment and I'll be there tomorrow."

"What's wrong with right now?" Naruto shouted before Sasuke ignored him and jumped off again. Were they really going to have to pick up right where they left off? He wasn't sure these building rooftops could take what they would wind up dishing out if they were to do a round two.

The sound of hard wheels rolling got louder and louder and Naruto turned around to see Yun soaring across the gap separating rooftops on his skateboard. He was aiming his trajectory right at Naruto and had the biggest grin on his face as Naruto dodged and he slid to a stop, "Still as fast as ever. Not _that_ fast, but you dodged me again so I'm getting excited about fighting you now."

Naruto's blue eyes moved from Yun to where Sasuke had been standing only to find him gone again. With a click, Naruto snapped his jaw shut irritably before letting out a low growl. This guy obviously didn't get the hint from the day before, "Okay…you want to fight me so bad tough guy? Show me what you've got?"

The exuberant young Chinese fighter didn't need to be given any kind of go ahead to attack Naruto, and did so with gusto, "Oh man, I love a good fight!" One lunge had him cover the full distance between Naruto and himself so fast that an afterimage trail moved with him to disguise which one of the moving Yun figures happened to be the real one, "Zesshou Hohou (Lunge Punch)!"

He didn't see what was so special about Naruto, and he wasn't about to let this guy mess up Sasuke's mission… any more than he and Yang already had anyway. He'd kill two birds with one stone and break this guy down while simultaneously keeping him away from what Sasuke was in Tokyo to do. Beating someone he was interested in would have to prove to Sasuke that he was strong and wasn't just some useless kid.

Naruto bit his thumb and made a few hand-seals before slamming his hand onto the ground, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Jutsu)!" A large puff of smoke kicked up concealing Naruto from view momentarily.

Yun then drew to a sudden stop as a trio of large human-sized toad sat where Naruto had previously been standing, just looking at him lazily and croaking with their throats expanding and retracting. He didn't just want to punch some frogs so he stopped, his fist just inches away from probably killing one of them on impact.

"That coward…" Yun said to himself, adjusting his cap on his head as he looked away from the toads and tried to find out where Naruto had gone so quickly, "You've got to use animals as shields to help you run away?" He then heard a pop noise and turned around only to see a shock of yellow and then a sharp pain.

"Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!" Naruto used the powerful blue orb of chakra to slam Yun into the roof harshly, cracking the foundation harshly with his entire body. Naruto looked back at the two remaining toads as he had been transformed as one and made a hand-seal that sent them right back to wherever they came from before glaring down at Yun, "Who was running away jackass? I don't run from anybody, dattebayo."

Several people in various locations around the world sneezed at that very moment.

All the downed martial artist could do in return was groan from where he was facedown. He found it painful to even breathe due to the damage that the Rasengan did upon hammering him down into the ground, 'Oh man… I haven't been hit like that since I pissed off Chun-Li during her time of the month. I swear he broke like seven of my ribs with that…'

That was the price one paid for choosing to antagonize the 'greatest ninja in the world' in Naruto's mind, and with his point proven Naruto spared Yun one last glance before taking off after Sasuke. He hadn't wasted too much time dealing with his cocky adversary and he could still see the shadowy figure of Sasuke moving in the distance towards some large gathering place in the distance. An arena he supposed.

Why?

What Naruto hoped wasn't an ominous flash of lightning struck the ground miles away from the city as he gave chase to Sasuke. The last time it started to rain in this situation things didn't end very well.

XxX

(Outside of the Train Station – Across the Street from Kitanomaru Park – Ibuki vs. Yang)

An axe kick from Ibuki hit nothing, much to her surprise. She never even saw Yang move to dodge the attack, but he stood behind her in the exact place where she had started from, choosing not to counterattack as she was ready for him.

"That's my Kaihou technique." The dust was still settling from his speedy sudden movement, showing how quickly he had switched places with her, "When it comes to moving in a straight line, I'd say there's no one our age at all as fast as me or Yun." Yang said, cleaning his ear out with his pinky, "You're fast, but you're not as fast as me. That's what I see anyway."

Okay, that struck a nerve.

"You want to see how fast I am?" Ibuki stated in a frighteningly calm manner, seemingly smiling behind her facemask, "Your blood is going to hit the ground before you even feel the cut, because I have a speed technique of my own; Kasumi Gake (The Haze)." Yang rolled his eyes at what he perceived to be a bluff until Ibuki's smiling image became nonexistent and seemed to dissipate.

"No way." He said to himself with a dropped jaw before having to block a flying kick from a different position from Ibuki's bare foot. She pushed off of his block upon contact and made enough space to throw a single kunai at him.

Yang moved his head and got a cut on his cheek for his trouble before rapidly rolling forward into the area where Ibuki was planning to land. Timing his movement just right, he sprang out of it into the air with a barrage of pedaling kicks, "Senkyutai (Drilling Bow Thigh)!"

Ibuki covered up and took the kicks as both youngsters were driven higher into the air where they broke apart and landed staring each other down once again. Yang officially believed her now when Ibuki said that she was just as fast as he was. That meant that it wasn't a matter of merely detaining her anymore, he actually had to try and defeat her or risk getting beaten himself.

The two chased each other in blurring patterns all over outside of the train station before clashing and battling with punches and kicks underneath the streetlights illuminating the public area. Grabbing a wayward punch from Yang, Ibuki moved to his side with her other hand drawn back to deliver a strike that she was charging with enough ki to be visible around her fist.

In order to escape Ibuki's grapple of his arm, Yang flipped to put the limb back into a more comfortable position before delivering a side kick to Ibuki's stomach to free himself. A twinkle went through his eye as he saw his opening and delivered a forceful double-handed palm strike right to Ibuki's chest, "Byakko Soshoda (White Tiger Twin Palm Strike)!" Knocking her back through the air and into the street.

The female ninja cringed and held her chest as she looked up and saw the headlights of a car coming at her. At the blaring honk of the vehicle's horn she quickly got up and dodged the car only to have jumped into another lane where she dodged that one, and so on and so forth.

Meanwhile Yang sat down on the edge of a concrete planter and watched with interest as the unforgiving Tokyo multilane traffic gave Ibuki no quarter. It was awesome, like real world Frogger. Eventually realizing if she got all the way across the street she could elect to run after Naruto and Sasuke instead of having to stay and fight, Yang got up and timed it just right to sprint right out into the street directly at Ibuki who was still concerning herself with making sure that she didn't do her best impression of a bug against the grill of some car or truck.

"Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha!" Yang repeated excitedly as he realized that he had a straight shot to her with no errant traffic in sight, "Tenshin Senkyutai!" He rolled forward one strong time before an unaware Ibuki was caught directly under the chin with a rising kick. Yang jumped up after her and delivered repeated kicks with one leg before switching to longer and more devastating looping kicks, finishing with one strong high kick to her face that knocked her across the street into the park down a grassy hill.

After taking such a vicious series of attacks, a rather nasty tumble down a grassy hill felt like a massage in comparison until she came to a complete stop at the bottom of the hill in an open field, 'Oh, a massage sounds so good right now.' Ibuki thought pitifully as she slowly started to stand back up through the pain, 'I wonder how good Naruto is at giving them. I really need one on the train ride back to Aohura City.'

Standing at the top of the hill was Yang, looking down at her with his arms crossed, "You're pretty tough. That was one of my best combos. But you're on rubbery legs now. I think a good wind could blow you over right now, so I guess I'll just knock you out and call it a night." He said as a few wet drops fell from the sky onto his face, "Oh, that's just great. It's starting to rain."

The inclement weather picked up and the moderately cool late spring/early summer downpour felt golden when it touched down on Ibuki's bumps and bruises, as if it was revitalizing her and giving her a second wind, a wake up of sorts.

"You're not seriously going to try and still fight me are you?" Yang asked her with a frown on his face, "You're literally going to be fighting an uphill battle. I've got the high ground, you don't have a chance from there." He had a point. Not only was she going to be making her move uphill, it was up a grassy hill at the start of a rain. She'd never get any kind of decent footing, especially barefoot as she was.

Not heeding the warning at all, Ibuki was not about to merely concede defeat so easily. There was always retreat, but surrender was not an option at all for a ninja such as herself, and she wasn't about to consider either to begin with.

Dropping a smoke bomb, a barrage of shuriken flew out at Yang that he managed to duck and sway out of the way of safely. The throwing stars were dangerous and annoying, but nothing like that would hit him at all. She'd have to do better than that or else this fight was as good as over and she was just dragging it out.

Ibuki leapt out of the cloud of smoke with a beautiful corkscrew flip that amazingly landed her up on top of the hill, sending her right over Yang's head. He had no idea how she managed to get that high. A regular jump wouldn't have gotten him that high, let alone a showy move like hers. In shock he lashed out with a backhand strike, but Ibuki blocked it with one hand and positioned her other one down at Yang's wide open torso as she built up her ki in the fist, enough so to have it glowing before she delivered the punch, "Raida (Lightning Strike)!"

The ki exploded outward upon contact and visibly shot out the other side of Yang's body before he went flying down the hill, stunned beyond comparison and flat on his back staring up at the sky as precipitation fell onto his prone body.

He let out the manliest scream possible when he saw Ibuki directly above him after having leapt, with her pelting kunai and shuriken all at him. None of them hit him, merely outlining his body and pinning him to the ground by his clothes as she landed lightly with a knee on his chest to keep him down and a kunai to his neck, "Who doesn't have a chance now?"

All Yang could do was gulp fearfully at the deadly weapon being held at his throat. He hoped that Yun would never find out that he'd been soundly beaten by a teenage girl. No way anything would have happened to his brother that would be as humiliating as that, right?

XxX

(Nearby – Nippon Budokan a.k.a Budokan Hall)

The famous old arena was full of activity, despite the fact that no reservation for an event had been set or promoted. As a matter of fact there was no one within two miles of the building and the main floor was mostly dark, only light enough to see the masses around. The staff had been persuaded to avoid work that night so that not even security was there.

On the floor level of the Budokan Hall as the rain poured down and the thunder started to boom overhead from the ongoing storm outside stood many assorted types of young men, all standing around and waiting.

There were hundreds of them, of all shapes and sizes. There were adult tough guys, teenage delinquents of varying severity, disenfranchised and rebellious young men and women alike. People from all walks of life, and their attention was attracted to the end of the arena when the doors at the end were thrown open with enough force to echo out through the entire building.

In walked a muscular man with an air of authority, wearing a yellow sleeveless military outfit with a red scarf underneath the neck of his outfit, red gloves on his hands and red beret on his head. He had heavy combat boots and a military harness with grenades strapped all over his person. In his hand there was a staff. A diagonal scar sat across his face starting from above his right eye to the left side of his mouth.

Flanking him on all sides seemed to be his personal guard of men dressed just like him only in dark outfits and lacking berets. He came to a stop in clear view of everyone and turned towards them with his hands locked behind his back. Observing the crowd he looked around before choosing to speak, "You are all here because you are tired of what is spoonfed to you every day by those in charge. You are here because you want to be the catalysts for change. You are here because you understand that change can only occur with radical, martial action. And this is why I am here, to enact that change."

He began pacing back and forth, looking over those there before him that evening, "What better place for all of you to devote yourselves to the beginning of a utopia than here? The center of the governmental problems in your country. A few miles away the representatives that _you_ voted for to represent you, to bring about the change that _you_ believe in, they're taking _your_ money every single day and just twiddling their thumbs, and for what? Nothing's changed!" He shouted with a booming voice that got a few people to flinch, "No… the only way to get something done right is to do it yourself, which is what we're going to do."

"You are all the beginning of something, of the army that will change the entire world." The man continued to speak, gaining a more convictional tone as he carried on, "There is no better place in the world to start. A country yearning for change, a country with true fighting spirit that has been quelled for far too long, a country where by the time the world realizes what happened it will be too late to stop us. We'll be well on our way, and it won't stop here! We will turn this entire world into the utopia that the people need!"

"And I; Rolento F. Schugerg… will be the man that leads you. The man that leads Mad Gear into the future. It is up to us to put the world in order, to put the world at peace, and we will crush anyone fool enough to get in our way." The speaker, Rolento grinned raised his fist and staff into the air, "Our numbers are reaching the thousands in Japan alone. We have brothers and sisters in cities all over the country. So with that being said, are you willing to join us and make a difference?"

A loud and raucous cheer went up from the spectators as they began chanting for Mad Gear and for Rolento, the reason that they were all there that night; to meet one of the prime leaders of the infamous Mad Gear that nearly took over an entire state in America five years prior.

Rolento seemed to bask in the praise and grinned widely as he gestured to them, "For now we train. You all need seasoning in urban combat which we will see much of, but when our full armory arrives, and when the time comes for our forces to pool and begin making its push, no armed force in Japan will be any match for us. The police will cower, just as they do for us now, and the military will buckle under the might of true battle-tested soldiers!"

Hearing that droll was beginning to make Sasuke sick from his place in the rafters of the arena. As far as he could see these people, sick of their lot in life no matter what it seemed to be since a lot of them didn't seem to be that bad off, felt like engaging in violence, merely swayed by the words of some charismatic recruiter for his own private army.

Either way it didn't matter to him. After he killed this man, and then the last of the ringleaders of this little underground 'revolution' these sheep losers would scatter to the winds and that would be that. Mission accomplished, national catastrophe averted, Bob's your uncle.

"Why are you here listening to this idiot?" Naruto whispered from Sasuke's side, surprising the Uchiha teen. No one had been able to sneak up on him in years… but then again he hadn't really run into a single shinobi in the last four years. He really hoped that Naruto was just that much better instead of him being that rusty when it came to detecting others with relevant stealth ability, "These guys are really believing this crap."

"A lot of people want to be important." Sasuke said lowly as he started estimating just how many there were. If he had to fight the lot of them he was pretty sure that he could still handle them. Taking on Rolento though would be a far more difficult task.

Naruto didn't get it and merely shook his head as members of Rolento's guard began breaking the people up in groups and moving them out so that their training to be useful members of Mad Gear could begin, "What makes anyone think that they'd be important in something like this? It's just a terrorist with a more direct approach."

While he agreed, Sasuke had the time to think over just what Mad Gear's pull was in regards to the masses, "The easiest way to feel important is to dominate people that are weaker than you, to make people afraid of you. The easiest way to do that is to join a gang. The easiest way to justify joining a gang is if it's a group that claims to have a noble purpose of some kind, but that's all this is. It's no better than any Yakuza or Triad group. It could wind up being way worse actually."

At least the Yakuza, the Russian Mafia, and the Triads were about making money. Mad Gear wasn't about that. They really wanted control of the country and beyond. Yes, it was prudent to nip this in the bud as quickly as possible. Things like this could get worse very quickly.

This was the last thing that Naruto needed; to deal with another militaristic group that wanted control, and he was there to see this one in its infancy, during its rise.

Yeah, like hell.

"So when do we kick his ass?" Naruto asked, punching into his palm as he looked down at Rolento watching the last of his recruits be escorted out. He seemed way too pleased with himself. That needed to change.

"There's not going to be any asskicking." Sasuke said intently as he dropped down from the rafters via ninja wire that was pinned up in the support beams along with him, "I'm just going to kill him and leave." The trajectory of his silent swan dive would end with him severing something quite vital on Rolento. At least it would have had the man not blocked what would have been a fatal stroke of the kunai with his staff.

With a clang, Rolento prevented Sasuke from killing him and knocked the ninja back. Sasuke cut himself free and landed on the ground in a crouch, his eyes never leaving Rolento who seemed to be smirking, "So the information extracted out of that sniveling senator wasn't false after all. He hired a foreign assassin to take me out… and I don't think you're alone either." He pulled out a remote detonator and held it up so that Sasuke could see it, "How unfortunate for your ally."

Sasuke's eyes widened as Rolento hit the button and an explosion rocked the beams that comprised the rafters above them. He looked up in dread and grit his teeth as the metal fell from the ceiling to the ground with a terrible noise, 'Naruto!' He thought as twisted metal began littering Budokan Hall.

Rolento elicited a heated glare from Sasuke as he laughed, holding his face from the humor of it all, "This is why you build an army. There is power in numbers. Nothing in this world is more powerful than a well led group that believes in a cause. It's simply unstoppable. One or two men can't change anything, can't do anything important. No, you need numbers."

Before he could gloat much further he wound up taking a harsh punch right to the face that knocked Rolento right on his ass, sending him sliding across the hard floor of the arena. He looked up with a scathing glance at Naruto as he wiped the blood from his mouth.

"What you need is a beatdown." Naruto asserted with a sneer on his face, "Do you know how close you came to blowing me up just now?"

His little numbers theory was now working against him. Now Rolento had two very pissed off trained killers primed, with at least one primed to rip his throat out. This was not looking good for him at all. He knew that his men had to have heard the explosion.

But as the echo from the fallen metal beams and the explosion died down, all three of the arena's inhabitants heard muffled gunfire and explosions from outside the grand arena's walls. Rolento's men were fighting. And from the sounds of the panic they seemed to be losing… either that or defeating another large group.

All three felt an oppressive force outside. For both Naruto and Sasuke it was easily the most powerful thing they had ever felt in their lives. It was walking killing intent personified, that was the only way to explain it that they could find. No living creature could possibly produce that kind of feeling. It had to be fake.

Sporadic gunfire began to die down in the amount that was heard as it began to get louder, like it was getting closer and closer. The desperate cries of the men outside eventually stopped and all three of them looked at each other. From the look on Rolento's face it wasn't anyone of his, and from the looks on Naruto's and Sasuke's they weren't expecting a lick of backup to help them.

The tension was so thick that none of the current combatants could even swallow their saliva that had built up.

And then the doors were blown off of the hinges hard enough to fly all the way across the empty arena into the stands, shattering the chairs and the concrete behind and beneath them. Not a single one of them moved an inch, feeling that the wrong move would be the last move that they ever made as the person walked in.

It was harshly muscled man with deeply tanned skin and flaming red hair put up in a spiky and upright ponytail that made him look like a demon. The sharp pointed teeth, the sincerely hateful look on his face, and the pure crimson eyes didn't help keep him from looking like a demon either. He honestly seemed to be more monster than normal man. He was barefoot, wearing prayer beads around his neck and a tattered black gi with a red kanji of 'ten' on his back.

So he was the source. But who was he? Why was he there? And what in God's name did he want?

In one of his hands there was a horrifically beaten member of Rolento's militia with a rifle barrel jammed through his belly in a horrific sight. As if the man was garbage, the devil-like man hurled him at the top wall of one of the sides of the arena, cracking the wall with the impact of the man's body.

And then his eyes panned across Naruto, Sasuke, and Rolento, with all three of them still freezing in place, like animals under the gaze of a predator… all three of them waiting to see which of them were damned so that if it wasn't them they could make their escape.

"You." The scarily powerful man uttered in his dark and grizzled voice, "Leave." He said, his eyes locked on Rolento, "You're not worth my time." At first, a bit of Rolento's bravado started to swell up. He wasn't important? Who did this fool think he was talking to? And then he must have overstayed his welcome, because the man's patience apparently began to run thin, **"Leave or die! It's as simple as that!"**

And Rolento hightailed it outside faster than he had ever moved in his life. In the halls leading to the exit he could see the devastation this man had wrought, and when he got outside things only got worse. He had completely lain waste to every single potential recruit he had just convinced to join him. Guns didn't matter, explosives didn't matter. He decimated them all for choosing to stand against him.

If that monster didn't want him, and instead wanted Naruto and/or Sasuke it was all the better for him. It would take care of a problem for him. So as he ran through the arena parking lot, ignoring all of the death and the outright destruction of the transport vehicles that had been meant for his soldiers to take them to the same location intended for him, Rolento grabbed his small radio and quickly got the desired frequency on the line, "Pick me up in Kitanomaru Park now! There's no reason to stay in Tokyo any longer it's time to begin getting our new blood ready!"

He needed to get himself and his operation as far away from Tokyo as he could in case this demon decided to change his mind and come for him. This was manageable. As regrettable as it was, recruits like the ones he had just lost were most easily replaceable. He could probably get more in the next place he went to during the settling of his new base of operations for the time being.

But inside the arena retreat didn't seem to be an option for Naruto and Sasuke, as the man hadn't taken his eyes off of them yet.

"You two. You're the ones." His voice was as cold as ice and just hearing it made the hairs on the back of their necks stand on end, "Fight me. Show me just how strong you both are. I want to see it. Your real powers." Neither of them could breathe too loud without feeling like they were walking on the edge. And he was ordering them to fight him?

Sasuke's Sharingan had already turned on out of sheer instinct minutes ago back when Rolento had been sharing in their situation as well, "Our real powers?" He pointed at his eyes, "This is my real power. The Sharingan, you're seeing it."

"You shouldn't lie… it makes you seem weak. Should I dismember you to demonstrate this firsthand and teach you a lesson boy?" Such a brutal proclamation, and neither of them doubted he would do it for a single moment. Sasuke's hand drifted to the seal on his neck and Naruto's hand rested over his belly at that statement, "Yes. You can't hide such powerful potential from me."

One was dark and twisted, the other seemed like pure hatred in energy form. And both of them sang to his destructive soul. It called out to him in a more blatant manner than Ryu's Satsui no Hadou that he did all within his power to suppress.

"If you don't attack me with all of the strength you can muster then you two won't last ten seconds. I can assure you of that."

"**You had better listen good brat."** The Kyuubi chimed in from Naruto's mind, **"Cast away your stupid inhibitions of losing control and for once try to cut loose. I can assure you that it is the only way you will come close to defeating this creature."**

Immediately the red chakra began to pour out from Naruto's body. Wasting no time starting in its usual flaming orange cloak form it immediately turned to the bubbling complete fox outline version complete with two tails waving in the air behind him.

Sasuke observed this small transformation and a smile actually came to his face reminiscing the last time he had seen something similar from the blonde, 'Unbelievable Naruto… you actually managed to take that power and go farther with it.' It was more powerful than the last time and it seemed to be growing in intensity.

His own Cursed Seal began to spread from his neck across his body looking like a black flame before it covered all of his flesh and turned his skin grey. His hair grew out down to his lower back, turning more ashen in the process, and as he tossed his shirt to the side two massive wings that looked like webbed claws sprang from his back. On his face a black star-shaped mark appeared across the bridge of his nose.

'But then again, it's not like my own control of my gifts didn't grow either.' Both boys looked at each other and narrowed their eyes challengingly, remembering the last time they had seen one another like this. Nothing between them was done yet, and they'd be settling up later. But at the moment there was a necessity to team up and destroy a threat to the both of them, and that was what they were going to do.

At least that was what they had intended to do. Seemingly moving like a ghost, as if he were untouchable, their devilish foe drifted directly between the two of them. While they were still glaring at each other both Naruto and Sasuke had their visions filled with the view of their foe.

Both of them never saw him lash out with a pair of strong punches that sent them both flying like missiles away from him into the lower banks of the arena that contained the upper level seats. Their bodies smashed holes into the walls and neither of them got up at first.

"That's not enough power. Don't insult me with that pitiful showing!" Waves and waves of red power began flowing from the mysterious enemy's body with enough intensity to put cracks in the concrete from the sheer intensity of his aura, "I know of you Uzumaki Naruto… the strongest fighter under the age of 18 in Japan. You're just a babe in comparison to the might of Akuma. And Uchiha Sasuke, apprentice to the former assassination master of the Chinese government Gen. The red-eyed devil of Hong Kong. Your master is powerful, but his body is too feeble with sickness to be a sporting challenge for me. Apparently yours is as well."

So the man's name was Akuma. And he knew who they were? How could neither of them have ever caught wind of such a destructively powerful person getting information on them and discovering their identities?

The first to pull himself out of the hole in the wall was Sasuke who brushed debris off of himself with his wings. His body was littered with cuts from the broken concrete, but he was still standing, "That old man isn't my master, I just live with him and he makes me earn my keep with missions like this. And while I might specialize in quick and unseen kills, I can fight face-to-face just as well."

Though he said that, Akuma's punch would have probably ruptured several internal organs had he not blocked his body at the last second with his wings. Even then he still had blood trailing from his mouth via the internal injuries, and on the back of a wing he had a horrid fist mark.

"Show me then." Akuma demanded, not an ounce of emotion in his face other than hatred.

"Actually someone wants a piece of you first."

From underneath the ground at Akuma's feet, two of Naruto's tails burst through the cracked concrete and grabbed Akuma's body. He seethed in anger and unleashed a terrible burst of power to disrupt Naruto's tails and free himself, but he then found himself socked with a red chakra _third_ tail that shot out of the hole that he had plowed Naruto into.

The punch from the chakra tail knocked Akuma into the stands, destroying an entire row of chairs with his body before he popped right back up and stared at Naruto as he was now free of the wall that he had leveled the boy into previously. Now with three red waving tails of chakra, Naruto's presence was intense enough to begin scorching the surface of the concrete floor.

One punch.

One clean punch from Akuma nearly killed him.

One punch broke his ribs and punctured his lung. He was beginning to choke on his own fluid filling his chest before the Kyuubi took advantage of his distressed state of panicked drowning and gave him even more power than he had ever received before. And he readily took it. He took it to save his life and to brutalize the enemy that callously attempted to end his life.

Akuma's eyes stuck on Naruto's form with great interest, 'That's better. I know you have more though. Show it. I'm interested in you little one. You have no desire to shut out the dark side of you, but you fear your inability to control it. This is what holds you back. I see that the only way to get more of it out of you is to force you to draw upon more.'

"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu)!"

Sasuke took advantage of Akuma not paying him any attention and fired off a massive fireball three times his size from his mouth. To Sasuke's delight it was a direct hit and engulfed the entire area of chairs in an inferno, burning the whole section mercilessly as it was fueled by the twisted chakra of the Cursed Seal of Heaven.

He had to rub his eyes in disbelief though when Akuma just walked out of the blaze as if he had been strolling through an autumn gust. He glared at Sasuke from his elevated position and quickly placed his hands in the proper position before firing off an orange flaming blast of ki from his hands, "Shakunetsu Hadoken (Scorching Surge Fist)!"

Sasuke quickly took to the air with his wings and bore witness to the ground where he had been standing being blown apart as if an explosive tag had gone off down there. He scoffed irritably at yet another opponent having no hand-seals that he could use to copy their technique, but that was a mere trifle at the moment.

Upon seeing Akuma attack Sasuke, Naruto leapt all the way across the arena and barreled into Akuma, tackling him right back into the fire created by Sasuke, willing to drag him into a blood and guts up close and personal grudge match to get his victory. From the air, Sasuke was amazed at how Naruto hurled himself and their foe directly into an intensely burning fire. It was incredibly reckless.

But he was then almost knocked from the sky as a wave of power emitted from Akuma and put the flames all out with the exception of a few fires here and there. Once again he stood unharmed for the most part with his hand around Naruto's neck lifting the demonically-fueled child off of the ground. For his part Naruto was growling at Akuma with pure blood red eyes and clawing into his arm with both hands deep enough to cut down to muscle.

Not only that, but the intensity of his chakra was beginning to burn the portion of Akuma's arm caught in the vicinity of Naruto's chakra cloak, "Very interesting." In response, Naruto freed his throat enough to unleash a deafening roar that formed a bright orange spherical span of devastation around himself and his enemy. It was powerful enough to crumble the entire foundation of that portion of the arena and turning the rows that already had the chairs ripped out of them and had been heavily burned in a fire to rubble, bringing it all down around both Naruto and Akuma.

From the air, Sasuke looked down at the clouds of dust and debris rising up from Naruto's berserker counterattack and nodded to himself. Even in his current level 2 Cursed Seal form he would have been hard pressed to get up from Naruto's roar at that range. It was five times stronger than when he had used it on him at the Valley of the End from the amount of chakra behind it.

A sickening crack elicited from the wreckage and into the air shot a glowing orange blur until it plowed straight through what was left of the ceiling to Budokan Hall. Sasuke's eyes widened as he was clearly able to see that it had been Naruto and looked back down to where Akuma's gi top was obliterated and his body was covered in light flesh wounds, still with that same look on his face as always.

Akuma tilted his neck sharply and cracked it before jumping into the air faster than Sasuke had ever seen anyone do before. He was able to dodge the kick that was directed at him but Akuma wasn't done as that was just his rising attack. As Sasuke flew back out of his range he mentally commended the youngster for dodging, but he wouldn't prevent what was next.

"Zankuu Hadoken (Air Slashing Surge Fist)!" From only one of Akuma's outstretched arms flew dozens of purple Hadokens that shot Sasuke out of the sky like a fighter jet. The smoking Uchiha ninja crashed and burned on the ground in a heap as Akuma landed back on the ground with enough force to smash a crater in the already heavily damaged arena floor, "Too bad. You two could have been a challenge, but you don't embrace your darkness enough."

"All a ninja does is wade in the darkness." Sasuke said as he stood back up and began building lightning in one of his hands. A Chidori that quickly warped from blue to black in its appearance. Instead of using it to charge Akuma down, Sasuke put his second hand behind his first and aimed them at Akuma, "Habataku Chidori Senbon (Flapping One Thousand Birds Senbon)!"

Akuma's eyes widened in surprise as Sasuke let loose a spray of infinite long black needles of electricity. Akuma rapidly began to dodge as fast as possible and Sasuke's enhanced electric senbon pulverized everything that they hit in volume. Akuma was only able to avoid them for so long with Sasuke's ability to track his movement and adjust accordingly.

Stopping his own movement once he saw that it was futile to try and outrun the technique, Akuma's entire body flashed red before he fired a mammoth blast of purple ki at his younger opponent, "Gouhadoken (Great Surge Fist)!"

Where Sasuke's jutsu did its damage in sheer volume of the uncountable number of senbon that he fired, Akuma's was just abusively overwhelming and it overtook all of his attack and still flew right for him full steam ahead.

Once again Sasuke covered up and blocked with his wings but it did no good as he was hit full-on and pummeled with the technique that sank against the stands, creating a massive Hadoken-shaped crater at the end of a trench the length of the attack that was carved in the ground.

The once proud arena now looked like a bombed out hovel that would collapse any second due to the destruction dealt by the physical nature of the combatants. Not a single thing was where it had been when the battle started. Not a scrap of property wasn't completely destroyed.

The entire roof was then shredded, torn apart, and cut to pieces like a ginsu knife on an aluminum can and from there stared in a creature that was no longer human. It was Naruto's body covered in a dark red exoskeleton of chakra. He looked like a fox demon with the ears on top of his head and the four wicked tails waving behind him.

It was a barbaric transformation. The smell of blood was clear, evidently mixed freely with the powerful chakra covering his body. It was disgusting.

Instead of fear though, Akuma only felt dissatisfaction at what he saw one hundred and forty feet above him. The torrential downpour of rain that was no longer being blocked by the nonexistent barrier riddled his face that would have stung a normal person like it was hail, but it elicited not even a blink from the master of the Satsui no Hadou. Even when the possessed Naruto leapt down to rip Akuma limb from limb he showed no dread whatsoever.

Even though you would have to find a way to decapitate such a monster to kill it. A thing like that was possible for Akuma, but he had a far more fitting death for one that lost himself to power that he should have been able to control if he truly considered himself strong.

Akuma looked up as the berserk monster came right for him. From the look on his face he seemed disappointed and didn't move an inch as Naruto fell closer and closer, "Still not enough… still not enough!" Just before Naruto landed, Akuma's entire body began to channel his dark ki for one technique, "You let your power control you… you're no warrior!"

"As you are you mean nothing to me, and now only death awaits you! Shun Goku Satsu (Instant Hell Murder)!"

And he had such high hopes for the battle with Naruto and Sasuke. They had so much potential, but in the end they weren't ready at all.

Curiously enough, with the ferocity of Akuma's following attack, perhaps his most forbidden technique, even against an out of control Naruto going on four tails of chakra, the Kyuubi was the one that felt the pain before feeling things go dark as well as the boy that he had taken control of.

The Kyuubi thought to itself, because Naruto wasn't aware enough to listen, that perhaps in its haste to try and break free from its living prison at the first opportunity it had that a grave mistake had been made.

XxX

(Thirty Minutes Later)

The helicopter of Karin's current party of herself, Sakura, Cammy, and Kei were drawn to the smoke and emergency attention being paid to the Nippon Budokan. There was no way not to be drawn to it. Originally having stopped there because it was where the signal to Naruto's cell phone died, when they arrived and circled the scene from above they found that it was no longer standing at all. It was merely a heap of twisted metal and assorted building materials.

And that was where Naruto's trail ended.

From the air they could see dozens of police vehicles ranging from normal squad cars to special teams, as well as countless ambulances to tend to those that were injured but still alive, and far too many bodybags to warrant counting. As morbid as it was and as scary as it was they didn't stop there. Neither Naruto nor Ibuki would be in any of them. No way either of them had been killed. The chance of such catastrophic trouble was way too low for one of them to have died there in comparison to some of the other things that had seemed more dangerous. Just heading off after one teenager couldn't have resulted in something like this.

Flying past into the park through the rain it was easy to see the telltale orange suit of Naruto lying on the ground in an open field with Ibuki sitting over him. Though Ibuki seemed fine he seemed to be a pure mix of red and orange. That wasn't right.

With haste the chopper landed nearby and when they arrived close enough and stood over Naruto they saw him unmoving, with the top skin on his entire body simply not there as if it had been stripped off. A gruesome sight to say the least.

The least prepared of them for such a scene, Kei, immediately turned away from it and felt her legs give out on her, 'What the hell happened here?' She felt too sick to her stomach to turn around and make sure it was real.

Karin simply stood in place unable to move, while Sakura herself walked over to Naruto and got to her knees, if only to see if it was really him. It didn't seem possible. Something like this didn't happen to Naruto, never to him. He was supposed to just hop back up, even when he was defeated. He was supposed to open his eyes, complain about how much he hurt and about how he had that fight in the bag, and then he would laugh it off and say he'd win next time.

That was the way things were.

He wasn't supposed to look like he was about to be on death's door.

Meanwhile Cammy had seen Naruto. She had gotten an eyeful and the sight would be burned into her brain for eternity even if she got amnesia again she figured. But then not too far away she spotted Sasuke's heavily injured body sitting against a tree, non responsive. Both Yun and Yang were there as well, assisting him as best they could, seemingly fresh off of removing a steel rod from impaling his shoulder. He was still alive it seemed, if not horrifically wounded.

If Naruto was dead it was _his_ fault. The one that came snooping around inquiring about him. This was his endgame wasn't it?

Without saying a word she made a fist at her side and rushed at Sasuke with murderous intent. Yun and Yang felt her move and made to cut her off and stop her despite their own battle-weary states, but it was unnecessary as Cammy found herself taken down to the ground with Ibuki sitting on her back and holding her down despite her attempts to struggle and get back up, "Let me go!"

"None of them did this." Ibuki said, relenting her grip when Cammy stopped struggling, "It wasn't them. None of them did it. I saw the person that did it walk away from the arena." After the Nippon Budokan had been demolished, Ibuki double-timed it to its location only to see a man more devil than human walk away into the shadows. All she could really make out was his unnatural skin and his demonic red hair, "That was the person that did everything."

She sounded completely beside herself, as if she were a coward for not stopping the man. But she couldn't even move. The moment he felt her presence and Ibuki made eye contact with his solid red eyes she was paralyzed, and she couldn't bring herself to scream, run, fight, nothing… until he was gone.

As if he didn't find her to be a threat at all. Not even important enough to crush when he probably could have without much of a fight.

And when she had regained her senses she ran into the annihilated arena grounds and got Naruto and Sasuke out before authorities arrived and they got some unneeded attention.

Sakura had her head placed against Naruto's chest where she felt the faintest heartbeat from him that she had ever heard, 'He's not dead.' From the way he looked it was nothing short of a miracle that he wasn't. She looked up at the nearest person to her which was Karin and stopped what she was about to say when she saw the distressing look on the face of the heiress and she couldn't tell if it was just the rain or if it had tears mixed in.

But alive or not, he wasn't waking up. And that was a rather serious problem... for everyone.

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Rolento F. Schugerg  
><span>Nationality:<span> Germany  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 34 (Birthday: November 15)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'10/178 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> O  
><span>Likes:<span> Order, discipline.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Weakness, laziness.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Setting up traps, ambushes, grenade throwing.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Guy, Cody, Sasuke Uchiha.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Special Forces Training  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Patriot Circle, Stinger, Mekong Delta Air-Raid, Mekong Delta Escape, Mekong Delta Attack.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Take No Prisoners, Steel Rain, Mine Sweeper.  
><span>Background:<span> Formerly an executive member of Mad Gear during its previous heyday in the United States, Rolento is a former Red Beret and uses past connections to give the resurrected organization weapons and vehicles for both transport and combat. He is a charismatic person that is looking to recruit an army to help him achieve his goal of obtaining his own utopia nation, free from the world's ongoing hypocritical problems and politics. Very military-oriented due to his background he demands order and will not allow his underlings to be mere thugs and hooligans, desiring a trained fighting force. He has built influence around the Pacific since the fall of Mad Gear's last great base of operations in Metro City and has chosen Japan as the setting for his next move.

Name: Akuma  
><span>Nationality:<span> Unknown, presumably Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> Unknown  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'10/176½ lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> Unknown  
><span>Likes:<span> Martial arts, training, Satsui no Hadou, strong opponents, becoming stronger.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> His brother Gouken, weaklings, anyone who interferes with his training, his master Goutetsu.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> None  
><span>Rivals:<span> Ryu, Gen, M. Bison.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Nameless art powered by the Satsui no Hadou.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Gouhadoken (Great Surge Fist), Shakunetsu Hadoken (Scorching Surge Fist), Zankuu Hadoken (Air Slashing Surge Fist), Goushoryuuken (Strong Rising Dragon Fist), Tatsumaki Zankukyaku (Hurricane Scythe Kick), Hyakkishu (Hundred Devil Attacks), Ashura Senku (Asura Flashing Sky).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Shun Goku Satsu (Instant Hell Murder), Shin Shun Goku Satsu (True Instant Hell Murder), Tenshou Kaireki Jin (Heaven Shocking Sea-Plowing Blade).  
><span>Background:<span> The younger brother of Ryu and Ken's master Gouken, both he and his brother trained together learning the same nameless art. While training, a dispute on the art's true nature erupted between the two brothers and Gouken left to search his own path and establish his own dojo as he renounced their style's murderous background. Akuma embraced it though, and continued to train under their master to use the fighting style as it was intended. Eventually embracing the Satsui no Hadou during his travels to truly master the style, he renounced any compassion or desire for peace, developing a desire for fights to the death with his opponents. He managed to master it to a further extent than his master Goutetsu due to giving in to all of the dark urges that the Satsui no Hadou forced upon him and returned to kill his master in battle. Many years later after losing a battle to his brother Gouken, he got his revenge and killed him in a rematch.

To this day he continues to seek out worthy challenges, living for the day where he finds an enemy that has the potential to kill him in battle. This has led to him allowing several powerful opponents to live in the past such as Ryu, in the hopes that they let the darkness within them grow so that when he seeks them out again they may pose him a grander challenge.

* * *

><p><strong>Wow what a monster of a chapter. I swear I didn't mean for it to get that big, but I couldn't find a good enough place to just stop. Well it's done now, and I hope you enjoyed.<strong>

**Now if you'll excuse me I need to go work. Max Payne 3, gas for my car, and my bills aren't going to pay for themselves so I need to get ready to get ready for my shift.**

**I've left more than a few questions up in the air for those that know what's really supposed to be up, like usual, so I'll just leave it at that.**

**Later. Kenchi out.**


	21. There Goes the Neighborhood

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. My car got firebombed yesterday by an unknown party. My MP3 player sadly didn't make it out of the inferno. Kishimoto this means war! My 8 GBs will be avenged!

**Chapter 21: There Goes the Neighborhood**

* * *

><p>For the benefit of those that have never been rendered unconscious, it is a very strange sensation to say the least. Before you even open your eyes the first thing that comes back to you is the ability to hear. Where before it would be some kind of droning white noise, the noise begins to clear and become more and more coherent and less echoey until it is fully restored.<p>

From that point your sense of feeling comes back and you try to move. It is only at that point when you try and fail due to the recent rebooting of your motor skills that you become aware that your eyes are fully open and that the reason you could not see was because you were readjusting to the light.

This is the fate that met one Uzumaki Naruto upon his reawakening. It almost felt like a Monday morning after an entire Sunday of to-the-wall training, especially the part where he woke up in his own bed. The part that wasn't familiar was the fact that he was wrapped up with his entire body covered in gauze from head to toe, and that his entire body hurt like hell.

Never one to stay down when it wasn't necessary though, Naruto sat up and threw the comforter off of himself only to roll his eyes at the fact that he was stark naked. As he pulled the wires connected to the machine monitoring his vitals that had been transported into his room he inwardly thanked whatever deity was responsible that he was in his bedroom with his nudity.

He then cursed the same deity upon the self-removal of the catheter that was in him. Thank you Tsunade-baachan for that information that he never lost due to how traumatic it was to learn. He was not letting someone else take a catheter out of him while he was awake to prevent it... he'd rather fall on that grenade himself.

With ginger steps he got out of bed and put on a pair of boxers and athletic shorts before opening his door and stepping out into his hallway towards the living room, being led by the sound of the TV.

He didn't expect to see Batsu sitting there in his normal blue school uniform lazily playing videogames. A first person shooter was on the screen and he had a headset on so he was obviously playing online, "Who's the asshole running around with the Striker shotgun?" He asked into the headset, "Why am I mad? I'm mad because a Striker with 'range' is a borderline hack you motherfucker. I'm getting a grenade launcher next match and then I'm tearing your ass up."

Shrugging to himself, Naruto walked over to the couch and sat down next to Batsu to watch the game. Batsu didn't really care that someone had sat down next to him because he was on a kill-streak. This continued until the game ended and Batsu turned his head towards the person that was almost in his personal space. He then looked like he'd seen a ghost and jumped out of the chair completely, "Holy shit! You should be dead!"

"Whu-?" Naruto replied 'intelligently' before he looked at himself, "Well I feel like I should be. Does that count?"

Batsu stared at Naruto until he was able to calm down. From that point Batsu serenely turned the game console off and sat down next to his close friend, taking a moment to speak before doing so, "Okay let me explain… so I come back to town after a month of kickass training in the wilderness with my dad, and he drops me off at my mom's house. I walk through the door, and she's giving me this worried look, and I'm about to freak out before she tells me that you're apparently about to die. I immediately stop caring from that point forward."

"I'm not-."

"I'm not done yet." Batsu cut Naruto's response off before continuing, "I didn't care because I'm thinking that this is bullshit, and I go to your house to call you on it since you wouldn't answer your phone. I knock on your door and I'm standing outside with my fist cocked because I'm expecting this to be some stupid prank of yours and I'm ready to retaliate. But lo and behold, pretty little Cammy opens the door and lets me in. I go to your room and I see Kasugano Sakura sitting by your bed with a worried look on her face. I turn back towards the living room and I see Kanzuki Karin with puffy eyes. That's a sign of crying. There's something wrong with _that chick_ crying. It's creepy."

That was really the first thing in Batsu's rant that Naruto paid attention to since he really didn't care about the rest of it, "Wait, Karin was crying?"

"Not in front of anyone, but you could tell she had been doing it." Ignoring that though, Batsu got back on track, "So I go back in and look at you, and I'll say this for you; you were the freshest mummy I've ever seen in my life. I mean you were fresh, ready for the sarcophagus." He reached out and grabbed one of Naruto's bandages, "King Tut would be proud."

He said that out loud in Naruto's room when he first saw him and got punched in the stomach. By whom he wasn't going to say.

And in this instance Naruto flipped him off so he kept going, "And then I find out that while I was gone, four days before I got back you went and got yourself mauled in a deathmatch with some scary guy."

Naruto rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his bare bandage-covered chest. It wasn't like he was going out looking for trouble… he was looking for Sasuke. There was a difference even though he couldn't come up with a decent distinction between them at the moment.

"So I have two questions for you, and answer them truthfully." Noticing that Naruto was listening closely he gave the boy a dullard look and drawled on, "You couldn't have waited four days to get yourself into the shitstorm sweepstakes? And who in the world, on God's beautiful green earth did you pick a fight with that was able to put you into a coma for over a month? For fuck's sake you didn't have skin on your body when I first saw you."

"A month!" Naruto shouted in pure shock, standing up from his seat too quickly and recoiling in mortal pain that racked his entire body in multiple ways, "What do you mean a month? You're here now four days after it happened!

Shaking his head, Batsu had a frown on his face, "No, I said I came to see you four days after it happened, not that today is four days after it happened. It's been over a month. It's the middle of June dude." He gave Naruto a once over and shivered in phantom pain, "You are severely underestimating just how badly you got your ass whipped. Like I said, you died… like three times. I don't even know how you're standing up right now."

And once Batsu mentioned it, Naruto didn't feel too hot at all standing up. He needed the tanner boy's help to sit back down safely before he fell out in the floor, "Oh man… w-what? But I've never been out for any longer than a day." He argued in an increasingly raspier voice.

Getting up from his place on the couch, Batsu went to the refrigerator to get a drink for himself and Naruto so that he could wet his throat, "Believe it bud." Batsu said as he threw a can across the room from the conjoining kitchen at Naruto only to flinch when Naruto instinctually caught it and cried out in pain, "Ooh, my bad." His newly healed skin must have been very tender, "But since you went under, things have gone insane around here."

Before Naruto could ask him what he was talking about, another door down the hall opened up and revealed Cammy in one of her leotards, a light-blue version this time with her hair down and a furball in her arms. She let out a yawn and looked around before seeing Naruto on the couch. That quickly woke her up, "Naruto you're awake?"

With a grin, Naruto waved over at her while holding his soda can, "Hey Cam. I'm not dead and I think my skin grew back. I heard it was gone for a while." He then frowned at the can in his hand, "Can you open this? I think I'll bust the fingernails I just grew back if I try."

Cheerfully bounding over to her newly awakened roommate, Cammy handed Naruto the furball in her arms in exchange for taking the can from him to open, "Hold this please."

Naruto curiously turned the little yellow ball of fuzz in his arms around to see a kitten with white circles around his eyes just staring back at him defiantly. Great. So it was one of those cats, "What the hell is this?"

"I adopted him while you were in the coma." Cammy explained as she traded back the soda for the cat, "I can't think of a good name for him yet, so how about you name him?" That would be a good way to try and cheer Naruto up after waking up, "Go ahead."

Reaching a hand out to pet the cat on the head, Naruto was rewarded with the little bastard nipping at his finger hatefully. With a deadpan look, Naruto stared the kitten down before looking up at Cammy's expectant face and then over at Batsu, "I don't want to name a kitten. I've got a reputation."

"Hey." Batsu interjected on the cat's behalf, "That's one tough cat. Last week I was over here and Cammy had to run out to get more fresh gauze to bandage you with. She left the window open and that little bastard fell out and walked right back up the stairs. I saw him sleeping in a rusty piece of scrap metal in a puddle of gasoline before."

"So? That means it's just a freaking junkyard cat."

"So?" Batsu repeated in disbelief, "That cat? Ha, it's indestructible."

Turning back to Cammy, Naruto saw her big blue eyes looking at him hopefully. She really wanted that cat to have a name apparently and she simply couldn't come up with one. Thus she was leaving it up to him. How sweet.

Either that or she was using him to think of something that she couldn't.

So sparing her a nameless cat, Naruto looked at the spiteful little beast and clicked his teeth before bestowing a name upon it, "Special Agent Jack Bauer." With that he stood up and walked back into his room leaving a stunned Cammy holding 'Special Agent Jack Bauer' in her arms as he licked his paw, "I'm taking a shower and then going out." He said as he shut the door to his bedroom.

Cammy blinked and looked at the little kitten in her arms as it mewled, "Special Agent Jack Bauer? Like from that American show?" She liked 24, but not really enough to name a cat after it, "Can I just call him Jack? Do I have to say the whole thing every time I call for him from now on?"

"I would." Batsu admitted freely.

"Hey, I just thought of something!" Naruto's voice echoed from behind his door, "I already know the answer to this, but Cammy changed my bandages while I was naked and asleep didn't she? What did she see?"

Cammy shrugged and saw nothing wrong with telling the truth, thus she did, "Everything of course. You were naked." She heard Naruto curse in his room and shook her head as she looked back towards a redfaced Batsu, "I don't see why he would be embarrassed. He was growing back his skin for most of the time for God's sake."

In the middle of tearing the bandages off of his body behind closed doors, Naruto took a moment to stop and poke his head out of the door while he was in the middle of freeing himself from looking like the blondest mummy ever, "Oh, and thank you for taking care of me while I was out Cam. I really appreciate it." Even if she saw him naked, which was still pretty cool once he had time to dwell on it.

A smile graced her face at Naruto's thanks before he closed the door back, "You're welcome." With that, Cammy bounced the little kitten in her arms and carried him back to her room, "Come on Agent Bauer, let's get you back to CTU." She cooed to the little creature, getting a soft mewl in response.

Batsu idly wondered from his place in the kitchen if he ever got gravely injured could he get a pretty girl that he knew to be his own nurse? No, not a chance, he'd have to graduate and then move out of his mom's house and get his own place before any of that could work, "Wait… he said he's going outside? He doesn't know yet does he?"

XxX

(Downtown Aohura City)

Shibazaki didn't know what he was more scared of. At the moment the limousine that had been containing his young charge Kanzuki Karin had been stopped in a busy intersection along with every other car as the hoodlums that had seemed to flood the town recently took it upon themselves to set up a roadblock for 'training' and to wait for any local fighters worth any reputation to either recruit or destroy.

But he wasn't scared because they had gotten to Karin and were currently in the process of recruiting or killing her.

No, he was scared because that was what they had tried to do, and they had failed miserably in the process.

Not only had she gotten out of the vehicle on her own without any prompting from the antagonists, she had proceeded to run through all seventy-plus of them in the span of two to three minutes in addition to destroying their makeshift blockade by hurling their bodies through the flimsy set up.

"You all take this paramilitary thing of yours too seriously." Karin said, walking up to one of the thugs that she had defeated. He was trying to crawl away from her, but even if he did, he'd then have had to deal with the people that he and his friends had just tried to bully, "Just what are you trying to prove? You either integrate or destroy all of this city's gangs. I used to think it was good at first, they were quite the nuisance, but now you lot have become a bigger headache than they were."

Despite the fear of the damnable she-devil that had just torn his entire group apart, the man mustered enough bravado for one last threat of numbers, "Ha, you can do whatever you want to me. Mad Gear is an army! We'll send a whole division to your home to make sure you never pull anything like this again." He flinched away fearfully when she bent over him giving him the dullest look that she could muster.

"Go ahead." Karin said plainly with her hands on her hips, "The mercenaries my father hired when he heard how dangerous this town was becoming… well they need the workout in my opinion, to do something to earn the money they're being paid. And I'll definitely do this again if you block off an entire main section of road for such an asinine reason!" She shouted at him before lifting up her boot and planting it against his face, "Sleep!"

Karin had a schedule to keep that day. She didn't have the time to be screwing around with a bunch of weekend warriors. She was a very busy young woman.

A sharp whistle sounded out and she turned around, prepared to deal with another loser Mad Gear member, only to see the man that she figured to be living on borrowed time only a matter of days ago, "Man… way to wreck shop Karin. Seriously, did you kill any of them?"

"Naruto-san?" How the hell was he standing? He looked as pale as a ghost, but that was to be expected due to his recovery of skin and how he hadn't been outdoors for a month, "You woke up?" She almost lost control of her inhibitions and hugged him when she saw that he was in his fighting gear as well and then saw Cammy and Batsu with him, "Did he just recover today? And you let him outside in his fighting equipment?" She stopped fretting when Naruto set a hand on her head.

"Oh chill out boss lady." Naruto said calmly, "I can walk just fine, see? I just came out here to get a new set of phones to replace the ones I lost. I'm fully healed." He then doubled over when Karin poked him in the stomach with her index finger, "Did you hit a pressure point or something?"

"No, I just poked you." She deadpanned in return, "You are still gravely injured. You should not have left your home until you were one-hundred percent. This isn't the same quiet city that you left behind when you took your summer vacation."

Summer vacation she called it. If she hadn't been crying because of him he would have… "Duh." Making his cross hand-seal, Naruto sent out clones to try and move the debris and useless Mad Gear bodies out of the street, "What is Mad Gear doing here?" Rolento ran like a girl in Tokyo from Akuma, not that he blamed him, but from that he figured that it was the last he would see of the man and his ambition.

"Forget that! There is something more important than them at this time." Karin all but yelled, having to refrain herself from slapping Naruto because if a poke hurt a slap from her might have put him back into another coma if she had hit him right then, "What. Is. Wrong with you? What did you and that Uchiha boy end up fighting to put you into a coma for a month?"

"I didn't pick that-." He tried to defend before a stern hand from Karin pointed at her limousine which had her timid steward Shibazaki peeking up behind the wheel to see if it was safe, "What, you didn't vent enough cracking all of these guys' skulls?" Karin opened her mouth again and Naruto threw his hands into the air as he walked to the limo, "I know, I know, I'm getting in!"

The heated brown eyes of the Kanzuki Dynasty heiress turned towards Batsu and Cammy, one of whom took an involuntary step back, "Err…" Batsu started to say as he found it hard to meet the scary girl's gaze, "So are we coming with? Or can we just go home… 'cause she's got a kitten." All Karin did was let her gaze linger and Batsu slowly walked towards the backseat of the limo to get in with Naruto, "Right. I'm in."

Cammy didn't seem to care how Karin was looking at her one way or the other, but the angel-faced former assassin got in as well because everybody else was doing it.

XxX

(Elsewhere in Aohura City)

This town was getting worse. Before when it had been filled with delinquent gangs at least back then it had just been a matter of an adolescent pissing contest. It was just a bunch of tough guys (and girls) trying to prove that they were the strongest. It was mostly harmless wannabes aside from the rare real-deal that was able to cause sparse property damage.

But coinciding with the time that Naruto had gone down at the hand of his powerful attacker Mad Gear had come in and decided to integrate the gangs that they wanted to use and destroy the ones that refused or that were useless. There were still a few that were marked by the city's most powerful fighters, but other than that there was nothing. After Naruto, herself, Karin, Batsu, and their friends, the quality of homegrown fighters dropped off severely.

Behind them it was Kazama Daigo and his gang based out of Gedo High School, which were the only real notable fighters around. She wasn't really sure how skilled Hibki Dan was because he had never fought anyone she thought he could beat in front of her, but Sakura was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he was between Daigo and his gang and her group.

"Hey that girl! That's Kasugano Sakura! She's on the list, put her down hard!"

With a sigh Sakura began going through the motions and bashing the brains out of the latest Mad Gear goon squad that was looking to take her down and get promoted after it had been determined that she would rather eat a bag of tacks than join them.

She wasn't even riled up or inspired to fight, really just going through the motions to overcome her foes. One step, two step, duck the first punch. Move past that guy and lunge towards the others that aren't ready. One Shunpukyaku tornado kick for all and those idiots are a non-factor. Turn back to the first one, oh look he pulled a tanto on her. Take it from him and stab him in the top of the foot, pinning him to the sidewalk.

Sakura wins. Yay. And thus she continued on her way, leaving several twitching beaten up bodies behind her.

Just going through the motions. Maybe Naruto going down to bitter injury was affecting her more than she thought.

When he lost in the past he still always made himself look invincible, somehow always just popping right back up. It was a lot of the reason she found him interesting enough to befriend back when they were twelve years old. He was strong and more skilled than anyone else in the entire town, but he was a kind guy and never flaunted it outside of a fight.

Even then he only did it with his 'best ninja in the world' moniker.

…Okay, so at times he could be overbearing… and from time to time he could be explosively antagonistic to people that were incredibly dangerous… and he could shove his foot into his own mouth like no one else…

But damn it she missed that dumbass loudmouth jerk.

"S'up Sakura-chan."

She could even hear his voice as clear as day, as if he was just five feet away from her. Why was her mind mocking her like that? She couldn't see him again, not today. It hurt when his eyes would never open no matter how long she stayed for.

"Earth to Sakura-chan. Wake up empty-head. We're holding up traffic driving in pace with you. Someone give me something to throw at her."

Just leave her alone already ghosts of Naruto's voice! It sounded just like him. She'd have to get some training in. Maybe some hard work would take her mind off of things.

"Ryu thinks girls are icky! Boobs frighten him, that's why he doesn't pay you any mind! Damn it, are you deaf or are you just ignoring all of this? Turn left bitch!"

Gloomily listening to the voices of the past in her head she turned to find Naruto hanging out of the moon roof of Karin's limo, staring at her with a perturbed look on his face a look that then turned to shocking pain as Sakura jumped him and gave him a monster hug, "You're awake! Wait, you're awake? What are you doing outside? You were almost dead the other day."

He was almost dead right then. Normally a hug from Sakura wouldn't hurt him because while she was strong, Naruto's body was durable enough for it to have never mattered, thus making it a normal tight hug when compared with normal people. Well right now he was all tender and squishy, so it hurt like hell.

Not answering at first, Naruto's voice came out squeakily when he did, "Get in the car… talk about it there. Please?" Sakura let go of Naruto and watched him stiffly slide down through the sunroof like a cardboard cutout in a crappy haunted house. The door then opened up and she got into the car with everyone else.

XxX

Outside of a building complex, Sasuke stood looking up at the sign that was being hung up out front, Genhanten. That was the name of the restaurant in Hong Kong that Gen owned. It was a front for his assassinations as well, and it would be something of his base of operations while he was in Japan.

That old bastard had better appreciate him expanding his enterprise while doing the mission that _he_ forced him to accept.

Sasuke had sent Yun and Yang home the moment he was able to turn his Sharingan on and plant the suggestion in their heads that they had their own business to attend to back in China. It was better that way. From that point onward his mission to crush Mad Gear's leadership chain was going to get way harder. Rolento had gotten away and he was building up his weaponry and training his raw recruits in urban combat on the streets of Aohura City.

Other than him, Sasuke had to find the other leader and kill him as well, and if it didn't happen soon Aohura City was going to get torn apart. They were already freely disrupting whatever they wished, the police couldn't really stop them directly.

Once again he suddenly felt someone's gaze on him and turned to find Naruto in his fighting gear staring at him, seemingly backed up by multiple people including that roommate of his that he had met over a month ago.

"We need to talk." Naruto said, his voice expressing that he wasn't going to take no for an answer in this case.

Sasuke knew that Naruto healed faster than him, so Naruto would probably be in way better shape than him at the moment, thus he nodded and led the way inside of the still being furbished restaurant. He tried his best to hide his limp and keep the bandages underneath his sleeves hidden, but he knew that someone had been attentive enough to figure that he was hurt.

He sat down in a chair that was pulled out from a table in the middle of the restaurant and he motioned for everyone else to do the same. Naruto brazenly took a seat and pulled it out directly in front of Sasuke, not choosing to sit at a table the way everyone else did out of instinct.

The tension was clearly palpable as the two stared at each other without blinking as if it were a challenge. A direct test from one to the other. If there had been any doubt before, it was definite that this Sasuke person was from Naruto's past.

Naruto still stared at Sasuke even as he opened his mouth to talk, "Thanks for back at the arena in Tokyo."

With a scoff, Sasuke looked away from Naruto and crossed his arms over his chest as the workers that were putting his store together were hard at work, "Don't thank me. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. That guy would have slaughtered either of us one-on-one." He still did it two-on-one as a matter of fact, "I didn't do that to help you."

"Well either way I still appreciate it." Naruto said, "And I want to bury the hatchet. I forgive you for shoving your damn Chidori lightning hand through my chest four years ago. We're cool."

"WHAT?"

Cringing at the loud shouts of disbelief from his friends, Naruto turned towards them and directed them to chill out, "Yeah, but like I said, it's cool. It's not like he's trying to stark-raving murder me now, so it's all good." He then turned back to Sasuke, "But you came to Aohura City looking for me?"

A stiff nod came from Sasuke as his onyx eyes studied Naruto, "How do we go home?" He asked with little tact or caring of the fact that their origin story was not one Naruto particularly cared for others to hear, "I've been here for long enough."

Looking around suspiciously and seeing his confused friends, Naruto turned his attention back to Sasuke, "What makes you think I know how we got here to begin with? I can't remember anything from the end of the fight. Why would you want to go back anyway? All you're gonna get is a jail cell for running away and joining Oto."

Screw Otogakure. That ship had sailed, landed on the opposite shore and had been dismantled for lumber that was now being used to build some crusty old seaman's shoreside shack. He just wanted to go back to achieve his ambition.

"I need to get back so I can avenge my clan and kill-." With a sigh, Sasuke let it go. He'd been hoping that Naruto had an idea of what had gone down, but he never held much faith in that. Searching for Naruto was more for the fact that he wanted to confirm that this was all real. That everything he had done for the last four years hadn't been some crazy dream, "Ugh… nevermind."

Naruto rolled his eyes and slumped back in his chair, "Really? You're still on that? Sasuke, we're stuck here. I haven't caught a single hint of anything that could get me back anywhere. No spooky ancient legends, no scientific space-time machines, nothing. And if you haven't found anything either then I don't know what to tell you."

Hearing Naruto resign himself to their fate caught Sasuke off guard. This was the same guy that tried to fight him every week in the Academy even though he barely improved week after week and never studied. The same guy that fell off of a tree on his head for the better part of a week learning how to run up it. This was someone that didn't quit.

And then it hit him when he looked at the people there with Naruto.

"You don't want to go home do you?" Sasuke's sharp eyes caught the subtle nuances of someone caught in an uncomfortable position, "…This is why I didn't try to form anymore bonds Naruto. Because I'd have to break them once I went back."

"Oh, so you care now? You were all about breaking bonds when we fought." Naruto replied brazenly, "That was the whole reason you fought to kill, remember? You said I was your best friend, and then you tried to drown me downstream from that waterfall."

Sakura, Karin, and Batsu looked at each other strangely and then at Naruto and Sasuke as if they were crazy. Why was Naruto not beating his brains in after the things that this guy apparently tried to do to him? Cammy was just wondering to herself what it took to make Naruto mad enough to seek vengeance by way of taking one's life because apparently trying to kill him in the past wasn't enough.

That was different. A different time. Sasuke was driven by a different kind of advice. Advice that in the end he chose to disregard, "My brother told me that if I wanted his eyes, his power, I had to break my closest bond and kill my best friend to get them. That I'd never reach his level to kill him without it. I didn't want to be anything like that bastard after I thought about it when I wound up here. So I don't want to kill you anymore."

Aww… well that just made Naruto feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Or was that the nagging injuries? Why wasn't the Kyuubi finished handling that after a full month yet?

Still though…

"…You know first thing's first when all of this is over and we're both healed; we're settling up with each other once and for all, right?"

"Tch, obviously. We don't even know who won the last time since we got dumped away from each other when we got dropped here. This isn't over yet."

"Good."

"Fine."

Sakura's nosy meter was punching through the red at this point and by now she had gotten fed up with the inside conversation that she and the others were playing studio audience to, "Alright that's it! Naruto, what are you two talking about? Dumped and dropped where? Where's your home? And who is this person?"

He'd been keeping one big ass secret right in front of her for the last four years and she was sick of dancing around it like the elephant in the room. While Karin's curiosity might have been piqued months ago, she'd been waiting for infinitely longer.

Realizing that Naruto had never told them _anything_ that didn't apply to them, Sasuke almost felt the need to mentally pat Naruto on the back. So the loudmouth could indeed keep a secret when he needed to. And he was about to reward Naruto with a genjutsu to suggest to Sakura and the rest of the group that what he and Naruto were talking about was none of their business, never would be any of their business, and that they should never bring it up again.

At least until Naruto covered his field of vision towards Sakura with one of his hands before his eyes could change. Spoilsport.

"No Sharingan suggestions." Naruto ordered flatly, "These are my friends. Don't fuck their minds please." Clearly none of them knew how close they were to getting stuck with some underlying suggestion that would have sounded like the best idea they had ever heard, "You need to wear sunglasses out in public to keep you from using that."

"Seriously, who is this guy?" Batsu asked, his head down lazily on the table he was sitting at, "You two are chatting like two old soldiers that were on opposite sides." It was weird, especially since he himself was the student in the room.

The two former Konoha genin looked at each other before Naruto gave Sasuke a look that told him to introduce himself. Well Sasuke might have been rude and for all intents and purposes anti-social, but if he was going to be in Aohura City for the duration of his mission it would be best to make sure that these people didn't at least get in his way, "Uchiha Sasuke. I used to be Naruto's ninja teammate. It's complicated."

"Then uncomplicate it." Karin asserted from her own seat.

Sasuke then looked between the girl that seemed to be of some sort of nobility and then to the regular-looking schoolgirl that had taken the conversation in this direction. Neither of them thought that he was ultra-handsome, either that or they didn't care. And his attitude seemed to annoy them more than make them think he was cool, unlike pretty much every other girl he had ever met that swooned over him, not just in Konoha but in Hong Kong as well.

…And he didn't like that. Who knew? He was yearning for the days of fan-girls and these girls were making him even more irritable than normal.

"Fine. You want it uncomplicated?" Sasuke growled out, ignoring the fearful waves of Naruto trying to get him to shut up, "Me and this guy are not from here. I don't just mean Japan, I don't just mean Asia, I mean from this entire dimension. We got dropped here somehow in the middle of a fight and got separated, now we're not." He finished gruffly, leveling a glare on Karin, "There. Is that uncomplicated enough for you, you little-?"

"I would punch you if I thought I could even bust a grape with one right now." Naruto said, holding his hand over his face, mortified. Four years of trying to think of a smart way to explain his situation and Sasuke just blurted it out in aggravation in only ten minutes of meeting his friends.

It was silent other than the sound of the workers fixing the restaurant up until Sakura slammed her hands down on the table and retook her seat, "Why not? It makes just as much sense as anything else we've heard from them. Now we've got this guy backing up Naruto's crazy. I believe it. Welcome to Earth."

"I'm not crazy Sakura-chan." Naruto whined pitifully, getting a raised eyebrow out of Sasuke. He called that one Sakura-_chan_ too? But then again that name was pretty common in Japan apparently, "Our land is a place called the Elemental Nations. Pretty much every country has a ninja village and there are five big ones; we're from the biggest one. Then one day he turned all crazy and ran away and I went after him with some friends. We got into this big battle."

All eyes shifted to Sasuke who looked back at them defiantly. But then Batsu looked away from him and back at Naruto to continue paying attention. He really didn't have room to talk. He and Naruto shared a really nasty fight against each other before they became friends too.

But Naruto carried on with his recanting of the Sasuke Retreival incident, "I talked, he didn't listen and then we fought. He started fighting harder and he shoved his hand through my right shoulder." He pointed to the exact point juncture at his chest and right shoulder that Sasuke had done it. At this point the murderous intent from every other listener other than Batsu had the man himself scooting away from the girls before he found himself caught in the crossfire, "I got back up, we kept fighting, he set me on fire, I got back up, we kept fighting, and I don't remember the rest."

"He shoved his hand through your chest?"

"He set you on fire?"

"Can I kill him please?"

Sasuke stood up from his seat and began walking around the restaurant that he was to manage for the duration of his stay in Japan, "That was four years ago, and I was following some questionable advice back then. Now things are completely different… especially since I don't know how to get home so this whole thing is moot." He then looked at Cammy, the girl that asked to kill him and smirked, "You can try if you want to."

He was really hoping that she wouldn't though. As Sasuke was he would probably have lost an arm wrestling contest to a twelve year old. He didn't want to mess up his new restaurant getting his ass kicked all over it by a girl.

Quickly setting herself into her instinctual fighting stance, Cammy jumped at Sasuke only for Naruto to grab her arm and throw her over her shoulder to walk away with her before she could get to him, "Naruto! Put me down!" She complained, wiggling her arms and legs while he had her off of the ground.

Her fellow blonde fighter, blue-eyed fighter did no such thing. While Cammy wasn't dumb enough to break obvious laws, nor was she a bad girl that felt the need to do whatever she wanted, she was pretty impulsive, "No. You aren't just going to attack Sasuke even if he is an asshole."

"Hey."

Naruto ignored his former friend taking offense to another insult from him and set Cammy down by the rest of his friends before his eyes started to flutter dangerously, "…Oh and that was a really bad idea. Someone help." Before anyone could ask why or even get up to help him, Naruto crashed face-first through the table and fell unconscious.

A scowl formed on Sasuke's face. He thought that they would have at least gotten around to talking about something important like maybe chatting about Akuma; the man that had torn them limb from limb in Tokyo. But then Naruto had to go and haplessly destroy his restaurant's property right as he had gotten through paying for the furniture.

Grr… maybe he could talk to Gen. That old man had to have some advice on who tried to murder them in the Nippon Budokan. Maybe it was a rival assassin like himself?

Either way he still had work to do for the time being, and he could have that conversation _after_ he ran damage control in his new place.

XxX

(Aohura City Old Industrial District – Hidden Warehouse)

The dingy little storage facility, while not particularly glamorous, served its purpose. There were crates piled on crates with all sorts of hardware cases of varying sizes inside

"This is coming together." Rolento said in a satisfied manner from his place standing on a large chain tied to the ceiling. From his place he could see everything going on. So much new weaponry smuggled through the Kiril Islands, and it needed a home. Thank goodness he had recruits that had such wonderful hiding places tied to their names, "This is coming together very well."

Standing below him on the ground was a towering and hulking man wearing tabi socks and geta, blue jeans, traditional wrappings around his torso, blue samurai gauntlets on the backs of his hands and wrists, a blue kabuto helmet with a crescent moon blade on the front of it complete with an entire facemask that concealed his physical features, and red body armor that covered his upper torso and shoulders with a failed kanji for 'death' on the front of it. At his waist he had a katana and a jutte for both hands each, to dual wield with either.

"I will admit one thing to you." Despite his appearance, the man beneath the armor and mask spoke English with a completely unrelated western accent, "You definitely know how to persuade people. But what did I tell you? If you wanted a good country to find strong recruits for Mad Gear, Japan is the place."

Rolento felt the need to start cutting into his comrade's obsession with all things Japanese, but chose not to. Infighting over something so idiotic wouldn't help at this stage of the game, "Perhaps too good of a place. The people that refuse our invitation are notoriously strong around these parts. Not just regionally but nationally. Some beyond that."

"We're international too." The American samurai said with a chuckle, "Who do you want me to get? Come on, you know you want a heavy-hitter around to show these guys how it's supposed to be done." And to show just how strong Mad Gear really was for those that still wrote them off as some common rising gang.

A heavy-hitter… well there was an idea.

"Sodom." Rolento said to his samurai companion as he slid down the chain and stood on the same level as the man that towered over him, "I think we should call Poison. We're going to need her to make sure Hugo has some direction… we both know he's not the brightest."

"Oh… you're calling him off of street-cleaning?" Sodom said, laughing behind his mask, "We've got everyone on the list accounted for. At this point the only thing left is to recruit them or to finish them off. The last thing's what Hugo's for."

The two men began walking around the warehouse, taking note of not only the weapons being unloaded, but of the assault vehicles being uncrated and inventoried, "We have all of them accounted for except one." Rolento revealed hatefully, "He's been hiding for the past month."

"What? Who, the assassin that came after you or the Uzumaki kid?" Sodom asked, "I thought you said they got crushed under Budokan Hall."

"An assassin wouldn't have been identified even if he died there and they never released Uzumaki's name amongst those that died that night." Rolento said, remembering the two boys that wound up taking the wrath of that monster of a man that spared him. While it was emasculating it was better than the alternative; a fight he knew he had no hopes of winning, "No, the latter is alive, and this is his hometown. We've been here a month and haven't confronted him yet."

Though his facemask didn't allow him to show a single facial expression, even with his eyes, Sodom's voice was blazing with skepticism, "And you think Hugo can find him? He's not really the brightest… that's why he's with Poison."

"I'm aware of that." Rolento said wryly, banging on a tank that they were walking past with his staff. God he loved the sound of a tank's hull. It sounded like invincibility, "But this isn't going to be a search. Hugo's not exactly subtle and if he hasn't shown himself yet he'll just run, so we're going the other way with it. We're going to call him out, and if he doesn't show it'll be a reputation-killer."

Apparently according to local lore Naruto had a temper the size of the Pacific Rim and an ego that implausibly surpassed it. While some could say it was rightfully so, the fact of the matter was that too many people were able to confirm such a thing to merely dismiss it. Therefore if he was legitimately taunted and called out he'd do something about it. He'd love to see Naruto do something about it against Hugo, which was where Poison came in.

Poison would definitely be able to piss Naruto off and goad the brat into a fight that he simply couldn't win.

And if he still didn't show up it would only establish Mad Gear as something to be further reckoned with since the guy that had fought and survived against the best in the world backed down from a fight with them. Either way the recruits would then be coming by the droves, street punks especially, to be a part of an organization that could scare off Uzumaki Naruto.

XxX

(Naruto's Mindscape)

"Blah!" Naruto pulled his head out of the murky water that comprised the floor of his sewer-like mind. But there was something different about it this time. Did he taste blood? Was his mind bleeding? Was that even possible? Did that mean he had brain damage?

Slapping himself before he asked too many questions, Naruto got up out of the reddening water and followed the flow back to its source; the boiler room that housed his titanic tenant. While he didn't plan on showing up he decided that he needed to bitch at the bastard that had taken over his body in the middle of a battle that he didn't even take part in the end of.

His body had been taken over and he found himself as a spectator in his own defeat, feeling blinding pain from the chakra and only getting bits and pieces of Kyuubi's attempt to use his body to tear Akuma asunder before everything went black. And then he wakes up a month later in the worst ongoing condition of his entire life. He never stayed that hurt for that long. Not even close. Something was going on and the Kyuubi was the cause.

As he got closer and closer to the hall that would contain the most powerful chakra construct in the lands, Naruto heard a strong outpouring of wind that would start and stop every three seconds. When he reached the hall of his intent he felt the wind that would come out in bursts and stop.

It was strong enough that he actually had to struggle to walk down the hall without being blown away by it. Needless to say it was quite annoying and Naruto had a bone to pick with the jerk at the end of it, so by the time he reached it he was already riled up, "Alright you orange, furry pain in my ballsack! What the fuck was-?" He stopped yelled when he didn't see the usual orange figure laying lazily behind the great bars of his seal.

Instead the Kyuubi was down on its side, breathing in a labored fashion, hence the strong wind. That was the creature trying to breathe.

Looking down into the water at his feet, Naruto saw that the blood was emanating from the inside of the cage, from the Kyuubi itself. That wasn't right. A biju didn't bleed… did it? Shukaku didn't at least… unless its blood was sand, but he doubted it.

"Kyuubi." Naruto said as he walked closer to the cage. He wasn't going past the bars though. He did that during the fight with Akuma and then he didn't remember a damn thing after that until he woke up, "Kyuubi." He repeated slightly louder only to still get no response.

There was no overbearing, smothering presence that came with standing before it the way he usually got. He didn't even think that Kyuubi knew he was there. This was not good. That fox was hurt. Whatever Akuma did weakened the Kyuubi badly.

"What the hell happened to us?" Naruto asked under his breath before planning to forego his trepidation and go right through the bars of the cage once more.

"…**Your enemy was formidable…"** Naruto jumped as far away from the cage as he could when he heard the low rumbling voice of the wounded biju,** "…His last move would have destroyed your soul, and mine as well because I was projecting more than a fair bit of myself through you. So I countered as best I could. I ended the connection the moment I understood what was happening, splitting the injuries between us. I still took far more than your share."**

"You took the hit for me?" And here Naruto was gearing up to curse the beast out for taking him over when he was in dire straits. He could still do that, because the principle of the thing still stood and the Kyuubi kind of got what it deserved for snatching control of his body, "Does that mean you're going to die?" Would he die too? It worked the other way around so why not?

"**No."** Even weakened, the Kyuubi flared up enough chakra to drive Naruto back a step, **"I did not take the hit for you. I was too late to empty myself from you to distribute the damage evenly to save us both from the fate that wound up befalling us. Had I been free it wouldn't have harmed me so severely, but since I was trapped and projecting myself through your body with only four tails…"** Kyuubi trailed off and let loose a snort that almost knocked Naruto down the hall.

The Kyuubi wasn't using enough power to keep Akuma's attack from devastating him through Naruto, and since he was pushing his will through Naruto's body he got the backlash as well. Akuma figured that his enemies were dead after he hit Naruto with the Shun Goku Satsu, and with the building coming down around them he took it as a fitting burial.

Naruto stood his ground, and after covering himself up from the hot breath that Kyuubi expelled, Naruto walked closer again, "…It wasn't like you could protect yourself from in here." He finished in the Kyuubi's place.

The sentimental mush in Naruto's tone was evident and it had no place there with a creature of its stature as far as the Kyuubi was concerned, **"It doesn't matter now. I will not die. But I can assure you that my wounds are far more severe than yours. That attack was made as if it were meant to destroy my kind. I am in essence chakra with a soul that developed an entire physical structure."**

"When will you get better?"

"**No one has ever damaged me from within my jinchuuriki to this extent before so I don't know. I can either focus my chakra to you to heal you or myself. I chose you because if you died while I was healing myself I still would have died regardless. You are still in terrible shape if you haven't noticed."** Naruto actually did come close to dying repeatedly after he fell into his coma. Without the Kyuubi he wouldn't have survived Akuma at all, **"Your soul has been damaged as well just like my own, making it harder for your body to sustain its desire to heal."**

How do you learn how to attack someone's soul… without a seal? That was ridiculous. And it left Naruto to try and break down exactly what the Kyuubi was saying to him. Why couldn't an all-powerful being learn to dumb things down for his benefit?

"So you can't heal my body like normal because my soul has a boo-boo and you're healing _it_ too…" Naruto tried to deduce, "And it's not your full healing ability because you're healing your body and your soul too." What the fuck did that guy do to them? Was that even possible? "I didn't know people could do that."

"**I wouldn't call it a 'boo-boo' exactly, but yes you imbecile, that's basically the gist of the situation. Until your soul is fully repaired I can't heal you as swiftly as normal, and until you're fully healed I can't focus on myself."** Naruto's soul was almost complete though. It was why he had woken up from his coma to begin with, **"Without me your soul wouldn't have restored at all. Be grateful."** If the incredible regeneration ability of the Kyuubi hadn't been able to extend to more than a physical sense then none of it would have mattered because Naruto would have remained comatose.

"Thank you." Naruto expressed, putting his hands on the bars to look inward.

"**I don't want your thanks. I want silence so that I can sleep and focus on the repairing of the rest of your body, my body, and my soul. Now leave. And remember, you won't recover from injuries as quickly until I'm healed."**

Frowning deeply into the dark as he looked at his downed reluctant partner, Naruto banged his head weakly against the bars once with a clang, "Don't worry about healing my body. I'm awake now so I'll just do it like everyone else does. Focus on yourself buddy. That's more important. Later." And with that, Naruto vanished from his mindscape leaving the Kyuubi alone.

Did that child already forget that his body had been taken over and used as a puppet by the very being that he had just referred to so familiarly. And not a hint of negative emotions happened to be sensed from him when he said it. If he was indeed earnest in what his feelings conveyed, he didn't care about that once he realized that the Kyuubi was critically injured.

"**Idiot."** Kyuubi weakly swished its tails around once before shutting its eyes and continuing its diligent work to restore itself and keep Naruto in one piece, **"I'm not your buddy."** The brat would be on his own until this was complete. Hopefully he would begin to perceive discretion as the better part of valor for a while.

Not likely.

XxX

(That Evening – Real World – Naruto's Apartment)

"If you're out of it for longer than a day again I might have to beat you up. The first coma you were in was extremely annoying."

Naruto opened his eyes to find himself set down on the big couch in his living room with Cammy leaning over the back of it observing him and the yellow kitten walking around on his chest like he was an inanimate object, "Where'd everybody go?" He asked blearily.

"Sasuke kicked us out of his restaurant after you broke his table with your body. Everyone got dropped off at their homes by limousine." Cammy explained as she picked Special Agent Jack Bauer up off of Naruto's chest so that he could sit up against the arm of the chair, "Everyone had afternoon things to do, so it's just me here."

"That's not really a bad thing Cam." Naruto said as he rubbed his eyes, "Talk to me here. What happened since I went down?" Little Miss Shadaloo Assassin would probably have retained the ability to observe a situation tactically. She'd retained all of the other stuff regarding combat, so why not? She'd have a better take on the situation than his other friends, "What happened today… that usually doesn't happen around here."

The street fighting was usually way more straightforward. It had a simplistically barbaric charm to it. I don't like you, I'm going to kick your ass, and that was usually that.

But blockades, huge groups of organized thugs? Not normal. Usually the numbers never went past fifteen attacking at once. Karin beat up five times that many today.

"It does now." Cammy said, playing with the kitten as she sat down next to Naruto on the couch, "Mad Gear are quite aggressive. They've somehow neutralized police intervention on the streets and are targeting notable fighters in town." She hadn't been around long enough to be famous for her own skills, but she knew of others that were and had been defeated already, "But why here?"

Because there were an abnormal number of skilled fighters in Aohura City compared to any other city in Japan and it was far away enough from Tokyo so that politicians wouldn't pay it any mind, thinking it was just more mindless street violence. The city was kind of famous for being incorrigible on that front.

Rolento and his partner weren't dummies. They could have tried a city further to the north to set up their little army, but they wanted to be close enough to Tokyo that they could make their move when they wanted to while staying away from the bigger cities.

Well this was Naruto's town. Not really, but if that was the way things were it was up to him to protect this place. It might not have been a hidden village that he had pledged his allegiance to, but it was his home now, and there were some good people there.

Aside from that he remembered Rolento's speech in Budokan Hall on wanting to take over the country, and that just wasn't going to fly at all. Utopia his ass.

With a sigh, Naruto got up and looked around for his shoes and equipment pouches, "I guess it's up to us if anything's going to get done about this then."

"You're not going to fight anyone." Cammy asserted with a sharp glance in Naruto's direction, "Just how well do you think you would do the way you are now? Carrying me fifteen feet put enough stress on you to make you black out."

"You were struggling." Naruto defended weakly in return, "It's not that bad. I just won't try to move anything heavy. Problem solved."

"Are you calling me heavy?"

"I don't know. How much do you weigh?"

Instead of Cammy hitting him for such a callous comment since he was still injured, Special Agent Jack Bauer jumped out of her arms and onto Naruto's face where the kitten clawed his face up until Naruto grabbed for him and held him at arm's distance, "Thank you Agent Jack." Cammy said with a smile, holding out her hands for Naruto to return the cat to her, "Don't ask a girl about her weight."

"Oh yeah, that's the thing that you're a normal girl about." Naruto said, thinking about how he was going to declaw that damn cat without Cammy knowing, "Look you can't make me stay. This is my house. I come and go when I please. If I want to go street-sweeping that's what I'm gonna do."

"Really?" Cammy lifted her bare foot and poked Naruto in the stomach with her toes and watched his knees quiver, "You're going to do this in one night? Good luck fighting anyone of any substance as the walking wounded. You're just one big bruise right now."

Holding his stomach as he backed away from Cammy's foot that she then lowered now that her point had been proven, Naruto decided to pick her brain for some information, "How long does it take normal people to heal from what I got up from?"

Raising an eyebrow, Cammy gave Naruto a strange look. He really didn't understand just what had happened to him, "Never. They never heal. Normal people don't. You were supposed to be dead. You _were_ dead. Everyone thought you were going to die. Somehow you stabilized over time, but you stayed in the coma. And then you just woke up today and you want to go, go, go. Take a rest Naruto." She insisted.

Screw that. He apparently had just gotten through sleeping for a month. That was enough rest. He never understood why people that had just awoken from things that kept them under for a long time were always directed to rest. Wasn't that what they had just gotten through doing?

"If I just sit around and don't find a way to work through this injury then what good am I?" Naruto asked, heading to the kitchen area table to grab his supply pouch belt that he then wrapped around his waist, "Cammy, Mad Gear isn't some normal gang. They want something big, and their leaders are willing to try and overthrown Japan's leaders."

Japan's armed forces didn't have them on their radar and wouldn't until it was too late, and the police weren't big enough to deal with them.

"I still can't let you go out and just get yourself even more hurt than you already are Naruto." Cammy argued in return. If she was that negligent then Sakura would kill her. Maybe she could tie him up. How hard could he possibly fight her back anyway?

Naruto waved his arms indignantly, "What are you my nurse/probation officer? I'm just going to train, I promise! I'm not going out there tonight to fight these guys, that's stupid. I don't know anything about them." First he had to go and pick the brain of someone that knew who the people in Mad Gear were… maybe Sasuke since he was supposed to kill the ringleaders so he had to know something.

First thing was first. He had to get himself whipped back into shape. Before he could leave though, Cammy's voice stopped him just as he put his sandals on and opened the door, "Just so I know…" She started to say before trailing off in a suspicious manner since she didn't trust that he wasn't going to do something stupid, "Where exactly are you going to go to train?"

"Outside of town." Naruto said plainly, "The mountains. It's a good quiet place. Nobody goes up there. It'll be a good place to see what I've got in the tank right now."

"The mountains…" Cammy said, giving him an emotionless look that told him that he'd better stop holding out or she'd stop him right there, "Uh huh."

"Yeah, just the mountains." Naruto replied defensively as he pulled the hood of his costume over his head to refrain from meet her eyes. A big grin slipped across his face as he eyed the open night sky, "The mountains… because that's where Ibuki's village is. Later!"

Before Cammy could reach the door and stop him, her roommate had already vacated the doorway and had jumped over the banister at the end of his apartment complex floor and had made it to an adjacent rooftop.

Cammy ran to the railing at the end and yelled out after him as she saw him jumping roofs into the distance, "Naruto, I thought that you didn't know where Ibuki lived!" No one did. That was the whole point of her ninja village.

The entire time Naruto was running away from Cammy on the rooftops he had a grin on his face, "Yeah, she had my clone blindfolded when she took it to her village that one time." He couldn't help but laugh to himself as he made it to the location that he was at when Ibuki blindfolded his clone and veered off in a seemingly random direction, "It's a good thing my clone counted their steps and the turns they took all the way!"

And when that clone had dispelled he had been right outside of his apartment and the clone had done absolutely nothing else until then. That night he immediately ran inside after Ibuki left, wrote down the number of steps and directions, and memorized them before getting rid of the paper.

The raucous laughter of the orange-clad shinobi echoed out in the night air as he was planning on paying his kunoichi friend a visit on her homestead. He needed some advice from a fellow person that had been trained since childhood as a shinobi on Akuma, and what he could do about it.

Come to think of it from what he could remember Akuma fought a lot like Ken and Ryu, with differing nuances in his style the way those two differed from each other. Every strike from Akuma was meant to maim and kill unlike the two of them. And what kind of guy like that just showed up to take them on and disappeared just as quickly as he came? Was a fight to the death really all he wanted out of them? What kind of person lived like that?

Just another thing he'd have to chat about once he got to the hidden locale of the ninjas he supposed.

"I'll be there by tomorrow afternoon." Naruto said to himself as he formed the cross seal with his index and middle fingers on both hands, "Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" He was joined by fifty whooping blonde copies leaping from building to building along with him. Together they were going to help him triangulate the position of the ninja village.

XxX

(Later That Night – Streets of Aohura City)

"Ugh…" The normally slicked back spiked hair of one Kazama Daigo was a complete frizzed mess at this point. His normally neat blue school uniform was torn, frayed, and smattered with drops of his own blood. His face was covered in the markings of the brutal beatdown that he and his gang were sustaining as he tried his best to pull himself up once more. He wasn't going to stay down.

The alley that the Gedo High School Gang used as a nighttime hangout was officially a warzone, and the battle was all but over. Daigo's dozens of friends and underlings were all strewn about, broken and beaten to varying degrees of severity. Not a single one of them were willing to leave though out of the sixty-seven of his crew. None of them left him for Mad Gear. And they fought the bastards to show them where they could put their ultimatum to join or get wiped out.

But it wasn't enough.

It was only two. Two members of Mad Gear. And only one had done the lion's share of the fighting. But he was a monster.

His friend Edge and his knife-based dirty fighting did nothing but piss their enemy off, and the eraser-haired blonde was smashed into the ground like an insect. The biggest and strongest member of the gang Isurugi Gan, the aspiring sumo, he was outright dwarfed, overpowered, had the body armor on his torso smashed, and was then thrown through a wall.

Daigo himself fought as hard as he could. He lasted longer than any of them, but it wasn't enough. He just couldn't hurt that monster. And his arms gave out as he tried to push himself back up, his face smacking onto the pavement, "You bastards…"

A sigh came from a woman that walked in front of the downed Daigo and stooped in front of his head. She had long pink hair, pink lipstick, and a blue police hat on her head. A very attractive looking girl wearing a half-cut white tanktop that was very high on her body, almost revealing the undersides of her breasts. In addition to that she had on very short cut-off jean shorts with a chain wrapped around her waist and a pair of handcuffs on her hip to go with a pair of red pumps on her feet.

"You know, you kids think you're immortal or something." The woman said, tapping Daigo on the head with a riding crop, "It would have been so much easier if you would have just joined. You're strong, and your gang is useful and loyal. This didn't have to happen."

Daigo continued to struggle, but upon planting his hands upon the ground he couldn't muster the strength to push himself up. His body was giving up on him, "Heh, this was the only way it was ever going to happen." He said, body racked with pain, "And you called your monster off… that's disappointing. I wasn't done with him yet."

A dry look was etched on the woman's face as she put her cheeks in her hands with her elbows on her knees, "Kid give up the ghost already. This is your last chance." She then backed away as this time it seemed as if the young gangster would actually reach his feet on that try to stand up, "Are you serious?"

He was dead serious even though he was staggering in place. He had his hands up and was ready to continue fighting, "If I laid down now… to you… I could never look that stupid kid Uzumaki in the eye again and take myself seriously as a fighter." His entire gang had put themselves on the line fighting that monster to the finish. He would be damned if he would let himself let them down by quitting.

His funeral then. She gave him the chance. She wasn't the one that was going to be finishing the battle though. There wasn't any need for her to fight.

The woman motioned behind her and from the dark of the alley came a towering figure that was twice her height and width, "If you really want to keep fighting Hugo that badly I'm sure he's fine with it." She said before walking around the mammoth man that dwarfed both her and Daigo, "Don't take too long with him Hugo, the point's been made already. Just kick his ass and be done with it."

"Got it Poison." Hugo was a mammoth of a man with a pink leopard-skin tanktop and pink jeans, brown boots, spiked bracelets on his wrists, and a thick chain on his hip around the back of his waist to his other hip. He had messy, curly black hair on top of a huge head and his eyes were obscured by shadow, "You know you can't beat me." He said to Daigo in a thick, deep voice, "You're not strong enough."

"Heh." Daigo said as he held his hands out to his sides and built up yellow ki in his hands, "Well let's see how you like this big man." Suddenly the ki expanded and grew in intensity before Daigo shoved both of his hands out at Hugo and fired a beam directly at him, "Kou Kikou Kai (Hard Spirit Cultivation Cluster)!"

The attack hit Hugo full-on and the resulting blast shook the buildings that comprised the alley, chipping off pieces of brick and even cracking a few windows out in the actual fronts of the structures.

A still standing Daigo breathed heavily and let his hands fall to his sides in exhaustion. That stupid, dopey giant actually let him fire his best ki attack. Well now the big bastard had a brand new hole right through his belly. Good riddance. It was time to get his people to the hospital and go home to his sister Akira.

"RAAAGHH! Monster Lariat!" From the smoke that had been created because of Daigo's attack, Hugo suddenly charged out and surprised Daigo who was too weak to retaliate in any way to a horrible dashing clothesline that hit him right in the neck and sent him flying like a boneless ragdoll to the far wall of the alley that he hit with a smack, cracking the surface. He felt to the ground and didn't move again.

While Hugo was overlooking his work, Poison had ventured outside of the alley and had taken out a cell phone to report on their progress, "Yeah, the Gedo High School Gang, their leader was an idiot. Message sent Sodom. I'm sure a few of those kids will walk again one day though."

"_It can't be helped that some of these kids have too much spirit for their own damn good. It's why I like this country though, heh. Anyway, we've got a new job for you and Hugo. Flush Uzumaki Naruto out and break him by any means necessary. Break his spirit, break his body, break his reputation… we don't care, just make sure you break something."_

Hugo? For just one kid? It didn't matter how good of a fighter some sixteen year old brat was. Sending in Hugo was overkill, "Really?" Asked Poison, "You do know that Hugo warms up with throwing around gangs like the one we just got through with, right?"

Why not send him somewhere he'd be more useful, like breaking up more of these punk kid groups that thought they could stand. Oh or maybe that Saikyo-ryuu dojo. They could wreck that joint to the ground.

"_That's why we're telling him to do this. He isn't going to have any trouble with this one once we get the fight to actually happen, and just looking at Hugo would be enough to convince people that they want to side with us instead of stand against us."_

Eh, it made enough sense to her she guessed. It was a show of force to take down a prominent figure in the public eye, "Well where do we find him?"

"_We don't know. That's why we said to smoke him out. Be creative. The flashier the better. Let's try to make a spectacle out of this thing. The more eyes the better."_

"Flashy is what I specialize in." Poison assured her boss over the phone with a grin, "Don't you worry about a thing. We'll get him running towards us. And we'll be waiting." She said as Hugo's shadow appeared over her shoulder walking out of the alley, "Or Hugo will be anyway."

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Sodom  
><span>Nationality:<span> USA  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 30 (April 25)  
><span>HeightWeight: 6'9/335 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> A  
><span>Likes:<span> Collecting various Japanese items, geishas, sushi, eating pizza.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Losing a fight.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Water performances, driving big trucks.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Guy, Cody, E. Honda (friendly).  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Self-taught martial arts  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Jigoku Scrape, Butsu-Metsu Buster, Daikyo Burning, Shiraha Catch, Yagura Reverse.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Meido no Miyage, Tenchusatsu.  
><span>Background:<span> Sodom is a high-ranking member of the original Mad Gear gang that took control of it along with Rolento after its previous fall from grace in the United States. Formerly undefeated in underground fights until the first fall of Mad Gear, Sodom is quite powerful due to his use of multiple objects such as his swords and his use of the jutte as his weapons of choice in combat. His speed with his swords is quite impressive for not being a formally trained samurai. Sodom has a lot of respect for the Japanese culture and obsesses over most of it despite the fact that his grasp of the Japanese language leaves much to be desired. He has actually killed many Japanese enemies after they find humor in his lack of ability to speak the language or write correctly with kanji.

Name: Poison  
><span>Nationality:<span> USA  
><span>Gender:<span> Female  
><span>Age:<span> 21 (December 17)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'8/114 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> N/A  
><span>Likes:<span> Her pet cat, French fries, Cody.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Jail time, cops, being ignored.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Acrobatics  
><span>Rivals:<span> None  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Acrobatic fighting  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Cat Claw, Thunder Whip, Poison Kiss, Aeolus Edge.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Love Storm.  
><span>Background:<span> A notable member of Mad Gear even back during its original heyday, Poison took to overseeing the affairs of the giant Hugo as both his handler in the gang and his manager in his career as a professional wrestler. She is very vain and is quite flamboyant as evident by her choice of dress, showing little shame or modesty for her actions or appearance. She takes great offense to being upstaged or shown up and can be quite cruel in case of such an incident. Despite these personality flaws she does see Hugo as a friend and does care for his well-being despite Hugo being perhaps the most dangerous professional athlete in the entire world.

Name: Hugo Andore  
><span>Nationality:<span> Germany  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 25 (May 19)  
><span>HeightWeight: 8'0/506 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> N/A  
><span>Likes:<span> Poison, tag team wrestling.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> N/A  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Weightlifting  
><span>Rivals:<span> None.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Professional wrestling.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Giant Palm Bomber, Monster Lariat, Shootdown Backbreaker, Ultra Throw, Moonsault Press, Meat Squasher.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Gigas Breaker, Megaton Press, Hammer Frenzy.  
><span>Background:<span> Raised on a farm as a part of a family of circus strongmen, Hugo dreamt of being a famous wrestler and came to North America at the age of twenty to do so. Going undefeated due to his inhuman size and strength that he only cultivated further and seemed to increase, Hugo was notorious for dealing career-ending injuries to his opponents, causing promoters to see him as too much of a liability to sign to any contract. Hugo joined the original Mad Gear with promises of financial backing in regards to his wrestling career, and to this day continues to balance working for them and furthering his career, crushing any who stand in his way on either front. While not the brightest, when given ample direction Hugo's sheer power is enough to overcome any obstacle, thus establishing Poison's role as his manager. Can be somewhat brutal and sadistic in combat due to him not quite knowing his own strength.

* * *

><p><strong>Gah, my eyes are bleeding! All I see are random letters falling in front of my face like the kanji code of the Matrix. It makes it <strong>_**really**_** hard to drive. I think I ran like three red lights on the way home last night.**

**So anyway, nothing to say, you already know what's up, and if you don't you'd better ask somebody! Hope you enjoyed.**

**Kenchi out.**


	22. Raging of the Region

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. Damn you summer classes! You're stanching my attempts to wrest control of these two things from their owners! Don't stifle my creative scheming! I thought college was meant to help me spread my wings and fly, not hold me back!

**Chapter 22: Raging of the Region**

* * *

><p>There wasn't really any time to get into the heavy questioning on what Naruto and Sasuke had been talking about the day before at the dark-haired boy's restaurant that he was managing. Naruto's outright fainting face-first through a table kind of put an end to that when a thoroughly annoyed Sasuke had kicked them all out.<p>

Well if there was one thing that could be said about Kasugano Sakura it was that she was nothing if not incredibly persistent. And no, that wasn't a trait that she picked up from hanging out with Naruto, it was all her.

Since by now she knew full well that she was never going to get a straight answer from Naruto himself unless she drugged his ramen with some kind of truth serum she had to do the next best thing and find another avenue to find out what she was curious about. Puppy dog eyes were effective on Naruto when it came to getting him to do things, they never worked when she wanted him to talk about something.

But Sasuke apparently had no qualms with putting his and Naruto's past business out on full blast and it was because of him that some very sensitive information was coaxed out, so in that instance why would one keep trying to get water from a dry well when there was one that at least produced a trickle from its pump?

With that reasoning in mind, the next afternoon after finishing her chores at home and getting in a little bit of training she endeavored to return to the restaurant Genhanten. Wearing a white and red windbreaker top and a pair of short red summer shorts for her leisure time, Sakura tightened her white headband on her head to brace herself for an unkind encounter and entered the building.

Upon going inside she noted that the table had already been replaced. Hopefully Sasuke wouldn't make her pay for it a day after it had happened, especially when it wasn't her fault to begin with.

She managed to get some directions from the workers that were still setting up the Chinese eating establishment and she was sent towards an upstairs office with a shut door at the top of the steps. Knocking on the door, she got no answer at first, just hearing some thudding noises from within.

Hanging out with a ninja and a kunoichi as much as she did had her pick up the rather dubious skill of basic lockpicking. The most basic form of it as a matter of fact, because all she knew how to do was force a lock open on a basic doorknob with brute force. With a sudden movement, Sakura popped the door open and walked inside of the office, 'I hope I didn't screw up how that door closes from now on.'

Two visits to the restaurant and two things had probably wound up broken. That wasn't going to endear anyone to the manager.

But then Sakura had to dodge a barrage of shuriken thrown at her from within.

Rolling out of the way, she had her eyes affixed on the location where the attack had originated from all the way across the office. The entire floor was a wooden floor studio setup that was mostly empty except for some target posts that had been placed inside and a few tatami mats at the far end of the room. It seemed more like some kind of dojo than a place of business.

"Why are you here?" Sasuke asked impatiently from his place sitting on the floor on the mats, "We're not open yet in case you haven't noticed."

Throwing ninja stars at a visitor that he had already met coupled with that kind of attitude upon first speaking to them? Yeah, Sakura didn't like his attitude. He might have been from the same place her best friend was from, but they didn't have the same manners drilled into them as youths at all. Naruto's manners might have sucked from time to time, but at least he tried. This guy obviously just didn't care.

"I came to talk." Sakura said moving slowly enough that she couldn't have possibly been perceived as a threat even by the most paranoid basket-case, "That's all. There wasn't really a chance to do that yesterday with everything that happened."

"Naruto owes me 6000 yen."

"Right…" Sakura managed to grit out. Goodness, did this boy have a sociable bone in his body? This was ridiculous, "Well I was wondering if you could tell me anything about where you two come from. That Elemental Nations place or whatever you called it."

"There's not much to say." Sasuke got up from his place on the floor and walked across the room past Sakura to retrieve the weaponry he'd initially tried to pelt her with, "Other than what he already said anything else would go over your head. It's not really important now. At this point you're just trying to snoop."

"His parents? Family? Anything?"

"He never had any. I'm sure you know that much, I don't see why he'd have lied about that or tried to hide it."

Obviously Sasuke wasn't a fan of conversation from the way he was talking. He just wanted her to leave. How did Naruto consider him a friend not worth getting back for setting him on fire and allegedly shoving a hand through his shoulder?

"Okay, well then tell me about what happened to you two in Tokyo." She asked. Even though Ibuki was able to give a description of the person that was the only one to walk away from the scene, she still had no idea exactly what had transpired.

While it wasn't something that Sasuke was a fan of remembering, he was well aware of the fact that ignoring it didn't make it so that his crushing defeat didn't happen. And it _had_ been a fate that had befallen Naruto as well, a fate that had put him completely out of commission for a month.

So it might have been the business of the people that had watched him nearly die two times… or was it three? He wasn't there, he didn't know.

After digging the last of his shuriken out of his wall, Sasuke turned towards Sakura with a frosty glance before sighing in exasperation and walking over to a desk situated in a corner of the room. He cleared the surface of it off as it seemed that he wouldn't be getting any work done today anyway and started thinking up a way to explain what had happened to them, "…You know how to fight, I can see it. And if you've dealt with Naruto for a decent amount of time then you aren't a bad fighter so let's put it this way. What's the worst beating that you've ever taken?"

Immediately Sakura's encounter with a brainwashed Ryu came to mind. Nothing she did worked and he seemed to be handling her with the greatest of ease. Even with Ken's help she couldn't do anything. All she was at most was a distraction to give Ken an opening to actually contribute to the battle. Thus this was the example that she gave to Sasuke.

"And he almost killed you." Sasuke said after hearing what she had to tell him about the fight in Thailand, "Well did you hit him?"

Sakura frowned and shook her head, "No, he avoided my attacks. I didn't land a single blow the entire time."

Sasuke held up a hand and stopped her right there from continuing. He had heard all that he needed to hear to begin making his point, "Well against Akuma our attacks did land." Naruto rag-dolled him and Sasuke set him on fire, but when it came to their heavier stuff it was like he was sick of just seeing what we had to offer and started fighting to finish them.

"He survived whatever you two did to destroy the arena?" Sakura couldn't believe that one. She'd seen Naruto's heavier artillery when using the Kyuubi's chakra and one attack from him was enough to turn the upper floors of a fortified Shadaloo military base into a fine gravelly rubble ready to be sprinkled on a dirt road.

"Naruto and I tore it to shreds, but I'm pretty sure Akuma was the one that destroyed the arena." Revealed Sasuke, "He beat me first with the biggest chak- err… ki attack I've ever seen. I didn't see what he did to beat Naruto… that damn Gouhadoken move…"

He was never going to forget that move. It was the last thing he heard the demonic man shout before his body was drilled with a burning, driving force that put him out mere moments later.

Now that sounded familiar, "Gou-what? Hadoken?" Sakura alertly noted before surprising Sasuke with how fast she was once she closed the distance between where she had been standing and where his desk was, "Did you say Hadoken?" Sasuke was confused but nodded nonetheless, "Did he fire it like this?" She then proceeded go through the motions to create and utilize her own Hadoken that flared out not too long after leaving her hands.

"It wasn't blue and it wasn't that pathetic, but yeah that was how he used it." Offensive comparison of Sakura's Hadoken technique to Akuma's aside, he was curious, "Where did you learn that from?"

Still quite mad at Sasuke for cutting down her Hadoken, Sakura turned away from him with her arms crossed over her chest as she walked towards the exit of the office, "Oh, well I guess I'll take my pathetic attack and go home." She taunted freely, making a show of strutting to the door, "Yep, since you ninja types are all with the keeping secrets and whatnot I guess I've got my own to keep from one of you now."

She turned around back towards the desk to keep going but found that Sasuke was no longer there. By the time she turned back to the door he was already standing in front of her path with his Sharingan on. All she could do was freeze in place as her eyes took on the three-tomoed pattern that also lay in Sasuke's eyes.

And all of a sudden the images of the futile battle that had been waged against Akuma flew through her mind. She could feel herself expend chakra in place of herself and what Sasuke felt Naruto had tried to use to combat their enemy. She felt the heat of the fire that Sasuke used to burn Akuma alive. She could breathe the debris and the smoke in the air that flew all about as they tore Budokan Hall asunder with every move. She felt the pain of every blow that Sasuke sustained and what Sasuke thought that Naruto had sustained.

All in a second, and then the genjutsu was over. The pain was gone, the exhaustion was gone. All of it.

"Calm down." Sasuke said as the brown-haired girl started hyperventilating. She had obviously never been in a genjutsu before. He probably should have taken it a bit slower, but screw that. If she wanted to see why he wanted to know what he wanted she could find out firsthand, "You're fine. It's a trick of the mind. But do you see now? A guy like that just showing up to kick us around and then leave?"

Getting her composure back bit by bit, Sakura nodded in understanding. That just didn't seem right. Too many questions behind it. And Sakura did indeed want to find the man was all about as well because whatever he had done to finish Naruto off should have by all rights killed the sunny blonde. What if he found out that Naruto was still alive? Would he come back for more?

"That was from your memories right?" She asked Sasuke as she moved past him and leaned against the doorframe, "That felt so real." Sasuke silently nodded, and that put gave Sakura another thought, "I'll tell you what you want so you can start finding what you need… but you've got to show me that fight with Naruto that you had. And you've got to show me a bit of Naruto's old home too."

Why the hell not? If they were both from the same place it seemed like a logical enough request.

With a shrug, Sasuke's Sharingan did a quick spin as he looked into Sakura's eyes and gave her another quick blast from the past that she physically recoiled from. It took significantly longer than the first time before she shook off her genjutsu haze after a few seconds and fixed him with a glare that he didn't like very much, "What's your problem?" Sasuke asked in a prickly manner, though he already knew what it was.

He had accidentally thought not only of the fight with Naruto, but in order to dredge up that point accurately he had to first think of pretty much everything that had preceded it including defecting to Otogakure to begin with and what his mindset had been at the time. So she pretty much had the whole backstory and the visual of the violent fight at the massive waterfall between the two huge statues to go with it as a garnish.

"I don't like you very much." Sakura said, shoving herself off of the doorframe now that her little mindtrip was over, "You have got some serious insecurity issues if you thought any of that was a good idea to do. What's wrong with you?"

"Whatever." Sasuke dismissed her scolding indifferently. There was actually a lot wrong with him and it wasn't her business. He didn't care what she thought as long as she wasn't going to try and fight him for it, "Are you going to help me or did I just waste all of that chakra for nothing?"

XxX

(Mid-Afternoon – With Naruto – Mountains of the Chugoku Region)

The directions of Naruto's previously dispelled clone from months ago directed him south from Aohura City. Deeply forested foothills where there happened to be no trail for dozens of miles awaited him and he was starting to get pissed off. Jumping branches in trees was way more of a workout going uphill than on flat ground and it was writing checks that his body currently didn't feel like cashing for him.

He wasn't getting tired, but his body was getting sore and he had listened to most of the songs on his MP3 player despite it being on shuffle. He'd heard 'Paul Revere' by the Beastie Boys so much that he could have probably recanted the entire fictionalized tale of Mike D, MCA, and King Ad-Rock by heart at that point.

But the power in his device had died by then, and it was probably a good thing that it had too because his clones were beginning to locate traps that had been set to stop and deter possible intruders. They hadn't tripped very many because they had seen them for the most part, but some of them were double-layered thus some of his clones were defeated. The trap with the poison darts was a vicious one.

Good. That meant he was on the right track and he adjusted his position according to the clones that had fallen into traps and those that hadn't.

Wait… if there were traps in the near vicinity and he was positioning himself towards the center of them then that meant that it was only a matter of time until he came across one of them himself.

"Crap…" Naruto muttered to himself right before a wire in the air was tripped by his presence and a thick series of sharp metal wire tightened and retracted inward from a hidden web that he had put himself into. He created a clone that gave him a boost and threw him high into the air just as the web of metal wires sliced and diced several trees and felled them all.

Landing on the trunk of a tree as it fell, Naruto rode it like a surfboard until it hit the ground where he then jumped off of it. That trap was way too nasty in comparison to the other ones that his clones had come across. He also needed to learn how to make that for himself because it was impressive.

It was a good thing his body had shaken off the stiffness that it had possessed the day before and even the night before when he had initially set out on his little excursion. If he had been caught in that they'd be picking up separate pieces of him that would have been diced and slingshot all over the woods. Even if his healing ability was available to him at the moment he wouldn't be able to heal getting cut up into several segments.

'Okay, from the way I've been moving with my clones I'm going smack through the middle of the bulk of the traps right now.' And since he was going straight up the gut when it came to the field of traps that explained why the one he had just tripped had been especially nasty. His clones had seen giveaways to the traps that they had run across, well the one Naruto had just seen didn't have any gives. Tripwires in the air? Seriously? He barely felt the thing break, as if it had been a gentle breeze or something.

So he had just messed with a trap that was pretty much the village telling outsiders that if you came that far you were pretty much taking your life into your own hands. As he kneeled down and checked out the now useless wire he touched it to find that rust had come off onto his fingers. It was a very old trap if the wire was that weathered. Either way he was moving in the right direction, all he had to do was keep an eye out for anymore traps.

XxX

(A Short Time Later - Glade of Ninjas)

It had been the most boring summer ever.

Two weeks after the ill-fated pursuit of Sasuke in Tokyo, high school let out for the summer break. And the following two or so weeks had been maddening for Ibuki because she still had three weeks left, and instead of making and keeping her own plans for the break, Ibuki already had her plans made for her.

She would be taking part in something of a boot camp of sorts to train the younger ninja in her village. There was no skipping this for her because she already got to go outside of the village for school anyway.

Every young ninja currently undergoing the training at the time were situated in a veritable field of tall even-heighted bamboo poles just outside of the village itself, each of them balancing on them with one point of contact without moving a muscle. At the moment they were all standing on their right legs and holding the exact same statuesque positions.

"Switch!"

Upon the barking of that order from the ninja in charge of overseeing the training, all of them switched to balancing upside-down with their left arms extending themselves upwards.

It was so boring! Ibuki needed something to break the monotony. She wasn't even getting anything out of this training. It might as well have been the equivalent of remedial classes to her. She trained harder when she did it by herself, and she trained _way_ harder when she trained with her friends in Aohura City. She had shown Sanjou-sensei the results of her improvement and even he agreed to as much. Working with so many others did her good in the development of her skills.

But she was supposed to get the choice to do what she wished with herself completely after graduating high school. Until then she had to do what she was told and that was that.

Minutes dragged on and on toward the end of the hour, and eventually the sensei in charge called the exercise off and informed the youngsters that they could do what they pleased for the next two hours before evening training was in effect.

Everyone else was stunned by how quickly Ibuki vacated her spot atop her bamboo pole and returned to her quarters.

"Oh, I can't take this anymore." Ibuki exclaimed as she shut the door to her room with a sigh and pulled her facemask down, "I can't take three more weeks of this. I just can't. I want school to start up again so badly…" She then noticed her pet tanuki standing on her bed on his hind legs and she froze in place. Was this some stupid test?

If she was being tested she wasn't about to fail, and Ibuki prepared a fistful of kunai for throwing purposes as she looked up into the divots of her ceiling only to stop at who she saw sticking to the ceiling.

Now that he was discovered by who he came to see, Naruto fell from the ceiling to the floor with a quiet creak of the floor… and his knees.

"Naruto?" Ibuki looked at him owlishly, shakily raising a finger to point at him, "Y-You're supposed to be dead." A frown found its way to Naruto's face as he'd been hearing that a lot lately, but he just shook his head, bringing something else to mind that she narrowed her eyes at, "How did you even know how to get here?" She asked accusingly.

He wasn't about to tell Ibuki that her plan to blindfold his clone didn't work, so he was going to use the next best thing he had as an excuse, "Um… Karin tracked your cell phone's signal?" Pass the buck of blame. There was nothing wrong with that. Karin could probably do that anyway even if none of them ever thought to try it on Ibuki, so it wasn't exactly outlandish.

Without warning Ibuki began clawing her way through her special hiding place for the mobile device and pulled it out before holding it up in Naruto's face, "Damn it people can do that? Why didn't anyone tell me that? That's dangerous!"

Naruto set his hands on the girl's shoulders to get her to calm down. Now he felt bad for coming up with that crappy excuse, "Relax. You need a satellite to do it, and I think Karin's family has like seven of them." He was sure he was exaggerating that number, but he just wasn't sure, "And I'll be fine. It's not like I'm here for anything except to hang out with you for a bit. You weren't in town."

"I'm stuck in summer training camp." Ibuki said distastefully at her current circumstances, "Yuk. But aside from that-." She then slammed herself into Naruto full-speed, hard enough to knock him onto the modest-sized bed where she hugged him furiously, "-I'm so glad you're alright! Your heart stopped three times and started again somehow… I almost got you killed." Luckily her tanuki Don was fleet-footed enough to dodge before impact.

The mindset of the blonde was not what one would have expected it to be as the kunoichi held herself tightly against him. She almost got him killed? No she didn't. She wasn't even there.

"You didn't do anything." Naruto said, carefully trying to push her off of him. His body was as sore as all get out, and the display of affection while it was much appreciated came about from some semblance of guilt. Unnecessary guilt, "It was all that Akuma guy. If you'd have been there with me you would have wound up just like me and Sasuke. Numbers wouldn't have mattered against that guy."

"I know, but-." Ibuki stopped hugging Naruto when she was able to feel just how thick the medical wrappings he had on underneath his one-piece fighting suit were. She brazenly sat up from her position and quickly yanked the front zipper of the suit down to his supply belt where she could see all visible signs of Naruto's body heavily taped up, "Oh for fuck's sake. Naruto, why?" She lightly tapped on the tape and it felt like a protective shell, "If you've got to put three pounds of tape around your body just to protect yourself then you shouldn't go anywhere."

Naruto scowled up at his friend once she pointed out his attempt to patch himself up in order to get himself to the next stop so to speak. He didn't have three pounds of tape on either. It was more like one and a half pounds, "What's with all of you guys? Every single one of you have been saying that to me since I woke up yesterday."

"You only woke up yesterday?"

"Yeah, so? Remember the Geki ninja thing? I get up from injuries all the time in a day. What's the big deal?"

But this time he didn't get up in a day, it took a month. Was he unaware of just how twisted up he had everyone in regards to his health? So she did the only thing that made sense to get her point across at the moment. She headbutted him. Both of them cried out with a simultaneous 'ow' as she had forgotten about the metal plate on his headband which made it harder on her than it would have been otherwise.

As she mentally admitted to herself that such a thing wasn't the smartest move she could make, Ibuki rubbed her forehead and winced at what she was sure would develop into a red mark on her face later, "Ouch. I hate that stupid thing."

"Ibuki, could you get off of me now?" Naruto said as he squirmed uncomfortably beneath her. Now that the hug had ended he was well aware of the position that the two of them were in with the shapely brunette girl straddling his waist. He wished to avoid a very embarrassing situation that would be caused by a part of him involuntarily growing due to the circumstances that he found himself in.

Oops, too late. In his defense she was _extremely_ attractive.

On the flipside, Ibuki's face turned rather red as well as she seemed to teleport across the room off of Naruto. Turning her back to him she tried to smooth out her clothes and hide her face from him, "I'm not that kind of girl just so you know. I was just happy to see you, that's all." Apparently he was happy to see her too, but she was going to keep that jab to herself.

It was awkward to say the very least, but it was still sort of flattering once she thought further past the physical reaction itself.

"Right." Naruto said, sitting ramrod straight in her bed with his legs crossed to cover any possible views of his business, "Ahem… well I wanted to say hi, tell you I was alright, all of that stuff."

Ibuki gave him a dry look and placed a hand on her hip as her tanuki ran up her leg to her shoulder, "Really? That's the only reason you came out here? You didn't run all the way cross-country up the mountains and through the woods and sneak into my village and room for some kind of spontaneous, romantic action?"

"…That's why I don't watch TV. Because that sounded really dumb. Why the fuck would I do that when I'll see you in school soon enough."

That dumbass was never going to get an actual girlfriend. He was so cute, but there was just a lot of concrete inside of his head surrounding his brain. There had to be an explanation for why he was the way he was. Who said something like that?

No wonder Sakura hadn't picked him up yet after four years of being close friends. It never made sense so there was probably a major backstory there on how either of them proverbially screwed the pooch in the past that she wasn't privy to.

And then there was Karin, who was trying to convince herself that Naruto was a commodity at worst and a friend at best when it came to how it worked with them. But when he was down and out over the previous month it was kind of obvious that she was clearly leaning to the right end of that spectrum from what she had seen throughout the rest of the school term.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't all his fault. But still.

"…Maybe you should start watching a bit more TV."

Just a suggestion. Maybe then he'd see some of this stuff coming?

Naruto rolled his eyes and planted his palms down on his knees before cringing slightly. He felt better than he did yesterday, the trip up to the Glade of Ninjas must have done his body some good with the exercise, but he was still sore, "Right. So I'll just hang out here until it gets late enough for me to sneak out and then I'll leave." He deduced as he zipped the front of his fighting outfit back up to its original position of just under his collarbone.

"You don't have to hide in my room Naruto." Ibuki told him with a rather pleased look on her face, "I've been telling Enjo about you ever since we met; about how you're a ninja, how you helped me against the Geki Clan that attacked us at your house, how you and our other friends help me train, how you got me to a hospital when I needed your help. Long story short, you're trusted enough to be here as long as I'm with you at all times."

Wow. That was cool. And unexpected. It was previously assumed that the other members of the ninja community didn't like the orange-clad blonde bomber at all. His past interactions with Guy would have professed as much since that man seemed to abhor him, "Really? Sweet. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have some fun with that when I'm not so busted up."

Ibuki liked the way that worked out as well since she was the one that pitched it to her village leader Enjo to begin with, "I was going to ask you if you wanted to come up here during summer break so that boot camp maybe wouldn't suck so much, but then you went and got annihilated by the guy in the black gi. So that plan got scratched. Just as well. The training sucks and you would have gotten bored and gotten me in trouble."

Naruto opened his mouth to dispute her point but in the end found it useless. If the training that he would have wound up wasting his five week summer break to do did indeed suck then he would have gotten testy and he probably would have gotten her in trouble. Was he really that predictable? He thought he was supposed to be _un_predictable.

"So… what are you doing for the rest of the day?" Naruto thought as Ibuki's tanuki Don ran over to him and lay down on top of his head. He then had to put a hand on his head to make sure the little raccoon-dog didn't fall off of his dome when Ibuki snatched him by his wrist and dragged him out of her room, "What the hell?"

She didn't know why she hadn't thought of it the moment that he had shown up. Naruto showing up… all she had to do was introduce him to Enjo. Ibuki could then use that to get out of the useless training at least for that evening to 'keep an eye on him' to assuage the paranoia of her superiors. And it was rightful paranoia because he had apparently infiltrated the village without anyone realizing that he did it.

Best to keep that to herself, or Naruto might have gotten his visitation rights revoked before he even got the chance to flex them out.

XxX

(Aohura City – Karin's Personal Manor)

Just when one assumed that they had seen the full scope of just what made Karin different from everyone else something else would happen that would show that they were always just scratching the surface.

Sakura, Cammy, and Batsu had their presences requested at her 'humble' abode that afternoon. Why? To bear witness to her digging up information on the transport of Mad Gear's growing armament.

The ways that they were beginning to enforce their will over Aohura City was getting more and more militaristic, not just in tactics, but in the equipment they used. Gone were lead pipes, wrenches, small switchblades, normal street gangster weapons. Now they were starting to use riot batons, army knives, and the day before in the street she had actually been forced to defeat more than her fair share that were wielding small firearms.

Needless to say she was quite disturbed by this trend as it also coincided with the group becoming bolder with how they approached their attempted domination of the city, so she put her vast resources into action to break down what the situation was.

"I don't see why you even care about this." Batsu said as he looked at all of the screens and wondered what he was watching. They were all situated in what seemed to be a control room with interactive projections of multiple large monitor displays and a touch function that he seemed to be clueless on how to work, "You're all nestled up in the 'burbs with a damn army outside watching this place."

Deciding to answer a question with a question, Karin never took her eyes off of the screens that she happened to be working on, masterfully weaving her hands to manipulate this and that, "Would you be deterred by the mercenaries my father hired for my protection?"

"No. I'd kick their asses. I doubt they can even shoot those guns of theirs half-straight."

"Exactly." Karin said, finally turning toward Batsu with a condescending smile that elicited a scowl out of him, "So what makes you think a pack of jackals like Mad Gear would not attack my home once they were properly armed? I only have one hundred men watching this property. You lot could defeat my guardians all right now if you fell out of favor with me and were forced to escape."

So sad, but so very true. Karin's father just didn't recognize that hiring mercenaries for her only made things in her everyday life more cumbersome. She was fine on her own handling her own problems.

Carefully observing her on-again off-again rival's work, Sakura noted that it was mostly her digging into her family's business holdings, most notably the shipping aspect of it, "Why are you checking over your family's shipping affiliates?"

"Several are Yakuza affiliated." Karin admitted, but none too proudly. Apparently it had been a connection that had lasted generations as her family was old money. Nothing she could do about it until she was in control of things and rest assured she would most definitely be doing something about it when it was her time, "That means smuggling is a pretty big deal. This is how Mad Gear managed to get their weapons, vehicles, and equipment into the country."

As the heiress brought up several private shipping manifests that had cargo that was sloppily unaccounted for or that had goods that made no sense, Cammy pointed at what she was able to see for everyone else to locate as well, "Every strange shipping detail is from Russia. I understand customs and whatnot being iffy up around the Kiril Islands, but to this extent?"

"Are you sure you have amnesia?" Sakura asked, poking Cammy in the side of the head as the petite assassin ignored her in order to keep observing what Karin was bringing up on the monitors, "You've got all of your world knowledge but you don't know anything about yourself. That's weird."

"As sure as I was a few months ago." Cammy replied, grabbing Sakura's hand to keep her from poking her anymore, "Please stop."

From Karin's perspective though, if one was aware of the political climate between Russia and Japan over the Kiril Islands it wasn't that hard to figure how it could wind up being a massive blind spot in national security.

A big enough bribe on both sides makes the right person responsible for preventing such a thing getting through blind in both eyes. If anyone knew what sway and influence was held by money it was definitely the Kanzuki Dynasty heiress. She personally took advantage of such a thing on a regular basis.

Well there was nothing they could do about such a thing now. The weapons were there. All they could do at this point was find where the tools of destruction were stored. Maybe once they did that they could get rid of them, because until then there were very few people that could do anything.

And the people that they previously figured could do something, the stronger fighters in Aohura City, well they were dropping like flies, "I can't believe that the Gedo High School Gang went down like that… in just one night?" Sakura recanted in disbelief. It was all over the place. Everyone that could throw a half-decent punch in town knew, "Daigo, Edge, and Gan weren't that weak."

For all of the big-talking tough guys in town they were the some of the ones that were actually able to back it up. And with an entire gang with them it was hard to believe that anything less than a whole strike force of goons would be enough to even have a chance at taking them down. Sakura had seen enough fights to know skill, and she had seen them fight (and had fought them) enough to know that they had it.

"Yeah it's a big tragedy, yadda-yadda, blah-blah-blah. Since when are we the unofficial protectors of this place?" Batsu callously chimed in getting glares from all three girls as he tried and failed to operate the interactive projections, his hands and arms just going straight through them, "Can we watch TV? I'm bored to tears here. And where's Naruto?" Why wasn't that bastard suffering through this like he was?

Cammy opened her mouth to answer truthfully before Sakura spoke first, "Naruto's apparently smart enough to know when we've got something handled and he's at home getting some rest. There's no need for him to get himself killed trying to fight when he can't even lift Cammy without passing out."

That wasn't where Naruto was at all, but right then Cammy was being given the benefit of the doubt so she didn't feel the need to contradict that at the moment. Things were fine as they were.

"Well that was yesterday… and what if Cammy's heavy or something?"

Unlike with a notably injured Naruto the night before, Cammy had no qualms with socking Batsu in the stomach and felt some semblance of satisfaction when her fist sunk into his belly and he exhaled suddenly. These boys needed to know when to watch their mouths. Saying such things about regular girls would have been dangerous enough… well there was nothing about any of these girls that happened to be normal.

"I don't have any problemshitting a girl that can kick my ass." With a breathless cough, Batsu took a swing at Cammy who dodged right before Sakura got a palm in both of their faces and shoved them apart to keep them from getting into a fight around so much high-end equipment, "She started it." Cammy just shrugged and the two stopped as quickly as they seemed to be prepared to start, like siblings that had been separated from scuffling in the backseat of a car.

Rolling her sharp eyes at the assumed idiocy of her acquaintances, with a wave of her hands Karin brought up a new screen projection and attuned it to show normal television for the benefit of those that didn't like to do the thinking portion of being prepared.

Well she could serve to educate the fool a bit, thus she changed the channel to the evening news and smirked when Batsu let out a pathetic whine, "Just watch it. Perhaps you will see something useful, or at the very least you will be up to date on current events in the region." Was it mean to make him watch something that he didn't like? Probably, but she never claimed to be nice… and aside from that she could have been meaner and put the station on the TV Guide channel just to taunt him.

All was well and good, and things seemed to be productive with Batsu lulled into silent lucidity with the nightly newscast. Now maybe some work could get done.

"Uh-oh." Well that peace of mind didn't last very long, "Is anyone else watching this?"

"No Ichimonji-san." Karin replied as if she were a kindergarten teacher, "We are all trying to find out where Mad Gear are stockpiling their arms so that maybe something can be done about it before Aohura City really does get taken over by a militaristic group of-."

"Maybe you should be watching it then, because if the news was really supposed to be like this I swear I'd watch it every single night." Batsu pointed blankly at the screen of choice and directed the attention of the other females in the room.

On the screen there was a pink haired, scantily clad woman sitting on the desk of the news anchors waving a riding whip around in a bored manner, _"Yes, it's still me; your replacement host for this evening's news, Miss Poison. Tonight's broadcast is brought to you by your local neighborhood social group Mad Gear with the one message that we've been repeating for the last half-hour. Yes, once again we're calling out that salacious hoodlum for hire Uzumaki Naruto. But he must be scared… sigh."_

Oh man that wasn't good.

Calling out Naruto in such an open manner where everyone could see it simply was not going to end well. Makoto chasing him all over town was not the same thing. An aggressive move to try and force Naruto to fight was not the key. No, in order to goad Naruto into a fight you had to be passive about it. Give him a clear and open choice to either accept or decline, but ensure that he would lose face if he were to fail to meet the challenge.

Karin sort of made it work when she fought Naruto for a boatload of money. Dan made it work when he called Naruto out in the middle of the city park. This was on an exceedingly larger scale than that. Why the hell did Naruto have to be semi-famous?

Right… because Karin wanted him to be. Were they still on with that arrangement?

"_I thought he was supposed to be some big tough guy."_ Poison continued idly before looking back at the male anchor who looked rather nervous, _"I mean, you know who he is don't you?"_ The anchorman nodded swiftly and froze in place when Poison crawled on her hands and knees on the desk towards him, _"You see? But I guess getting his head kicked in by Ken Masters and Ryu made him realize that he just didn't measure up. It's just as well. You can't send a little boy to do a man's job, now can you?"_ She finished in seductively close proximity to the anchor, almost touching noses.

Until the man swayed in place, bled from the nose, and fell back out of his chair, getting a smirk and a wink out of Poison when she saw the female member of the news team glare at her. And immediately Sakura and Karin didn't like her at all. Where was the modesty? The hussy.

And of course Batsu was stuck staring like an idiot. Why wasn't someone recording this for posterity? The news had never been so good before and it never would be again in his opinion..

"_Well I guess I'll give our little friend one more chance to stop being a coward and come out to fight."_ Standing up on the desk, Poison gestured grandly for a wide shot to the ruined set with tons of broken up security guards and even a few police strewn about, _"We're out of time tonight, so we'll leave a message. Tomorrow night Mad Gear is benevolently sponsoring an event at the Aohura Super Arena at 7:00 pm. Come one, come all for the last chance to see Naruto either accept the challenge of a lifetime or chicken out for good."_

"_One match against my main man right here. Hugo."_

The camera panned around and up to get an upward shot of a titanic figure standing right behind the cameraman. The shot couldn't even get up over his head as his dark eyes stared down into the lens.

"_The rules are simple."_ Poison grabbed the lens and tilted it back down as she stood in front of Hugo's legs and regained the focus of the segment, _"You can defeat your opponent by rendering him unable to respond to a doctor or forcing him to surrender. If you leave the ring for any longer than a count of twenty you lose you scaredy cat, so don't get cold feet when you come face-to-face with Hugo here!"_ Poison emphasized by lightly tapping him a few times with her whip, _"And of course if you die you lose… duh! Other than that, anything goes, so bring the kitchen sink if you want to sweetheart, it won't matter a bit! See you tomorrow… or not."_

Rather cruel cackling from the pink-haired witch marked the end of the broadcast which cut out abruptly, leaving the screen dark.

Everyone in the room of Karin's manor sat silently before Sakura pointed at the now black screen, "So what should we do? They're asking for Naruto." As much as she didn't want him to get into a fight with whoever that Hugo person was if Mad Gear really chose to use him to challenge Naruto, he really wasn't going to just sit back and take it if they were putting his rep at stake. He was like that. He also didn't watch TV and his phone was broken so he probably didn't know what was going on yet.

Cammy then chose to chime in as it was now officially important for her to do so, "You see, that's going to be a rather big problem to begin with." And not for the different reasons that they all probably thought it would be for too, "…Because I don't know where Naruto is."

XxX

(Glade of Ninjas – With Naruto)

A jabbing feeling in Naruto's head prompted him to swat at nothing as he and Ibuki walked through her village as she showed him around. He at first figured it was Don who was sleeping on his head at this time, but ignored it in exchange for listening to Ibuki continue to prattle on as they walked and listened to the summer sounds of night birds and evening insects.

She seemed rather excited to be able to show someone else some things for once. He could only imagine. It wasn't like she had ever had a visitor that she could take on a tour, everyone there already knew where everything was, "And that's our smithy. That's where the weapons that we all use are created. I'd show you the armory itself, but then I'd have to kill you." She said with a grin before it abruptly dropped, "Seriously, I'd have to kill you."

Naruto held up his hands in a joking fake-disarming motion before getting jabbed with a playful elbow. He liked the place though. It really did remind him a lot of a hidden village with all of the low buildings and trained killers flying from roof to roof even though it wasn't that big in comparison. Other than that, yep it was just like home.

"So when are you kicking me out of here?" Naruto asked as they traversed the small dirt path between buildings, and dodged the little ninja kids running past.

"Technically you can stay as long as you want I guess." Ibuki replied with a shrug, "Like I said; as long as I'm with you you're welcome here. I really don't think there's anyone that would ask you to leave either. You've never done anything to us. As a matter of fact you've helped us by helping me."

That sounded absolutely wonderful to Naruto who exhaled in relief, "Good, because I need to do some rehab. My body still feels like I just walked up from ground zero." It was a weird feeling. He had never been able to tell it was there, but now that he was unable to heal so quickly it was clear that something was missing. He just felt off all around, "I don't want to go back to town the way I am right now."

Ibuki nodded before shooting a glance Naruto's way and narrowing her eyes on him, "If you're staying here for a bit just where do you think you're going to be sleeping?" That got Naruto to stop in place, because even if Ibuki was that kind of girl, and she had expressed openly that she was not, her bed wasn't big enough for anyone else but her.

"…Dibs!" Naruto shouted before leaping onto the rooftops as he ran on the way back towards the house that contained Ibuki's room.

Staring at him with her jaw dropped for a split second, Ibuki quickly found herself in hot pursuit to try and overtake Naruto and beat him back to her room, "Naruto you wouldn't take my bed, that's not the gentlemanly thing to do! And if you think I'm sleeping on the floor you're out of your damn mind!"

It was a chase, but it was mostly for fun. Naruto wasn't going to make Ibuki sleep on the floor if he had to stay in her room for the night. She'd probably just kick him out of it if he tried to anyway. It had been a long, long time since he had played a game of ninja tag, and while it was a childish game he could take a moment to indulge in it with a friend.

So sue him, because the vast majority of his other friends couldn't keep up with him once he left the ground and started making a ruckus on the building tops, so he just never did it, there was no fun in it.

Eventually Ibuki understood that it was all one big joke as well and kept on with the game, the two flying blurs vaulting over the small dirt roads and over the heads of the grounded populace that didn't give it a second glance.

But inexplicably the fun and games came to an end when an even swifter red blur cut between their merriment and managed to grab Ibuki by the back of her ninja outfit. It took a quick craning of the neck from the kunoichi to see exactly who the buzzkill was, "Guy, let go!" She complained as she squirmed while being held off of the ground with one hand, "You're treating me like a kid!"

"You're acting like one." Guy chided with his never-changing stern expression on his face, "You're darting around the village like a gnat. Aren't you supposed to be in evening training with the other young students to begin with right now?"

"The whole day of training is like a warmup to me. I'm not getting any better or learning anything, I'm just going through the motions there." Ibuki replied, crossing her arms over her chest as she was still being held by the back of her outfit, "I've gotten a better workout in the last ten minutes than I have all day."

Guy didn't need to look much further for what exactly gave her the workout as a soft set of footsteps landed on the rooftop and directed his attention towards the orange-clad shinobi Naruto. Of course, he should have known that if there was a disruption in the usually peaceful village it would have to be from this one.

While Naruto was well aware of Guy's bit of distaste for him that was still no reason to be hostile to someone that he didn't see as an enemy, "Hey Guy." Naruto greeted as he walked over and pointed at Ibuki, "Can I have that back? I kind of need her or else I'll get thrown into jail or killed… whatever they do to intruders around here."

"Killed." Ibuki specified bluntly as Guy still had her held up, "They'd kill you. You'd probably be thrown into a cell first… but in the end they'd probably still kill you." She then turned her head back to Guy, "Can you let go of me now so I can keep hanging out with Naruto or do I have to do something to get loose, because that seems like a pain."

"Uzumaki, you're here. Wonderful." The sarcasm was underlying but still detectable in small traces. Guy wasn't really pleased with an outsider like Naruto being in the Glade of Ninjas, but Guy himself was an outsider as well and was allowed asylum there so he couldn't or wouldn't raise a fuss over that. It was only fair after all, "You have business in this village?"

Naruto let out a sigh and rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, "Ah, I'm still recovering from a really bad injury. None of my friends want me to fight the Mad Gear gang in town so I decided to come out here to lay low for a bit. Ibuki said that it was okay for me to spend a little bit of time here, but as soon as I feel better and ready to rock and roll I'll be out of your hair." He finished with a grin and a thumbs up.

With a nod, Guy set Ibuki back onto the ground and ignored the indignant glare directed at him from the kunoichi who was readjusting her clothing, "I'm aware of the issues in Aohura City and of your injury that had been suffered in Tokyo a month ago. It's just as well that you don't fight Mad Gear. You could be in over your head here, it's best that I handle it alone."

"You can't do it alone." Naruto said, a bit stunned at how Guy was willing to go all lone wolf on him. He thought that it was ninja protocol to work in groups whenever possible, but there marked yet another strong difference in the kind of shinobi that this world expected and the kind of shinobi that was prevalent in his own original land, "Listen, I'll heal up soon enough. Then we can go back to town and put the boots to-."

"The last time you dealt with a dangerous group you wound up getting a good man killed in Thailand along with getting two close friends put in traction for months… one of them near death. Along with that over a dozen young girls had their minds more or less scrambled by what had taken place."

Naruto's jaw snapped shut and he quickly sobered up while Ibuki visibly flinched from the rather callous comment from Guy. While she hadn't been there she had gotten the later play-by-play from all of her friends in school, and that remark about how one of his friends nearly died was a straight reference to how she almost died from the attack of the Dolls.

From what she heard though, the one man that died in Thailand died as a result of an oversight made by Naruto that allowed the Shadaloo boss to almost literally come back from the dead and hold them up as explosives counted down. It was something of a noble sacrificial death. She hated those, and if Naruto was anything in the same vein she could only imagine how he felt about it if it he felt that it was indeed his fault that it had occurred.

Why did she tell the people in her village what had happened? Oh, because it was a cool story and she was incredibly proud of them. _Her_ friends were strong enough to take part in destroying a world-reaching crime and terror syndicate. No other teenager in the Glade of Ninjas her age, hell most adults in the village couldn't say that they could come even close to pulling something like that off.

But it spread through the small ninja community like wildfire and of course Guy heard of it. She didn't think he'd take it that way though. No one else saw it that way. No one she had spoken to at least.

Guy persisted with his words though, feeling he had finally said something that had broken through Naruto's spirited façade, "Your track record with real threats… not the best." He said with his usual sharp gaze directed on the slightly shorter teenage ninja, "Just recently I only have to point to the incident in Tokyo as an example of what happens when you decide to take the lead on something."

"That didn't have anything to do with Mad Gear." Ibuki interjected abruptly, "Some psychopath came and tore the place apart to-." Naruto put a calming hand on her shoulder to get her to stop arguing a point for him.

He was perfectly capable of getting into his own yelling contest if that was what it came to, "You don't like me at all do you?" Naruto asked, staring right into Guy's eyes with an almost curious gaze, "You don't respect me either. That's okay I guess, I don't really care that much. I've got enough good friends."

"It's not a matter of respect." Guy replied, "How many times do you need to be burned? How many times do you need to come face-to-face with the dark ends of our lifestyle; the kidnappings, the assassination attempts, the deathmatches… how many times do you need to be confronted by the evils of the world before you grow up and take the life of a ninja seriously?"

'I'm sixteen years old you son of a bitch!' What did he want him to be, a drone? He didn't get it. Was this some more of that 'a ninja is a weapon' crap that saw Haku and Zabuza be all about back when he first met them? Ridiculous, "I love goofing off, I love spending time with my friends, I love most of the things about this world, and I love my life. Big deal! So what? That just makes me want to fight for it that much more when the time comes."

"It's a weakness." The fire was definitely there, but sadly it only seemed to add to Guy's reasons to dislike Naruto. He was too quick to be stirred emotionally, "Look at yourself. How can you make a rational decision if you get riled up even by something like this? You need control, discipline. Not wild and reckless abandon. Not only will you one day get yourself killed, eventually you'll get someone _else_ killed because of it."

It was like picking at an open wound, going back to that point, "That's not going to happen again if there's anything I can do about it." Naruto asserted with a strong stance, "Haven't you ever made a mistake? Or were you just perfect from day one?"

Oh was that a twitch? It looked like a nerve had been stricken on the usual calm form of Guy, "That's not any business of yours." Guy said coldly, "I used to be a delinquent before my master found me and trained me in the form of Bushin-ryuu Ninpou. He trained me and disciplined me until I was ready to take the mantle of grandmaster from him in a battle to the death. Had I been unfocused I never would have put my heart aside and did what needed to be done to become the Bushin-ryuu Grandmaster. There can only be one at a time."

"Well that's where we're really different." Naruto stated, standing as tall as his five-foot-eight frame allowed him to do, "I never would have killed my sensei just to become grandmaster of some style. I wouldn't kill any of my friends, ever. So I guess I won't ever be a 'real' ninja the way you want me to be." He wouldn't have done such a thing even to become Hokage, "Too bad."

This was all starting to backfire on Guy. He initially planned on dressing Naruto down, but it didn't seem to do anything but reinforce that Naruto felt he was right in the way that he went about things. Along with that it was starting to get Guy's temper rising as well, bringing up his battle with the previous Bushin-ryuu master.

At this point the sharp ears of many of the village's warriors had heard the short back-and-forth between Naruto and Guy, and Ibuki didn't particularly like the attention for Naruto. She walked over to him and placed a hand on his bicep to direct his attention away from a confrontation, "Come on Naruto, let's go. It's not that important."

Heeding his good friend's request, Naruto turned away and made a dismissive hand gesture over his shoulder as he walked away, "Ibuki's right. Just as well… because you seem like a miserable grump. Gee I wonder why." Naruto concluded sarcastically, "I think you hate me because you wish you were me, at least a little bit. Did your whole 'ideal ninja' thing just screw up your relationship with your sensei, or did you have to 'put your heart aside' about another friend too?"

"Houzanto!"

Barely able to feel Guy move, Naruto was unprepared for the sharp elbow that was slammed in his back hard enough to knock him away from Ibuki, off of the rooftop, and through the air where he landed face down in a pond where he sank underneath the surface. That last verbal jab had better have been worth it.

"Naruto!" Ibuki was completely surprised. Guy never struck first. Did Naruto really get under his skin that badly that hitting him with such a devastating attack seemed to be a completely reasonable way to shut him up?

As a matter of fact he had.

Guy had taken Naruto's last comment bitterly. During the Shadaloo episode he had lost contact with a trusted friend, a good woman; Rose. Remembering how she had determined to destroy M. Bison at the cost of her own life he figured she must have tried as much and failed when he was unable to reach her after he had learned of Bison's defeat from Ibuki. Had he not endeavored to fight Bison in his own way perhaps they could have pooled their forces and she never would have suffered the fate that he figured she did… at least not alone.

And it brought up memories of Guy's close friend from Metro City. A man that had gone over the edge in his restless search for fights. Someone that he could do nothing for other than watch from a distance during his continued training in Japan. He could not simply leave and stop his friend Cody from making his aggressive mistakes, and eventually he was imprisoned like the criminals that they had sacrificed blood and sweat to defeat in their hometown.

Once again he could do nothing but press forward.

He was not about to take such loose words coming from Naruto just lying down. Perhaps many of his problems could be prevented if the boy merely knew how to hold his tongue, but then again Guy wasn't exactly planning to pull his punches either in regards to what he was saying.

A soaked Naruto slowly pulled himself out of the pond as the villagers gave him plenty of room to do so. He was growling in what many people thought was anger, but it was actually in pain. Guy's sharp elbow in his back hurt like hell, but he wasn't going to just lay down on the ground and roll around in anguish after getting sucker punched, "Okay Mister Perfect… I'm sick of giving you the benefit of the doubt to my friends when you talk about me, and you just hit me like it was some kind of good idea. So why don't you come on down here and we can settle this?"

The moment Guy's foot touched the ground from the roof he had jumped down from, every ninja in the village blurred up off of the ground level onto the surrounding rooftops to get out of the way and find a good spot to watch from. Neither Naruto nor Guy were villagers, they were both outsiders allowed in under the same agreement even though Guy was given more leniency for his own set of circumstances.

In other words they didn't have any reason to stop the two from fighting if that was what they were set on doing.

"That guy's crazy. Guy-senpai is going to tear him apart." One ninja Ibuki's age claimed.

"No way, don't you know who that guy is? This is gonna be a great fight!"

Normally Ibuki would have agreed with the second speaker, but Naruto was hurt. Very hurt. She knew it and Guy knew it. This was not a good idea at all.

Guy just stood and observed the wet dog appearance of Naruto in the budding moonlight, "Fighting me while you're injured isn't the best idea. I'm not going to pull my punches on you when they land." Guy's arms drifted into position for his usual high fighting stance, "A brash and arrogant ninja needs to be taught some humility."

"The way I am doesn't make me any better or any worse than you…" Naruto said as water dripped off of his frame. Still, he made pair of fists at his side and prepared for combat, ready to react to the first move that his opponent made, "It just makes me different. And if you don't like it, that's your problem."

But in reality it was also his tonight.

"Hayagake (Fast Run)!" Just as fast as ever, Guy wasted no time reaching Naruto with blinding quickness. Able to distinguish the slight nuances of Guy's movement despite the difficulty in seeing it, Naruto was able to jump over an attempt at a sliding kick from Guy. As friction drew Guy's slide to an end he quickly got back up onto his feet to continue to pester Naruto with his speed.

Naruto was able to shift his point of view to see Guy charge him again and prepared a countermeasure of a haymaker, but Guy came to a sudden stop just out of Naruto's range that forced the boy to cancel his haymaker attempt of be left wide open and at Guy's mercy. This still did leave him open for a counter by Guy, but it could have been far worse.

The Bushin-ryuu trained ninja peppered Naruto's face and body with accurate and intent punches, meant to pick their spots and hit with precision instead of volume to deal their damage. Each hit was meant for something specific. A backhand strike to Naruto's face to stun him, a low jab at his stomach to rob him of precious air and pick at his wounds, a palm hit directly to Naruto's face to try and smash his nose to knock him off-balance and disrupt his breathing patterns.

Guy was specific in his hand-to-hand combat. Everything he did was with purpose. He didn't have to get close to Naruto in order to force power shots forward simply because he chose not to. That wasn't his style. And that didn't leave Naruto with a whole lot of options to bully through and enforce his own will.

'Calm down.' Naruto thought to himself, though it was hard to do so as he took another short punch to the ribs, 'He's dictating the whole pace of the fight. You're playing into his hands, you know better than that.' Guy was good at minimizing the amount of danger that he put himself in while maximizing his own opportunities to attack an opponent's own sloppy forced openings.

Fighting off of instinct was great when a fighter was like Naruto; rolling with the punches and adjusting accordingly. But when an opponent had a set plan, Naruto's first go-to method of combat was not a reasonable method of dealing with someone that was smart and knew what they wanted. Guy was more of a tactician, and Naruto… well he was trickier about it than muscleheads were, but he was a powerhouse.

Still, he had fought enough smart finesse fighters to know how to handle them. He had faced off with enough strategists as opposed to reactionary fighters like himself to know what was up.

He had to take them out of their element, drag them into a dogfight, smother them in a style of battle that they weren't prepared to fight, and turn it into a battle of attrition if possible because most 'smart' fighters had to be smart because they couldn't take a beating.

First and foremost Naruto had to think about how he was going to put Guy in such a scenario. Backing off from the punching attack, Naruto narrowly avoided a wide kick directed at his body that had been premeditated by Guy in case Naruto had planned to get some distance. It was a miss, but it was still a smart move that warned Naruto that he had no path to get close to Guy and expect success.

Naruto made his cross-finger hand-seal but Guy seemed to be prepared with no concern in his actions, "Make as many clones as you'd like. You act as if I'm unfamiliar with fighting mobs and mobs of enemies." He cut his teeth as a ninja battling hordes of foes in Metro City back in America. He was an old hand at it. Thus he charged Naruto again with his Hayagake to overwhelm Naruto again.

Naruto's lips quirked slightly as one clone popped into existence next to him, "This clone isn't here to fight you." The original Naruto formed a Rasengan in one hand that his clone held its hands around to manipulate the chakra in a different way, "Rasenbakufuu (Spiraling Shockwave)!"

A sudden blue circle of a chakra wave flew out from the Rasengan in Naruto's hand like a blade that went outwards a full 360 degrees around both him and his clone, as if it were a sudden pulse of energy. Even the things that it didn't touch, like the grass on the ground below the wave happened to be blown. Guy quickly jumped over it and had no choice but to wonder just what would have happened had it hit him.

But he had to refocus as Naruto's clone launched into the air to take advantage of him. Not a bad move, but not good enough to get him off-guard, "Bushin Izuna Otoshi (Spiritual Warrior Izuna Drop)! Guy quickly flipped in a manner that allowed him to dodge Naruto's aerial punch, but Guy drifted over Naruto's clone's head towards its back where he grabbed it by the waist upside down. Flipping once more so that the clone's feet were in the air, Guy slammed it down onto the ground hard enough to crack it and dispel the body double.

Not wasting a moment after ridding himself of the clone annoyance, Guy quickly brandished shuriken that he threw Naruto's way. Naruto swayed his body out of the way of the metal stars and Guy honed in on this, seeing a weakness.

From what he knew about Naruto, the young man took any and all opportunities and excuses to move around a battlefield during a fight. He loved being in motion, but in this fight Naruto seemed content to waste as little movement as possible.

He had to be more hurt than he was letting on, so much so that the pain of the sporadic movement that would come from spiritedly dodging the shuriken just wasn't worth. No one diverted from a battle style that much without ample reason to do so.

'Let's test just how well his body is holding up.' Guy once again blurred all over the battlefield with his clear and present speed. If Naruto wasn't going to move and make himself harder to hit that was just going to be too bad for him, "Bushin Muso Renge (Spiritual Lotus God Warrior)!" Guy got close enough to Naruto to grab him by the shoulder and uppercut him in the stomach twice before kicking him away.

Guy caught up and got to Naruto's back before he could be knocked too far and continued his assault. Kicks and blows that Naruto's eyes were barely able to keep pace with thudded off of his attempts to guard his head and torso, but Guy also was able to slip in attacks that easily got past Naruto's endeavors to protect himself.

He had to start moving. But if he did that he would have just been playing into Guy's hands. On a normal day he would have been darting all over the place trying to keep up with his enemy and make him pay, but he was feeling just a wee bit sluggish and nonresponsive.

Next best thing then. If he couldn't keep up with Guy because of his body he'd make direct speed a useless advantage. But he couldn't do it in the middle of the village. It was a place more or less curtailed to allowing a ninja to move around freely.

Blocking a kick to the stomach from Guy, Naruto then ate a kick that spawned from a retaliatory backflip by Guy that freed himself. Naruto stumbled back with blood flying from his mouth, but he didn't plant his feet and tough it out. Instead he turned tail and ran away, something that came as a surprise not only to Guy, but to everyone else watching.

"Is he running away?"

"Well there isn't really any reason to fight this battle, so I guess it's a good idea to not stay there and take a beating."

"Aw come on… I wanted to see a finish."

Guy ignored the crowd save for only one of them. He watched Ibuki slip away from the rest of the villagers and knew that if anyone was aware of how Naruto took to battle it would be the one that trained with him often. The fight wasn't over.

Quickly giving chase, Guy ran after Naruto's trail, not that the boy was making himself hard to follow as upon turning a corner he saw Naruto turn another. He wanted Guy to tail him. How wily.

Never one to disappoint, Guy ran after Naruto but chose to stay on the building tops instead of going on the ground where Naruto could have prepared a booby trap. He wasn't going to ignore the fact that Naruto was still a ninja and fall into some kind of ambush. He needed to keep his eyes on him.

And he did. It was a short retreat, but Naruto eventually stopped in the middle of an open grassy field at the edge of the small village. Standing on the last village at the edge of town in case there was some kind of nasty surprise waiting for him, Guy observed the terrain, 'Why here?' He thought to himself, 'He has to know that he had more of a chance of stopping me in the more compact quarters of the village than out here. This is perfect for me.'

He didn't like it, but Naruto wasn't budging another inch. The two had a standoff until it was clear that Naruto was taunting Guy when he simply got down on the ground, laying lazily on his side and yawning, "You're the one that wanted the fight." Naruto said through his yawn, "If you're just gonna pussy out and sit on the roof I'm going to sleep. I've been traveling all day and most of last night."

"You're not taking me seriously?" Guy questioned, his temper having long since waned. At this point he was simply fighting to prove his point instead of out of sudden anger.

"Maybe you're not taking me seriously?" Naruto bluntly responded with a bored look on his face, "Look, I'm hurt. Any idiot that knows how I fight can see that. So what makes you think I'm just gonna keep letting you kick me around? I'm not that stupid." His posture displayed that he wasn't banking on Guy rushing right for him, but if he had chosen to move he could have made for some sort of evasive action if need be, "But you think I'm that stupid. So I really want to know, just how bad of a ninja do you think I am?"

It had to be pretty bad because it was the original basis for Guy's argument as to why he didn't like him. He blatantly stated upon their first meeting that Naruto didn't take the life of a ninja seriously. That he didn't have the right to call himself a ninja. He told Sakura in Hong Kong that he felt that Naruto was a boy playing ninja. All of that implied that he didn't have much respect for his skills.

So in Naruto's mind either one of two things were about to happen. Either Guy was going to illustrate how much he didn't respect Naruto as a warrior or a ninja by attacking him on terrain that he had chosen for whatever reason he had done so, or he was going to go back on everything he had said and he was going to remain on that roof. The latter would have been the smart play, but it would have proven that Guy was wary of whatever abilities Naruto had, that he didn't believe in his own set of skills to deal with him.

And this was the thought that went through Guy's head. It would either be his logic as a combatant or his standing amongst the Glade of Ninjas that his next move would deliver a hit to.

There was an entire village of their peers watching them. While the younger ones were just spoiling for a cool high level battle, the older ones had remained silent and had watched since they hadn't seen Naruto firsthand, having only heard of him through stories from Ibuki and rumor from elsewhere. They wanted to see what he could do, and they were reserving any judgment on him until they had.

The older and smarter citizens with more experience realized that Naruto had Guy somewhat in check here. At this point it was more of a battle of philosophies than a battle of simple fighting skills. Guy couldn't keep considering Naruto less than a real shinobi if he wasn't willing to attack him and show him as much. Exercising that much caution against an enemy, so much so that you refused to even get on the same level of the battlefield as them, didn't show the enemy's inferiority… especially if they hadn't been the one to provoke the fight.

Guy had painted himself into a corner, and he had to attack Naruto in order to save face. Naruto's actions in the middle of the field only illustrated this.

Turning to his side, Guy saw Ibuki grinning widely without even looking at him. She didn't have to because she knew that he knew exactly what was up. And with that he dropped down from his rooftop position onto the grass.

The second he did that, Naruto popped right back up off of the ground and didn't wait for Guy to get close and begin their pattern anew. It was time for his second new ninjutsu that he had developed. He'd see how Guy liked it when the ball was back in his court for once.

Naruto created five clones and all of them instantly put both of their hands onto the ground where they all began adding shape transformation abilities that Naruto had expanded upon repeatedly in regards to his multiple variations of pure chakra manipulation.

The bulk of his ninjutsu innovations had been him experimenting with pure chakra use from what he had learned from being taught the Rasengan. Well he had found a new way to use it.

All of the Narutos started adding pure power and spin out of their hands as if they were making a Rasengan, only underneath the surface of the ground. It took a moment… "Rasenshinsen (Spiraling Tremor)!" But within five seconds a concentrated earthquake was caused.

Naruto's jutsu worked so that his chakra loosened up the ground in the form of a circle fifteen yards around his body to keep it from going any further and out of control, but when using more clones instead of using the jutsu alone his range extended six times due to the number that he had used to form the attack. Ninety yards of a concentrated earthquake that Guy had run right into the midst of.

The ground cracked and Naruto's actual blue chakra was visible through the cracks as heavy chunks of the earth began to jut up just higher than Guy's height, fray together, and warp the field of battle.

'That's why he left the village limits!' Guy thought frantically as he tried to keep himself as safe as possible. If he didn't keep himself on edge, he could have gotten his leg broken, or worse. As the battlefield continued to warp and change, Guy sought refuge on an upright spire as the tremors came to an end, but that was a tactical mistake.

He couldn't see clearly over the chunks that were barely taller than him, and the moment he reached the top to get a bird's eye view of the scene he was booted right off by Naruto who had been observing the change in the landscape that he had been creating. Guy did exactly what he figured he would do; he went to the point farthest from the ground.

Like a ninja-style game of king of the hill, the position that had before been occupied by Guy was then occupied by Naruto who watched Guy flip back through the air and slide down a crooked piece of raised soil.

Now the game had changed significantly. A ninety yard circumference around them had been turned into a craggy, hard to navigate mess. And from the look in Guy's eyes he didn't know quite what to do with what he had been presented with. Guy was an urban ninja, a former street brawler that had his street fighting refined to a ninja style. He more used to fighting in the streets and the cities. Naruto, while he had painstakingly assimilated to being an urban ninja, had originally been trained to fight in the fields and forests and mountains.

Naruto dropped into the pit of rocks and Guy tried to rush Naruto down. He still had the speed advantage and he wasn't about to let Naruto get the space to pull off another move like the Rasenshinsen. The thing about that was that there was no more need to try the Rasenshinsen. It was sort of a situation-specific jutsu. Maybe if he were fighting multiple opponents, but for a one-on-one fight Naruto had already done what he needed to do with that jutsu.

The bumpy, jagged ground slowed Guy's sprint down, and the raised crags gave Naruto places to duck behind to circumvent Guy's speed advantage. This wasn't good. Guy needed to get out. But as he neared the edge of the deadly shift in terrain he was set upon by several hidden Naruto clones.

The surprise attack was successful as Naruto's clones landed several quick blows, knocking Guy about. And just as quickly as they came the madly cackling clones left and hid themselves once again in the field.

A bloody-nosed Guy rubbed the newly formed bruises on his face and looked around. This time when they attacked again they were dealt with quickly. Guy's special shuriken were prepared to cut through stone, going through a few clones meant nothing.

But one of those clones didn't pop when they were hit. A shuriken barrage grazed one's cheeks and arms with deep cuts and it wasn't rendered to smoke. In the mayhem of the battle Guy had neglected to think that while Naruto wasn't much of a schemer he took calculated risks, such as throwing his own lot in with his Kage Bunshin for frontal assaults.

A straight haymaker right to the face flattened Guy and hit him hard enough to send his body careening through an upturned slab that his body destroyed, flying out of the other side as it collapsed and bouncing off of the ground several times.

"No holding back! Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Naruto created a horde of over two dozen clones surrounding Guy. One clone kneed him in the back while another decked him in the belly, all to set him up for several more clone to kick him directly into the air where they swarmed all over him in the skies like a school of piranha, punching and kicking Guy as they juggled him in the air and sprang off of each other to stay airborne themselves, "Uzumaki Naruto Mugen Rendan (Naruto Uzumaki Infinite Combo)!"

The amount of blows couldn't be counted with the naked eye, and as Naruto's clones all dispelled and let Guy fall to the ground it left the original Naruto falling from the sky to end the completed combination. As Guy's body hit the ground, Naruto simultaneously ax kicked him in the body, compounding the force that both things would have generated separately.

After landing the final kick, Naruto's legs gave out and he fell onto his backside in exhaustion as he stared down at Guy's unmoving form. The older ninja was not unconscious, instead just staring up at the star-bathed night sky once he realized that his body wasn't going to allow him to get back up.

He lost? To Naruto? And Naruto wasn't gloating the way he figured he would. Instead the youngster was acting more mature than he expected, but he was fixing him with a rather nasty glare that he tried to ignore.

"I suppose… this is one of those moments that someone would say 'I told you so' and hold it over the head of someone like me." Guy said, his face unchanging. He shut his eyes and let out a sigh, "Very well then."

In Konoha and in the Elemental Nations overall Naruto got used to seeing as many different types of ninja as there were colors. Each one was unique and one would be hard-pressed to find a uniform group of them anywhere. That was why he had such an issue with Guy thinking that he wasn't a proper ninja. There was no such thing. And he didn't care about getting any digs in on his defeated opponent. He was done with the whole thing.

"Don't flatter yourself." Naruto said with a grunt of effort as he stood back up and began walking away, "I'm not some punk kid just looking for a thrill like you think I am. I just go about being a ninja different than you. It doesn't mean that it's right or wrong, just different. You don't get it. I'm not like you. I'm not Guy of the Bushin-ryuu." He didn't bother turning back as he muttered his last statement to himself, "…Sometimes it's what you don't do that makes you who you are."

With the fight being over, those that had been observing finally figured it safe enough to enter the scene did so to retrieve the defeated Guy as Naruto slunk off of the property that he had warped with his jutsu and his clones' assistance.

After getting out of sight as he had left the Rasenshinsen's damage range and was concealed by quite a few earthy uprisings, Naruto let out a pained groan and dropped to his knees. How did people that got into tough fights so much take not healing so fast? Honestly, without the Kyuubi to fix him up he couldn't keep up his normal day-to-day schedule of ripping and running without surcease. His body was compounding injuries and crapping out on him. Did everyone have to deal with that kind of bullshit normally?

A hand resting on his back let him know that Ibuki was there to assist him. He allowed her to sling one of his arms around her neck to help him stand up if he needed it, "You know that fighting against Guy was dumb. What if you would have reinjured yourself or gotten hurt even worse?"

"It was a matter of respect." Naruto responded a bit proudly. He also sincerely doubted that anything Guy could have done to him would have hurt him as badly as Akuma had done, "Okay… I think I'll be cool with sleeping on the floor now. Just as long as I get to sleep at all."

"I've got a bedroll somewhere in my room in case I get assigned missions where I have to travel." Ibuki informed him as they started walking back through the village towards the locale of Ibuki's lodgings, "You won't have to sleep on the _floor_ floor." They made it to the door of the building where she left Naruto to walk for himself, "Go find it and get it set up. I'll be there in a second."

Once Naruto disappeared behind closed doors, Ibuki simply stood outside and waited as she leaned against a nearby lantern, the flame of which suddenly blanked out and made the immediate area that much darker. She showed no alarm however as she had been expecting something like that, "So what do you think of him master? He's cool like I told you he was, right?"

Silence greeted her for a moment before a figure stepped out of the darkness and came closer to her. A man clad in a black ninja top, orange grieves around his wrists with a claw attached to one of them, orange loose pants, and an orange full mask covering his head and mouth, " He is… unique to say the least. I can see why you found him interesting if he was the first ninja that you came across outside of our village."

"Naruto's a good person." Ibuki said with a satisfied grin. The people in her village seemed to like him. That was great. Maybe that would give her more leeway in the future to stay outside of the village more often, "Maybe if he hung out around here more you'd see why I trusted him after just one day Master Enjo."

"No need for that. You're a smart girl that can judge character." Enjo said as he walked back into the shadows and vanished as if he had never been there. But his voice drifted back into her ears after he had left, "…But tell your friend that he has some landscaping to do in the morning." All Ibuki could do was giggle slightly. That sounded like one of those D-rank missions that Naruto always did… the odd chores.

She doubted he'd be getting paid for it either. He was going to bitch about that one later.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter done.<strong>

**Oh man… for those unaware of what a Maymester is… it is an entire semester worth of assignments and information that you must do within three weeks, deadlines in between. I have two of those classes going on right now in addition to a slightly longer summer course that I need to graduate on time next year.**

**It is academic hell. **

**In the last five days I have taken three tests and have written three separate 10+ page papers that were all due today. My fingers hurt. My eyes strain in light that is not fluorescent due to how much time I've spent indoors. I've forgotten what regular sleeping hours feel like.**

**And I'm about to go into another one of those classes right now. 3 hours. Hurrah. **

**Later. Kenchi out.**


	23. Urban War Game

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. It's a brand new day, yet everything remains the same. Damn you for your great ideas that I can't think of or get anyone with actual finances such as Capcom to listen to. Damn you!

**Chapter 23: Urban War Game**

* * *

><p>The morning after the fight with gave rise to a very sore waking Naruto. He felt better than when he had woken up the previous day from his coma, but he still felt like crap. He had then been asked to fix the field at the edge of town that he had ruined the previous night against Guy.<p>

Thank goodness for clone labor.

And even with that the process still took a lot of time and left him even achier than normal.

It was then that he was turned on to a very welcome chance to rest. The Glade of Ninjas had good doctors of course, but that didn't help him since he was technically as well-off as he could be with the exception of the lingering pain. His sanctuary came in the form of a special hot spring that the village used to speed the recovery time of their injured ninja. He needed a bath regardless, and this was only that much better.

The moment he sank into the water he could swear that he had an out of body experience. Simply a fantastic feeling. For the first time since waking back up he wasn't in pain. He could have almost cried if he were sappy enough to do such a thing over a stupid bath. He would do no such thing though, he was manly.

But he did space out while thinking of his current problems. His problems with Mad Gear… his problems with Akuma, the guy that broke his foot off in his ass… the whole Sasuke situation… and the Kyuubi.

His mind was stuck on the last thing when he started to nod off, eventually going straight to sleep. Lights out.

And once he shut his eyes and faded out he found himself unconsciously drawn back to the Kyuubi's cage. There was still blood in the water, it had only been a day after all, and that meant that things were still pretty bad.

When he looked inside of the cage he saw the great beast itself still sleeping and not soundly either. The Kyuubi's breathing was still labored and ragged, and it still didn't look as hale and as hearty as it usually did. The scary factor that Naruto had to admit it usually had going for it was basically nonexistent. It really was healing from something serious. He still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that for the time being his ability to heal was shot.

While he had already been assured that the Kyuubi could not die from such an injury as it was still a biju, it was still an uneasy thought. It made him kind of sick to think of losing one of the things that kept him connected with home, even if that something was an angry mass of energy that seemed dead set on taking over his body and breaking free. A prisoner wishing to be free of their warden was normal and understandable.

Naruto sat down in front of the cage, ignoring the shallow water he was in. He just stared inside with a deep frown on his face, "For what it's worth… I'll make sure nothing like this happens to you again. I know you probably don't care, but like I said you're my comrade from Konoha. And whether you hate me or not we're stuck together." He shook his head, not knowing quite what to say, "I don't know. I want to start over. Maybe when you wake up we can try."

He got no response. Not because he was being ignored, but because the Kyuubi was utterly exhausted due to using so much energy to fix itself and the more subtle damage that had been done to Naruto as well. It was asleep.

There was no reason to remain introspective and Naruto left his mind behind to return to the real world and the spring that he was in. For now all he could do was focus on restoring himself as best he could. Maybe getting himself back to full capacity would allow the Kyuubi to heal up faster… maybe. He didn't know.

Upon opening his eyes again, his comfortably numb body was able to feel a foreign pair of hands on his back. Girl hands too, thank Kami. He knew what girl hands felt like so he was able to distinguish. They were the hands of a girl warrior too because while they were small and gentle he could feel some consciously restrained force in them.

Well that only meant one thing.

"Ibuki?"

"Yeah Naruto?" He knew it. There wasn't anyone else that it could have been. No one else in that village knew him, especially any girls, and he wasn't good looking enough to have groupies think he was handsome from just one day of seeing him in a fight.

"…Why are you here?" Naruto was trying to remain calm, but he was stark naked under the water that came to his chest. That would have been embarrassing enough were it not for the fact that she was touching on him.

"Aside from the fact I live in this village and I can do anything I want?" Ibuki jested, eliciting a grunt from Naruto for her attempts at being a smartass. She let out a laugh, being completely at ease unlike yesterday when the situation was markedly less, "I figured you would need help reapplying your medical tape after you were done, and then when I got here you were spacing out so I got in too. You didn't notice at all."

Looking over at the rocks surrounding the spacious spring, Naruto saw Ibuki's shed clothing over by his own along with the rest of his equipment, "Why are you washing my back and my hair?"

"Aw, well look at you trying to act like a prude." She knew he wasn't complaining about it, otherwise he would have done something by then, "Well it's a time-honored way to show trust between warriors. Are you scared that a girl's washing your back?" A grin spread across Ibuki's face as she leaned forward and set her chin on his shoulder, "What, you never took a bath with Sakura-chan before?"

What kind of damn question was that? Those two met when they were twelve, not when they were three. The time had long since passed for when something like that would have been cute or acceptable. Needless to say at the age of sixteen he still would have been all for something like that should the situation reasonably present itself, but for the sake of his moral fiber…

"N-No, are you crazy?" Naruto full-body stiffened up when Ibuki set her chin on his shoulder because her body got close enough to press up against him a bit, "You're getting kind of comfortable aren't you?" The girl didn't answer. She merely let out a content sigh that got him to begin mellowing out too.

He didn't know why; if it was the bath, if it was some kind of ninja technique of hers, or what. Either way he just started letting himself drift a bit along with her. It was comfortable.

While there was definitely a sex thing that one could attribute to the entire situation, the initial stress from the whole thing had faded. Her legs were now firmly attached to his sides by the thigh, her arms wrapped loosely around his neck while he just weakly kicked through the water enough to keep them moving, "Ibuki why are you always so cool to me?"

A good question that she thought of as the two of them drifted.

"You're a cool person most of the time, and I know you think I'm attractive." She could literally feel his cheeks turn red from the accusation, eliciting a giggle out of her that made things a bit worse because he could feel her breasts rubbing against his back, "It's okay. It's because I wish I was you I guess. I don't know." She replied honestly, "I feel like if I stay close to you and Master Enjo can see just how special you are like our other friends do and I do… maybe I could be allowed to live more normally, maybe even in a real city like a regular girl."

"Well why don't you just try to take your ninja graduation exam?" Naruto asked. Ibuki told them all in the past that once she was able to do that she'd be free to choose whether she wanted to operate as a ninja in the village or go out and live her life being assigned missions from a distance, "Do you think you can pass it?"

"I don't know." Ibuki mumbled. It wasn't that she had a confidence problem or anything. She knew that she was far stronger than the other ninja students. But that was also why she was hesitant to take the exam. If it hadn't already been suggested that she take the exam by her sensei or by Enjo himself was that because they didn't think she was ready for it? Was it that much harder than she was prepared for, "Do you think I can?"

She let out a surprised whine when Naruto slipped out of her grasp momentarily to dive his head underwater to rinse his hair. He reemerged elsewhere closer to the rocks, apparently ready to get out, "I think you should go for it. If it's what you want you can't be scared of it. And I'll help you out too if you need it, dattebayo. I'm pretty sure everybody back in town would."

"You really think so?"

"You've got to be willing to risk it all the way if you want to get anywhere as a ninja. I learned that during one of my own tests."

Maybe Enjo and her sensei Sanjou were just waiting on her to come to them about taking her exam? Another one of their tests to show how much she had grown by taking the initiative or whatever obscure, clandestine goal they were trying to get her to reach through her individual actions.

Either way, talking to Naruto was enough to make her think it was worth a try once she worked up the nerve and was sure of herself that she was ready. But why was he now giving her that serious looking straightforward stare?

"So how is this gonna work when we get out of the water Ibuki?" Oh, he was just embarrassed. Did he think she wouldn't like the way he looked or something? He really was cute to her because he didn't even know that he was.

"Meh, at this point does it matter?" She replied casually, and she had a point. They had just been pressed right against each other, "I'll tell you what. Show me that tattoo that Sakura-chan was talking about the day you got hurt and I'll get out first so you don't feel all self-conscious about it. You can look as much as you want."

"…Deal."

XxX

(Aohura City – Sakura's House)

"Pick up. Pick up. Pick up." Sakura kept repeating to herself as she kept trying to get through on her cell phone. The previous night after the gauntlet had been thrown down by Mad Gear via Poison, calling Naruto out to a fight the next evening, Cammy informed them that Naruto was not in town at all. He had gone to Ibuki's ninja village, and none of them knew where that was, "Why won't she pick up her phone?" The brown-haired girl whined pitifully.

Naruto's new phone hadn't been reactivated from yesterday since he had blacked out in Sasuke's restaurant and had cut his day's plans short, so calling him did nothing. That left Ibuki's phone, and while she knew the kunoichi had to hide the device, she had to check it sometime right?

Ugh, yet another call that went straight to voicemail. That was the tenth one since last night.

"Yeah, Ibuki. If Naruto isn't dead from whatever he's doing in your village can you get him back here say… before 7-ish tonight?" Sakura said, pacing about in her bedroom back and forth, "Because Mad Gear's called him out, and they're making this whole big thing about the best fighters in town being scared of them, and Karin says if someone doesn't fight the guy that the challenge is for Mad Gear's going to use it get stronger and get more recruits. And that's bad. So if you get this could you please get Naruto back here and on the hop? It's at Aohura Super Arena. See you soon, bye."

Upon hanging up the phone Sakura felt like flinging it into the wall, but she refrained from doing so because she knew she'd put it straight through the wall if she did. Instead she tossed it onto her bed and jumped onto the bed as well, shoving her face into the biggest pillow she had to let out a muffled yell.

Why did life have to be so hard as a fighter when all she wanted was to be considered good enough to train with Ryu? Because that of course involved her getting involved with dangerous and power-hungry types that saw skill and wished to manipulate it toward their own ends or destroy it.

Why did her best friend have to have a neon lit bullseye on his chest that every lunatic in the Pacific Rim felt the need to take a shot at? Because he was the strongest person she knew… and that was why she found him interesting to begin with back when they were twelve. Thus that meant that others would feel the same for more nefarious reasons, not her innocent little schoolgirl reasons of thinking that he seemed nice and that he looked like he needed a friend.

"Yo!" Sakura's messy headed little brother Tsukushi came barreling into her room. He ran up to his older sister's bed and poked her in the side as she was still face down in her pillow cursing her rotten luck, "I heard about those guys that called Naruto out. Don't they know he's still dead?"

Sakura turned her head on her pillow towards Tsukushi and sighed, "It was a coma, he was never dead… legally. And no they didn't know. No one outside of us knew." She was surprised Tsukushi was able to keep his mouth shut about it, "He's out of it now and he went to visit one of our friends who lives somewhere secret. They think he's just been hiding the whole time and that's probably what they'll say if there's no fight tonight."

"I thought Naruto wasn't a gangster."

"He's not one Tsukushi. You know that. You've known Naruto since you were four, that's a mean thing to say."

"Sorry, but they're sure treating him like he's one. I mean calling him out? Really?"

Sakura's head popped off of the pillow as an idea had been shoved into her head. Mad Gear was a gang at heart. They could dress it up as a militia group all they wanted to, but they were just a bunch of roughnecks. They were calling out Naruto like he was some kind of boss. Well when oh when did the boss of any kind of organization ever fight the first challenge that came their way?

As much as she hated it, as much as Naruto deemed it an inconvenience despite the business it gave his freelance work, his reputation was a pretty big deal. People knew who he was. The everyday direct challenges had pretty much stopped since the G9 Tournament in January, and they had only lessened more so after their little group of friends' fighting skills seemed to leave the average of Aohura City behind.

They had all gotten better over the last six months, noticeably so because of what they had to improve just to survive against, but for anyone paying attention Naruto really was Aohura City's ace. There was no one stronger than him in the city and everyone that it mattered to knew it. Therefore who was Poison to call him out? Who said that they got to simply leapfrog the rest of the city. Get in line.

Yeah, if they wanted to fight the real deal they had to get through someone else first to prove that they were worth Naruto's time to fight... At least that was the spin that they could give to the masses that night in the arena. A substitute would be used and if nothing else it would buy time, and Karin could articulate and talk the biggest game to justify why Naruto wasn't there the moment that the topic came up.

"Thank you little brother!" Sakura exclaimed, giving Tsukushi a hug and a kiss on the cheek that he deemed gross as she jumped up and grabbed her phone before running downstairs, "Tell mom I'll be out until late, I've got a problem to solve!"

Still rubbing off the cheek that Sakura had kissed him on, Tsukushi shrugged to himself about what that had been all about.

Oh he didn't care. He was going to go back to playing video games.

XxX

(That Afternoon – Chugoku Expressway – 12 Miles Outside of Aohura City)

As a large 18-wheeler truck barreled down the highway moving underneath overpasses with two large trailers being dragged behind it, three Mad Gear transporters sat inside the cab of the truck. One driving, another riding shotgun, and the third of them riding in the back marveling at a brand-new, fresh out of the case submachine gun, "Oh man I love this militia." He said as he looked around for one of the three bullet-filled magazines that he had taken along for the road, "We aren't even supposed to be able to own guns in this country, period. But look at these things man."

"Hey would you put that thing away?" The man in the side passenger's seat said, turning around to look at the man in the back, "You're acting like a fucking kid. We can't get caught with this crap man. We aren't in Aohura City yet. We might have that place's law locked down but if it gets out that we've got guns, especially in numbers like this, the whole party'll be over before we even get it started."

"We're gonna run this country within six months." The gun-toting member said, still waving the gun around, "Boss Rolento and Sodom-sama have got us primed and ready. All we need to do now is ship the rest of the weapons into town, wait for the other shipments to reach the brothers in the other cities and it'll be time to take this straight to Tokyo. A real rebellion of the people."

"Yeah…" The front passenger said, "We can make this country any way we want it to be. That's going to be our utopia." And then they'd move on to the next place, and the next place, and the next place. If this method could work in Japan it could probably work in many other places as well. Only time would tell, but spirits were high, "I can't wait to be a man in charge." He laughed.

Two of the three men shared a laugh but noticed that the driver seemed rather vexed. The man from the back got up and leaned forward over the side of his seat, "Hey, what's the matter with you? We're almost there, about to get paid. It's a good time."

As this was uttered a horn went off from a car that passed by the truck in another lane, thus putting a vein forth on the annoyed head of the driver, "I'm going fast enough and I'm in the slow lane. What are these idiots honking at me for? That's the twelfth one in three minutes." Another horn went off and the driver had taken enough. He rolled his window down and shouted out at the person that was driving alongside him, "WHAT?"

"There's some guy walking on one of your trailers! The back one!" With that, the car pulled forward, leaving the truck behind.

The men inside of the truck didn't believe that for a second. How in the world did someone get on the back of their truck? But it proved to be true when they got a glimpse at one of the side mirrors and saw that there indeed was someone standing on the top of the truck.

Did someone have a death wish or something? This was about to be handled, "Kiyo, go ice that idiot." The driver said. With a nod, the man in the passenger's seat grabbed a riot baton from underneath his seat and opened the door all the way so that he could use the open window to get on the top of the truck's cab.

Upon getting high enough to see clearly he saw a teenager in Chinese-style clothes seemingly inspecting the coupling of the two trailers with his back turned to the front of the truck. As quietly as possible, he carefully crept from the roof of the truck to the top of the trailer and then until he got within lunging distance of the weird kid.

He dove right at the brat hoping that he would knock him down between the trailers and underneath the wheels, but he got nothing but air and almost fell in between the trailers himself. He lost his baton for certain. The landing sound of feet on metal got him to push off of his stomach and turn around to see the dark-haired, dark garbed young man standing straight up and staring at him.

"I wonder just what you're smuggling in this truck." Sasuke said as the Mad Gear member carefully stood back up so that the wind didn't knock him down. The man had no idea how Sasuke was just standing there, but he wasn't going to be standing for much longer, "You idiots are getting a lot of new toys to play with in Aohura City."

Feeling like he had his balance under him, the man walked carefully towards Sasuke to attack him. The assassin-for-hire just waited for the man to get close enough to where he felt safe enough to try taking swings at him. Every punch missed until Sasuke grabbed him by the face and held him tightly around the forehead, "So where is this thing going?"

"Your mother's house."

Bad answer.

Sasuke immediately began using the lightning release manipulation he had obtained from years of breaking down the concept of his Chidori. He used it to begin shocking the man in his grasp for a few seconds. His yells were lost to the open wind until Sasuke cut the power and turned the electricity off, "Want to try that again? Or do you still think being in Mad Gear automatically makes you a tough guy?"

A few coughs came from the recently electrocuted man as he continued to grip at Sasuke's wrist to try and pry himself loose, "Freak!"

"That's what weak people say when they try to act strong… and then find out that they aren't that strong." Sasuke responded before charging electricity in his other hand so that the sound could get some intimidation going, "I need a location. Where are you keeping the weapons?"

The answer didn't come as from the same passenger's side, the man with the submachine gun got up over the trailer and started firing his gun at Sasuke and the captured man. Sasuke turned his captive towards the gunfire to take the bullets intended for him before he jumped into the air over the top of the truck with lightning crackling around his lower body, "Gouki Kagizume o Oshite (Grand Talon Press)!"

He landed on the hood of the truck with crushing pressure that smashed it, all the while discharging electricity into the damaged engine. The twisted metal of the hood jutted up in front of the truck's windshield, obscuring the vision of the driver who started skidding all over the four-lane highway, causing cars to swerve or be smashed by the 18-wheeler.

It quickly came to a stop, blocking off the entire highway due to the vehicle's length and the driver and gunman came spilling out of the vehicle quickly. The gunner quickly fired at Sasuke only for him to bail out off of the hood and to the driver's side where he kicked the door shut and caught the driver's arm in the door. Eliciting a cry of pain from the man, Sasuke kicked him in the stomach when the door opened back up and knocked him away.

Once again, the submachine gun toting Mad Gear gang member swung around the smoking front of the truck only to see a swirl of wind and leaves where he had expected to see Sasuke standing. He ran over to his injured comrade who had a broken arm and helped him up with one hand as he kept aiming around with the second one, "Where did he go? Who the hell was that guy?"

"That was the assassin from Tokyo." The injured driver said, cradling his arm to his body, "He's a dead ringer for one of the two Boss Rolento told us to keep an eye out for. The other one's Uzumaki. It's kill on sight for this guy though. He doesn't have a name to profit from like Uzumaki does." He let out a pained grunt and looked around in a frightened manner, "I need a gun. I need a gun from the back right now. Cover me."

Both of them ran towards the back trailer to procure a firearm for the second man while the first kept looking around with a hair-triggered look in his eyes.

Upon making it to the back of the truck, both of them froze when they saw Sasuke sitting on the top of the trailer looking down at the two of them with strange red eyes that they were certain that he didn't have before, "You know what I like about Japan the most? The gun control. It's so hard to get a firearm here. Gun control is strict in Hong Kong too, but it's like so what? Every crime group there seems to have one. There aren't even that many guns here to begin with. That means that it really is the strong that makes things happen here."

Instead of firing blindly at Sasuke, the man with the gun just waited nervously. Sasuke's Sharingan had implanted a suggestion in his head that shooting at him right then wouldn't end well. He was scared enough of the superhuman assassin that he figured the thought was his own. His lack of knowledge on the Sharingan didn't help either.

"Strength is valued here, but guns are just smoke and mirrors in regards to that." Sasuke continued, still staring down at the men, "You think you're stronger than me with that thing in your hands don't you?" He finished with a smirk, "Is that why you joined Mad Gear? Because you wanted to feel strong and important?"

The injured man was even more scared than his friend due to his lack of a firearm, and that overrode Sasuke's attempt at subtle Sharingan persuasion as he used his good arm to grab the gun from his ally and pointed it at Sasuke, "Shut up already and die!" He started firing, but with one arm his aim was terrible and it was child's play for Sasuke to dodge over the side of the trailer.

The original gunman now felt naked without a weapon and made a break for the back of the rear trailer which he quickly opened and jumped inside of to get another gun for himself.

On the outside, Sasuke didn't go around, instead choosing to slide underneath the truck trailer. He was spotted by the injured driver who moved to fire at him, only getting off several rounds before his magazine came up empty.

A quick move was just what the doctor ordered, and Sasuke had luckily stolen a good one from Gen back when he had been younger and had taken his routine beatings from the man to 'get some respect kicked into him', "Gekiro!" Sasuke delivered an upward-aimed dropkick and continued to kick and kick repeatedly in a pedaling motion before he flipped out of the attack and landed on the ground.

The airborne man and gun dropped to the ground and didn't move again, and Sasuke walked to the back of the truck to find the last remaining Mad Gear member fumbling with trying to load another submachine gun fresh out of the case with a magazine he had on him.

In his haste, the magazine dropped from his hand and he looked up over at Sasuke and froze in fear. He just started backing away farther and farther into the trailer to put as much distance between himself and his pending doom as he could.

Sasuke jumped up inside and slowly started walking towards the last man standing on the Mad Gear side of things. One man had been killed and another had been knocked unconscious. That meant that this man needed to have the information he needed on where the major weapons cache for the gang was located. Then he could start tracking down where the Mad Gear bosses Sodom and Rolento were holed up, "So where was this thing going before I got here?"

"Stay back!" A desperate charge forward, using the gun as a club failed when Sasuke just punched him in the chest and knocked him into one of the large containers in the trailer with a metallic thud, "Stay away from me!"

Rolling his eyes, Sasuke just kept walking forward, "No, I'm sick of being nice about just asking you losers for this information, because killing you isn't my mission. The only way this genjutsu is going to end for you is when you tell me what I want to know. Magen: Kasegui no Jutsu (Demonic Illusion: Shackling Stakes Jutsu)." Direct eye contact with Sasuke's spinning red orbs caught the man in something that he had never been prepared to experience in his life.

"AAAHHH!"

XxX

(Sometime Later – With Naruto – Glade of Ninjas)

"-And then I just walked right into the dome of mirrors and got stuck right along with Sasuke." Naruto recanted tales of his past to his kunoichi friend as they both took the walk back from where Naruto had been helping Ibuki train instead of her just going off and going through the motions with the other students, "I thought getting in the middle of the fight was a good idea at the time. Don't give me that look."

The look was a flat one, as Ibuki had been listening to Naruto's story of his first ninja incident and could only wonder something as she heard the whole thing, "Who in the world passed you as a ninja?" She asked as they walked down the hall back into her quarters, "I seriously want to know. How did getting inside of the dome your friend was trapped in seem like a good idea to you at all?"

'I technically failed my test, but you don't need to know that.' Naruto thought to himself as he entered the girl's room and sat down on the accommodations that had been made for him on the floor last night, "Hindsight is 20/20."

"Not a good excuse Naruto." Ibuki argued to end that leg of the conversation as she lay down in her bed with a content sigh, "You see? Wasn't that bath more comfortable the second time around after you stopped being so skittish? I don't bite."

"No you don't bite, you stab. That could be worse." Naruto quipped as he lay down on his futon beside Ibuki's bed. He turned his head so that he could look underneath it where he saw the tanuki Don playing with Ibuki's cell phone, "You keep the phone with Don when you hide it?"

Reaching under her bed, Ibuki picked up the little animal and rested him on her stomach, petting him idly as she continued to lay on her back and look up at the ceiling, "What's a better hiding place than one that moves around constantly?" She saw the device in Don's paws light up and took it from him as her phone had been on silent the entire time, "Wha-? Thirty-seven texts and fifteen missed calls?"

Well wasn't she popular? While she was dealing with that, Naruto felt the need to catch a quick nap after spending a lot of the day using his clones to help train with Ibuki. It wasn't as taxing on his body and it let him get some much needed rest that he was going to continue right then and there.

"Uh oh."

Oh hell. Whenever someone said 'uh oh' out loud around him it meant that something was about to try and involve him in some bad situation. It never failed.

Ibuki swung her legs over on Naruto's side of the bed and stuck her phone down by his ear, "Naruto, you need to listen to this right now. Something's up in your neck of the woods."

Raising an eyebrow, Naruto took the phone from her and waited for the message to restart that she wanted him to hear, _"Yeah, Ibuki. If Naruto isn't dead from whatever he's doing in your village can you get him back here say… before 7-ish tonight?"_ That was Sakura's voice, _"Because Mad Gear's called him out, and they're making this whole big thing about the best fighters in town being scared of them, and Karin says if Naruto doesn't fight the Hugo guy that issued the challenge for Mad Gear they're going to use it get stronger and get more recruits. And that's bad. So if you get this could you please get Naruto back here and on the hop? It's at Aohura Super Arena. See you soon, bye."_

After the message ended, Naruto shut off Ibuki's voicemail and looked at the built in clock on the phone, "Fuck." He sat up and showed the time to Ibuki, "It's past five right now. It took me almost twelve hours to work out how to get here to begin with. I'm never gonna make it."

"Not true." Ibuki said as she got up from her bed and started making sure that Naruto had all of his things gathered in his travel pack, "How do you think I get to school every day on time? I can point you in the right direction, but I can't go with you. You'll get back to Aohura City way faster if you just do what I say."

Naruto was initially confused as he figured that the directions that his clone's directions gave him happened to be the path that Ibuki took to school every morning. But he cast that aside and decided to trust her. If anyone knew how to make the cannonball run from her village back to Aohura City why wouldn't it be her that did.

Ibuki of course saw him perk up and felt the need to bring him down to earth at the cost of possibly bursting his bubble, "…But you've got to go _now_ if you want to even have a shot at making it by seven." She had to be realistic with him. Pumping him up for no reason would only hurt more in the long run.

She threw the pack at Naruto and wasn't displeased when he was already standing to catch it and sling it securely over his back. He seemed annoyed, though by what Ibuki wasn't sure; either because his little getaway of sorts had been interrupted, or because it had been interrupted because someone was publically picking another fight with him.

Once he was ready to go, Ibuki quickly led Naruto out of her room and outside of the building where they took off towards the north end of the village to get started setting him out on the path of her shortcut to Aohura City.

They came to a stop just before entering the deep forest where things got repetitive and hard to distinguish, "Okay, as you probably know from when you came out here compasses don't work because of what the village did to make it hard to find the place. You also can't see the sun or the stars through the leaves in the forest to give position." From the twitching eye he was presenting her with, he already knew these things and was wondering what her point was.

All Ibuki did was walk to the base of a tree and feel around the trunk until she pulled up a thin wire that was tied to the trunk and held it up for Naruto to see, "Okay, I'll bite. What the hell is that supposed to be?"

"My hidden way to find your way back to Aohura." Ibuki said brightly as she dragged Naruto over to it and placed the metal wire in his hand, "Hold on to it and follow it through the trees. It'll take you right back to the woods outside of town. It's tied to a tree on the other side just like this side here."

Oh that had to be complete bullshit. There was no way a simple and cheap trick like that was how she got to school without getting lost every day. For Kami's sake, it had to be more complicated than that. She was a girl, therefore she and her plans had to be complicated by nature. It was an irrefutable fact that he had learned by spending so much time with an honor roll student example of one for four years.

But when he tugged on the line he found that it came up from the ground and started leading a trail up to where it was still slacked on the forest floor. He walked forward a bit and tugged some more to find that it continued onward.

Turning towards Ibuki she was smugly rocking back and forth on her heels and toes with a satisfied smile, "I've got one of those to every town I've found in any direction outside of the Glade of Ninjas. It's my own system and I'm the only one that knows how to find them since you can't really see them." The trick was to use way more wire than she needed to get to the other side. Still, Naruto was just standing there staring at her blankly, thus she shooed him away, "Well? Scat already. Time's a wastin' Naruto."

Naruto gave her a nod and a hesitant smile before taking off as fast as he could while holding on to the wire as it led him through the woods like a lifeline, "Later Ibuki! I'll call you when all of this is over!"

"Don't get your butt kicked again!" She yelled after him as his rapid pitter-pattering footsteps through the grass and leaves got farther and farther away.

XxX

(Aohura City – Aohura Super Arena – Near Bell Time)

The arena was pretty much filled. It was actually impressive just how fast an event like this got organized. It had been just a hair under twenty-four hours and the place looked legitimate as far as an actual sporting attraction went. There were all kinds of television cameras there to capture the fighting for their respective stations and websites.

There was a long dark ramp that led to a open area of arena surrounded by metal guard rails. In the center of that was a large 20x20 ring that was elevated three feet off of the ground with three ropes stretching around the four sides of it between the four corners.

Standing right outside of the ring on the floor happened to be Sakura, Batsu, Karin, and Cammy looking around and waiting for something to happen. While everyone else looked to be calm for the most part for their own reasons, Sakura looked a bit jittery, "I really hope this works." She then shot a bit of a glare at Cammy, "I can't believe you let Naruto get away."

"I don't know how you would have expected me to catch up to him." Cammy replied, trying to assuage the blame going her way, "It's not like anyone else here could have done it if they had been in my position." None of them could jump on rooftops and follow him so it was a moot point to try and blame anyone.

Batsu was leaning his arms and head down on the corner of the ring canvas lazily as he seemed to be waiting, "Look. There's nothing we can do now. Stop complaining."

"Ichimonji-san is correct." Karin stressed, looking around impatiently with her hands on her hips, "It is not like we are unprepared for this situation." How couldn't they be prepared? Sakura had been ripping and running all over town making calls since noon so they could get something together, "There is a plan of action in place." And she already knew what she was going to say well in advance as an explanation, so as far as she was concerned things would be okay.

Cammy raised a hand in order to ask a question and did so when attention was cast towards her, "I'm just wondering… why is it up to a group of teenagers to deal with a problem like this? Aren't there adults that are supposed to be able to handle happenings like this for a living?" A good question.

Sakura sighed and ran a hand past the headband on her forehead and through her short hair, "There are… but they get blitzed before they can get out and handle it. You see what happened to the cops in town right? They've been down since the start. And everywhere else just thinks it's another gang thing in Aohura City so they don't care."

"It _will_ be just another gang thing." Batsu boasted with a smirk, "They'll get beaten just like every other big gang that tried to take this town over has gotten beaten. It's just gonna be a little tougher this time than the other stuff that happened in the past in this town because they're way bigger. It's impossible to take over Aohura City; there's always someone else strong to fight and a lot of them are ki-wielding fighters. That's why the Yakuza stay away from here."

They knew already, the generalized explanation for why crime was so low in Aohura City despite the gang population being so high… at least Sakura and Karin knew already. They weren't sure about how much Cammy really even cared. Repeating the same things they had known for years was going to do little for them.

"Be that as it may, we must handle one problem at a time." Karin stated firmly, taking control of the situation. While Sakura was a smart girl she wasn't much of a tactician, and Cammy wasn't really the type to say more than she needed to at any given time, "Before anything else we deal with this first. Should things go badly tonight every weakling commoner with aspirations of power will think the easiest way to obtain it will be to join Mad Gear. And then they will have their army, willing and ready."

This entire show was just one big commercial for the organization, to show off how powerful Mad Gear was, and how if you wanted to be considered a part of the best you would have to get in on the ground floor while the getting was hot. Because they were convinced that they were going to change the entire country.

And it would probably work easily if things went bad for the kids that night. Alas… Karin was well aware that the vast majority of the general population were all sheep and to them perception would be reality.

They had to come out on top in some way this evening. And that was just fine with her too. Victory was paramount for her in any endeavor she aspired to undertake and this was nothing different. All she knew how to do to begin with was win.

Loud, attention-grabbing music began to play over the speakers of the arena as many bright blue, purple, and pink lights started flashing at the top of the formerly dark rampway. This revealed many Mad Gear banners and group insignias had been hung around the arena in the dark that now stood visible to all. As the crowd began to react and cheer to the sudden activity, Poison confidently strode down towards the ring, soaking up the catcalls and the fans reaching out over the guardrail to try and touch her.

She didn't mind it at all. As a matter of fact, upon reaching the ring she got up on the apron and crawled along the length of it to the grandstanding approval of the male fight fans in attendance. If this was what Mad Gear was all about they were all for it. Even Batsu was giving a few wolf-whistles. Enemy or not, hot was hot.

With a gesture of her hand to a ringside attendant she received a microphone before getting through the ropes and into the ring, "Welcome to tonight's special attraction match, brought to you by Mad Gear of course!" The cheering had never died down from the moment she had come out, "As you are all probably well aware of by now, I; your lovely host for the evening… well you can call me Poison!"

Looking around at the crowd that was very much behind the pretty woman showing a hell of a lot of skin, Cammy frowned, "This does not seem to look very good at all." Things could only spiral out of control in town if things went badly tonight.

The gaze of Poison drifted toward the bottom corner of the ring where a few out of space kids seemed to be standing. Of the four of them there she knew that three of them were on 'the list' of fighters that were either to be recruited or disposed of: Kasugano Sakura, Ichimonji Batsu, and Kanzuki Karin.

The last one there, the mystery blonde girl with the twin braids, the red beret, the scar on her cheek, and the green showy leotard she didn't know, but Poison instantly didn't like her. The girl could probably steal attention away from her if she cared to try, but she didn't seem to care about anything going on at the moment from the look on her face so there was no need to try and stir up that potential beehive.

But the others were all noted acquaintances of the target of the evening's festivities, Uzumaki Naruto.

"So where's the brat of the hour?" Poison asked as she cockily strolled around the ring, "We told him to go to the TV studio last night, and we were even nice enough to reserve this arena tonight just to get him to fight. I guess someone decided not to sack up and come out here tonight."

"Yeah, where's Uzumaki?"

"I thought he was supposed to be the strongest person in the city!"

"Boo!"

The crowd began to predictably turn on the absent Naruto due to having been expecting a big-time fight that night. They had paid good hard-earned money for their seats so they could see something amazing, and half of the main event no-showed.

As the jeers grew, Sakura turned towards Karin who seemed to be impatiently drumming her fingertips on the ring apron. Apparently she was getting a bit testy, "Well it looks like you're on. Are you sure you're up to this?"

A confident smirk surfaced on Karin's face at her on-again/off-again rival's query, "Sakura-san if there is anything I am quite certain of my ability to do, it is that if I am properly motivated to do so I can make anyone do anything that I want them to, no matter what it takes. So fear not." Karin cleared her throat and like magic her large personal attendant Ishizaki appeared, kneeling down by her side to allow her to step on his hands so that she could allow him to lift her onto the ring apron.

Sakura and Batsu rolled their eyes at the display. While she wasn't as lewd about it as Poison was, Karin still had quite the ego and penchant for the dramatic.

In the same vein she was handed a microphone of her own by Ishizaki. Where he got it no one knew, but that was largely irrelevant because apparently it was jacked into the speaker system as well.

With Ishizaki holding the ropes open for her, she stepped in the ring and held the microphone up to her mouth, "Naruto-san desired to come here tonight and face his challenge the way he faces all of his challenges. The way all of the people here have probably seen him face said challenges at one time or another. I simply advised him otherwise."

Poison let out a laugh at the younger aristocratic female who seemed to be rightly secure in what she was saying, "And who do you think you are little girl?"

"I am his sponsor. His benefactor if you will." Karin stated as she leveled a glance on the masses that seemed to make the lot of them recoil from her aura, "As you capricious, fickle fools probably _do not_ know is that being a strong fighter financially means nothing. Fighting by itself does not pay one's bills, it does not put food on one's table."

"Word." Batsu chimed in from ringside, raising his hand along with Sakura. Both of them still lived at home with their parents and they were considered to be strong. Being strong didn't mean jack. Every fighter they knew aside from Ryu had an actual job… and he was more or less a drifter. Naruto derogatorily and jokingly referred to him as a karate bum.

Ignoring Batsu's interjection, Karin continued, "-Therefore most of the truly stronger fighters in the world have a primary source of income that does not involve fighting. I am his." True enough, because the bulk of Naruto's funding came from her, "I persuaded him that coming out to fight a largely unproven commodity as an opponent would do nothing for him. After all, what does he have to gain from listening to the challenge of a no-name person such as yourself?"

That raised a tick mark on Poison's head. Being called a no-name by some haughty little rich girl did not sit well with her. Apparently her mere presence had some semblance of control over the audience to boot because she had shut the majority of them up, "What did you just say?"

"I did not misspeak. You heard me clearly." Karin taunted openly, "Why should I allow Naruto-san to fight you or your envoy? He has nothing to gain whatsoever, which means that I do not either. It is simply bad business all around. Prove something to justify a fight with him and then perhaps I will let him come out to play."

"So you're just going to keep hiding him?" Poison asked, her eye twitching in annoyance at how things were going, "Wow, I didn't know the 'Ace of Aohura City' was such a coward that he'd allow his prim little manager to get him out of this fight."

"Cowardice has nothing to do with it. This is my prerogative as his representative." Karin continued in a bored tone as if justifying Naruto's absence was mere child's play. It technically was. She could talk down two armed superpowers from going to war if she were directed to, so convincing the crowd that this fight had no reason to take place should have been simple enough.

"Well use your prerogative to get him out here to fight Hugo. It's that simple." Poison countered deftly, "It's what the people want to see."

Crowd response was the last thing Poison could resort to in her attempts to generate a fight? It might as well have been checkmate, "There's no contract binding him to this contest, it's completely unsanctioned. If you cannot find him on the streets and attack him there the way everyone else does then you have no right to demand his presence as if he owes you something."

Poison didn't want to hear any of that crap. She wanted Karin to slip up on a point so that she could begin tearing her apart over Naruto. She wanted to tear down whatever name value Naruto had to build Mad Gear's, "And what makes you think you're the one to tell me we don't have the right?"

Wagging a finger in a chiding manner, Karin spoke matter-of-factly for the benefit of those that were still unaware of why she was able to say these things, "That young man is sponsored by Kanzuki Karin of the Kanzuki Dynasty. I direct his actions when they count. That is all you need to know." Seeing a bit of an opportunity to get one over on the absent Naruto, Karin then turned to the crowd with a shine in her eyes, "…One could say that I own him."

XxX

(With Naruto – Deep Mountain Forests En Route to Aohura City)

Still holding onto Ibuki's shortcut wire, traversing it as he continued to run as fast as he could while being guided by the object, Naruto's rapid footfalls were the only out of place thing that could be heard in the forest's tranquility.

As he rushed between the trees at the directed guidance of the metal wire, Naruto spontaneously felt the need to yell out loud, if only for the benefit of the nocturnal woodland creatures abound in the area, "Nobody owns Uzumaki Naruto! They just rent him!"

Instead of the normal hooting of owls and the nighttime insect noises he got a loud response of the deep growling variety. He then had to wonder if there were any bears in those mountains or what. It didn't matter, they couldn't catch him anyway.

XxX

(Aohura City – Aohura Super Arena)

This was not working the way it had been anticipated to at first.

Damn it, the little bitch could mediate Naruto's way out of the fight so casually. She had just turned the entire crowd around. Now many of them were wondering just what gave Poison the right to call Naruto out and expect him to come. Nobody else got to do that. If anyone else wanted a piece of him they had to do the legwork to track him down and fight him on the spot.

Poison was losing the crowd and she knew it. This was not what had been expected to happen at all. And the cameras were still rolling. She had to get something out of this broadcast or it would be an abject failure, "Well fine! If proving something is what we need to get a fight with your golden boy that's just fine with us. Tell you what, send us anyone you want right here right now and Hugo'll crush 'em. Just to give you a taste of what your boy-toy would have gotten if he had come here tonight."

Make your adversary belligerently push for an agreement in order to save face. An agreement that in the end costs you nothing. A compromise that really isn't. Aggressive business-shark mediation complete.

Karin shrugged and turned right around toward the corner of the ring that housed her group of acquaintances, "Ichimonji-san."

"Yo."

"Do you feel up to a battle tonight?"

"Absolutely."

Karin gestured for him to hop into the ring which he did without a second thought to the satisfaction of the crowd who desired to see some action, "There. An adequate substitute has been found for the evening. Consider it an olive-branch from me to you, to ensure that your event is not an outright bust." With an airy laugh, fueled only by her victory in the verbal spar, Karin dropped the microphone and walked away from a seething Poison.

Watching as Karin left the ring in a very satisfied manner while Poison was angrily chewing on her riding whip, probably desiring to use it on Karin, Sakura turned to Cammy with a deadpan look on her face, "I think that felt better to her than sex would be."

"I doubt that." Cammy responded, barely getting the context of the statement and getting Sakura to palm her forehead, "But she did ensure that Mad Gear didn't get what they wanted tonight. That's something."

Nodding in agreement, Sakura tugged on Batsu's pant leg to get his attention as he started stretching out in the corner, "Batsu are you sure you can handle this? Your leg."

"Meh, my leg healed a while ago before I even went training with my dad. I'm fine." Batsu replied as he stopped stretching and slid a pair of red fingerless gloves onto his hands, "It's not like there's much of a choice eh? I can do this for sure. I've fought guys bigger than me before. They all don't seem very big when they're lying flat on their backs looking up at the lights."

Finally having calmed herself, Poison found a way to take some solace in the way things worked out. While it wasn't Naruto out there it was someone else on 'the list' in Ichimonji Batsu. They could use that too, "Well tonight it looks like we've got a stand in for Uzumaki! We're getting a fight tonight!" Hearing the exuberant host of the show getting fired up again lit a new one underneath the fans, "Introducing first from right here in Aohura City, The hot-blooded maverick delinquent of Taiyo High School; Ichimonji Batsu!"

Batsu ignored the cheers and jeers as he didn't particularly care about any of that. It was time to get himself into a fight and he was ready to roll, "Come on, speed it up already. I want to keep the fight time in your broadcast's time slot. My mom's favorite show is on tonight."

Oh he had no idea. With a wicked little smile on her lips, Poison gestured grandly back towards the entranceway as loud, slow, and plodding music began to play, "Introducing next, his opponent! Representing the Mad Gear organization he stands over eight feet tall and weighs in at 506 pounds! Only one person in this building needs to be scared of him right now so make some noise! This is Hugo Andore!"

The crowd went crazy in awe of the size of the dark-haired, pink-clad giant that walked towards the ring, stopping on the ramp to bellow loudly and show off that he was rippling with muscle. Batsu could swear that he could feel the man's footsteps before he even got inside of the ring.

Sakura and Karin were stunned into silence while Cammy was wracking her brain to try and think of a weakness that Batsu could use based solely off of preliminary observation. Other than 'be faster' she had nothing, and that barely mattered because they were in a ring and Hugo was gargantuan.

Batsu felt the ring shake as Hugo climbed up onto the apron and stepped clear over the top rope to enter the ring when Poison proudly went to his side and guided him toward the center of the ring. Batsu walked toward the center as well where he was then forced to look up almost three feet at Hugo's head. Good lord, how did one even go about getting that big to begin with?

"Hah…" Batsu stammered, cursing Naruto for not being in town when someone called him out, "You didn't look this big on TV last night… and yes, that's what she said." He added for the nearby Poison's benefit.

"Yeah, I got it kid." Poison merely found it amusing that he would try to alleviate his nerves with a joke and all Hugo did in response was grin down at him in an innocently intimidating manner as if he didn't know he was so scary, "That was a joke Hugo. Isn't that cute?"

Hugo reached out and gave Batsu three pats on the head that he swore made his neck crack, "Aww… shit." Batsu said, stepping back to rub his now sore neck, "Is there a time limit that I can last to make this thing end?" Poison just shook her head no, "…Didn't think so."

So he had to beat big ugly or get smashed flat like a pancake?

Poison moved away and stepped outside of the ring with the microphone still in hand, "You all know the rules! Let's get it started, Fight begin!" The bell then rang to signify the start of the match.

And Batsu saw his life flash before his eyes as Hugo instantly jumped into the air and shaded out the overhead lights with his considerable mass. He didn't hear the reasonably high-pitched shriek of terror that elicited from his own mouth.

With a resounding crash, Hugo hit the canvas, but immediately got up enough to see that Batsu wasn't underneath him. Instead Batsu had bailed out of the ring and was pacing around back and forth aggressively while Sakura, Cammy, and Karin watched on.

"I'm so dumb, I'm so dumb, I'm so dumb! Why'd I agree to this?" Batsu growled to himself, running his hands through his spiky black hair, "What am I gonna-?"

"Boy you'd better get back in that ring right now."

Not only Batsu, but all three of his present female friends blinked at the gruff voice. Only Batsu knew the tone of it though and responded accordingly, "Dad?" Turning around he saw a man that had walked a path straight through the crowd to get to the front row, "What are you doing here?"

Batsu's father was a large man that stood a full head and a half over his son with bulk and muscles to match, even clearly apparent under his light brown suit with black shoulders. His arms were absolutely enormous, his hands larger than a normal person's head. He was balding, but had bushy long white hair and a beard with a thick mustache as well and red eyes. Around his wrists he had heavy metal bracelets and his fingernails were sharp like claws. He didn't seem very much like the kind of person that would be anyone's father.

As intimidating as he looked, Batsu walked right over to him like it was safe to do so. Until he got rapped over the head hard enough to send his straight to the floor, "I saw you on TV you idiot! This is on half of the stations available in the damn region! I came to see your little friend that helped you and your classmates beat me up all of those years ago since he was the one being challenged here, but I arrive and find you in the ring."

"Yeah I know it wasn't a good idea dad, but-." Batsu was cut off from an explanation when he got picked up by his shoulders and shaken back and forth like a ragdoll.

"I don't want to hear your excuse boy, I'm here for a reason!" Batsu's father shouted as he shook his son so fast he was a blur.

Cammy had an eyebrow raised in curiosity as she had no idea who that person was and why Batsu was letting him discipline him in such a brutish manner, "Batsu's father?"

Remembering that Cammy hadn't been around for nearly long enough to know the whole story, Sakura gave her the condensed version, "Imawano Raizo. Back when we were fourteen, right around the time when Batsu and Naruto first met there were a string of kidnappings going on around the city. Batsu's mother was one of the people taken. So basically me, Naruto, Batsu, Hinata-chan, and another kid from his high school teamed up and got to the bottom of it. Batsu's dad was the principal of the high school that was behind it. But he was being brainwashed by someone else, so we fought him, snapped him out of it, and then we beat the real mastermind."

It seemed straightforward enough. One thing stuck out to Cammy though, "Batsu beat up his own father that had been overseeing the kidnapping people and didn't have any problems with it?"

"Batsu and the rest of us didn't know it was his father until afterwards and he snapped out the brainwashing." Sakura continued to explain, "He's scary strong for this town. Seriously. It took all five of us to beat him when we fought him back then." As if his ears were burning, Batsu's dad turned towards Sakura who started nervously waving, "Hi Principal Imawano, ha ha ha…"

Using the momentary distraction, Batsu gave his old man a headbutt right in the face to get him to let go before he decked Raizo in the stomach hard enough to give him an opening to get out of his reach, "Damn it dad, I'm in a fight here!"

"You could have fooled me, I thought you were in a timid deer contest the way you faced your opponent!"

"He's fucking huge! He'll snap my neck like a celery stick if I let him grab me!"

"So you're just going to fight scared? What did I spend all month training you for if you were just going to act like a street punk at the first sign of an actual fight? Don't you remember what you told me to get me to train you to begin with?"

Batsu's anger faded and he stopped to remember why he had come to his estranged and notably powerful father for help after the return from Hong Kong and the Shadaloo episode. His leg had still been injured as a result of his defeat at the hands of top Muay Thai kickboxer Adon, but he cut the cast off of his own leg early just to get back to work.

"_When it came down to it I was useless old man. From all that happens in town I thought I was strong, but then I had to sit on the sidelines and watch the ones that really were. We saw such powerful people… and in the end I didn't help at all. I had to watch other people that were actually strong help my friends when I couldn't do anything. That's not going to happen again. I came here to ask you for help with that, but if you say no it doesn't matter. I'll do it without you if I have to, but the fact is that next time I'll be the playmaker instead of just the hindrance."_

And he spent over a month killing his body and stretching his ki to its limits to learn a technique from his father that would let him make good on everything he said that day.

Turning away from his father, Batsu looked back inside of the ring where Hugo was waiting. Poison had the microphone in her hand still as the host of the show and used it to speak, "You know, I should be counting you out of the ring right now, but the fight's barely a minute old." She taunted.

With a scoff, Batsu unbuttoned his blue school uniform top and cast it off towards his father who caught it. Underneath that shirt he had been wearing a sleeveless mesh armor shirt with metal around the collar and the shoulders.

"Fine." Batsu said, cracking his knuckles, "I did say all of that stuff didn't I?" He smirked and hopped back onto the apron, "Stay out of my fight you old teme, no matter what happens. This one's mine for better or for worse."

Raizo just scowled at his son's back as he climbed into the ring once more, "Feh… I wasn't planning on it anyway. If you can't win after what I taught you to do then it's your problem, not mine."

"Such a loving father." Karin sarcastically commented, only to freeze when Raizo affixed her with a piercing glare that got her to close her mouth and turn away from him in an effort to get some warmth back in her body, 'That man is the principle of a school?'

Sakura leaned in towards the heiress with a smug little smile, "I told you he was a scary guy."

Meanwhile in the ring, Batsu jumped onto the top turnbuckle and stood there displaying balance and defiance, "Okay big man, sorry about that. Let's try this again." He said with a fire in his eyes.

XxX

(With Naruto – Deep Forests En Route to Aohura City)

Naruto's body was burning, but he wasn't going to stop. The sun was down and he knew it was well past seven as he could begin to see city lights over the crest of the hill he had been running on. Now that he could see that, he let go of Ibuki's lifeline and took to tree-hopping again as the faster method of travelling on foot.

He seriously wished he had activated his new phone and had brought it with him before leaving his apartment the night before. This was the time where calling someone and letting them know he was on the way would have been appropriate.

The great, relaxed feeling from the healing hot spring sessions with Ibuki had dissipated due to his strenuous workout given to him by barreling through the woods, full-pace, on his way back to town. His overall body still felt up to snuff thanks to the medical properties of the spring though, and that was all he needed to keep going.

While he wasn't really concerned, he had to get back home anyway. His lack of concern stood with the fact that even though he wasn't there he still had his good friends within Aohura City's limits. As long as they were there, nothing Mad Gear did would succeed. Sakura, Batsu, Cammy, Karin… hell even Sasuke had to have some kind of sense of good in his body.

But Aohura City was _his_ city. The way Konoha had been his village back in the Elemental Nations. And if anyone wished to threaten the security of the people in it, quite a few of whom were his friends, it was his problem.

As if any of his people would just roll over and let Mad Gear take over anyway. That city was tougher than it looked.

XxX

(Hidden Warehouse in Aohura City)

A line of trucks were set inside of the massive storage facility, but there was one spot noticeably missing from the would-be convoy. Rolento stood in front of the trucks and gazed at them intently as Sodom walked up behind him to look at what the man was staring at, "What's the big deal with a missing truck? We've got enough weapons. Nine shipments out of ten are great, especially for what we paid."

One shipment detained didn't mean anything if the people stuck in the capture kept their damn mouths shut the way they were taught to. The American samurai didn't see what the big deal was. They had protocol for such a thing.

"Authorities didn't stop the truck." Rolento said, keeping his voice calm as he started to pace through their warehouse. It had more crates and operational vehicles than ever before as they walked past everything, "Not a single thing was removed from the back. Of the three sent out to bring in that shipment one is dead, one was beaten unconscious, and one is missing. Not only that but there are reports of attacks on street teams all over town."

"So?" Sodom once again asked. The street teams were weak. They were people that wanted to join Mad Gear but had no importance or fighting skill. They were the lowest grunts of the low, "They suck. That's why we send out street-sweeper teams to take care of the actual threats. The regular street teams are just there to get experience and attract new members."

"Not only that, but I just found that Uzumaki Naruto is not present at the arena to face Hugo."

Now Sodom understood what the problem was, "So he's the one out there doing this?"

Rolento nodded, "He and that assassin worked together in Tokyo. Not only that but he openly describes himself as a ninja; a warrior specializing in stealth attacks." He didn't notice the eyes of Sodom's mask light up at being told such a thing.

"I know what a ninja is asshole." Sodom interrupted, hiding his excitement at possibly getting the chance to meet a real one aside from when he had been beaten by Guy. This one would actually be a domestic Japanese ninja… as far as he knew anyway.

"Then you should be able to read the writing on the wall." Rolento snapped as he kicked an empty metal transport crate hard enough to knock it over onto its side, "Uzumaki and the assassin from Tokyo are bypassing Hugo and choosing to try and hit us directly."

Sodom stroked his chin underneath his mask and helmet before he got the gist of what he felt Rolento was about to propose, "You want we should start hunting for these brats?"

Rolento had hoped that the assassin (Sasuke) might have been dead, but he had never held his breath over it. He was never going to find that person until they resurfaced. Since he knew Naruto wasn't dead he tried to initially hunt for him, but he was unable to locate him. Well that had changed. Either one of them or both of them were out and about, and currently active from the looks of things.

So there was no time to waste. Both of those brats had to die in short order. No wimpy street team that stumbled across them would be even close to being good enough to put either of them down.

"I need you to go out with the street-sweepers and comb through the hotspots to find our two friends." Rolento said, "I need to get our forces amassed. We already have the weapons we need to outfit our best in all of the other locations around Tokyo. We are going to prepare to mobilize and move as soon as possible."

"I've been waiting to go out and get something done myself." Sodom said, holding his hands on his twin katanas, "We're clear to do whatever we want, right?"

"If it flushes out one or two of those rats I don't care what you do. Just don't incur heavy losses. We need our forces in good health, it's important." Rolento concluded as he went to his office to begin getting things in order for the very near future, "This will be opening up sooner than you're probably expecting my friend."

"The sooner the better." Sodom chuckled out as he departed the warehouse to assemble the 'troops'.

* * *

><p><strong>My mind still aches, and the dregs of writing still plague me. You'd think I'd be sick of writing by now because I've got another gauntlet of papers to write this week as well due to my shortened summer classes, but yet here I am doing this again. I'm just a sick guy I guess.<strong>

**Oh well. Two weeks left of the brutal three week courses and then I can relax a bit while I whittle down the last two weeks of my third summer class. If anyone can do it I can, because I'm the grandest being in existence. **

"**But Kenchi, why do this story in particular if all of this is happening?"**

**That's a good question General Reviewer. The reason is because this one flows the best for me. It's the easiest to get down into readable format, thus this is the one I use to wind down while taking breaks throughout my perpetual academic nightmare.**

**Alright, I've got an 8:30 to get to right now and I commute for the summer so I'm done.**

**Your favorite glutton for punishment, Kenchi… out.**


	24. A Mad World

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. When I die I want to be buried with my Playstation. So that I may… play beyond. Muwahahahahaha!

You see what I did there? Dah, them ripples got me! AAHHH!

**Chapter 24: A Mad World**

* * *

><p>Sandaled feet touched an urban rooftop for the first time in more than a day as Naruto got back to the town of his residence; Aohura City. Of course he still had to get all the way downtown to the arena as quickly as those sandaled feet would carry him. It was already twenty minutes past seven.<p>

While he was certain that with as much intelligence as his group of friends had… and Batsu too he guessed… but with all of that he was sure that they had something in mind to help him if Sakura saw the evening's event as important enough to blow up Ibuki's phone with messages for. Still, he wanted to get there himself just in case he had to beat someone's ass to save face.

When it rained it poured though, and as Naruto moved through town he had to come to a stop at the sight of something very unnerving as he arrived in one of his favorite parts of the city; the arcade district.

The streets were filled with well over one hundred hooligans and they were making a mess of the entire area. Storefronts to shops that he frequented, storefronts to shops that Sakura frequented, even the store that sold Naruto his metal ninja tools was being torn up. That wasn't cool! It was the only place he found in the whole region that would actually order the stuff he asked them for!

And then he saw them tearing up his beloved arcade! No! That was where he went to blow off steam in regards to his ridiculous life by playing slightly more ridiculous video games that made him feel a bit better about how absurd things got every now and then.

But then he saw actual fighting going on down there.

Saikyou-ryuu students were trying to fight back. Wow. Dan's training must have really instilled some confidence in the lot of them. And in fact they weren't doing that bad against the Mad Gear members. Like Naruto said before and would defend to the end; Dan knew his basics well. And if he indeed taught his students the right way they would have a good fighting foundation.

On the other hand though, when they started trying to use Dan's go-to ki technique the Gadoken after it was established how outnumbered they were it turned into an outright one-sided slaughter, because they all failed. Dan barely understood the concept of channeling his ki for his own move, so how could he teach others how to do it?

So a choice was then presented to Naruto on how to proceed. It was either go to the arena and save his rep, or drop down and save the students of a 'rival' that had tried to be heroes and defend their town.

…

Damn it why did he have to have the conscience that was telling him his choice wasn't much of a choice at all?

"Coming in hot!" Naruto shouted as he dropped down from a rooftop and made his several hand-seals while falling, "Isseishageki Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire Volley)!" Naruto spat a mass of smaller, less powerful stinging bomblets of his Chakra Spitfire technique from his mouth. The sheer amounts of them pounded away at the Mad Gear gangsters, driving them back off from the overmatched Saikyou-ryuu students that had been steadily losing and had gotten overrun.

Landing in the streets between most of the Saikyou-ryuu students, Naruto noted one Mad Gear man trying to rush him and kicked a nearby trashcan at his head, knocking him down and out to be dragged off by some of his comrades.

Remembering how Naruto had beaten up their entire dojo at one time in the past, they were clearly skeptical and wary of his presence even when he turned around and his eyes panned over them to insure that no one was dead or dying. None were, but there were a few that were beaten up badly to be taken out of the fight, "Well, twenty-five of us vs. one hundred and twenty of them. Why were you guys fighting them?"

"There's no way we're letting these guys trash our town! We trained under Dan-sensei to get strong enough to beat people like you that wreck everything!" Naruto palmed his face, but accepted that kind of an answer nonetheless, "It's time to show off what we can do!"

The Mad Gear side of the line started laughing in a belittling manner as one thug holding a stun baton stepped forward to shoot his mouth off, "A bunch of punks like you think you can stop an organized militia? You didn't realize by now that you can't beat us? Those retarded Saikyou-ryuu moves are pathetic! There's a reason we didn't target Hibiki Dan or ask him to join up with Mad Gear. Because he's just-!"

"He's just way too fucking awesome for your leaders to control! Hibiki Dan would have made them sweat and think he was coming to take their spots!"

The loud, boisterous, and arrogant voice got everyone's attention toward the end of the street where Dan stood in all of his brown ponytailed, pink gi sporting glory. A cheer went up amongst the Saikyou-ryuu students at seeing Dan… not so much from Naruto though. But he respected the man's sentiment.

"That's right." Dan said as he slowly walked toward his ecstatic students as if he were conquering hero of some sort, "Get ready to feel the pain! You'd better be an actual army, because that's what it takes to put down someone like me!"

"You haven't been in town since we've shown up you coward, and we've been kicking the shit out of your students for an hour! What makes you think you can confront us now?"

Dan snickered at the question, "I've got a new assistant at my gym that I met in my travels while I was gone. I just had to run on home to get him." He cupped his hands by his mouth and shouted loudly, "Hey Jimmy! Come on out!"

Who the hell was Jimmy? Naruto knew without a doubt he hadn't beaten up anyone named Jimmy that knew Dan, so he couldn't have been a student of Saikyou-ryuu. He hadn't fought anyone named Jimmy period as a matter of fact.

At first nothing happened, but then from an alley streaked out a green blur that began absolutely bulldozing the Mad Gear forces savagely. Before most of them knew what hit them they had been knocked around and brutalized by raw physical aggression.

A dozen militia members managed to surround the attacker and the few that had them began hitting him and prodding him with their electric stun batons. Dan's student's rushed in to assist the creature that had come to their defense, but Dan merely smirked, completely unconcerned.

"Elétrico Trovão (Electric Thunder)!"

The mobbing militia members were all instantly electrocuted and blown away from the volts of the attack. With his form now clear, Naruto was able to get a look at Dan's friend 'Jimmy'.

He had green colored skin, sharp fingernails, and long spiky orange hair on his head going down his back. He was barefoot, shirtless, wore a pair of frayed brown shorts and a pair of metal anklets, was very muscular and rather big, and had quite a bit of orange chest hair and orange hair on his forearms and shins.

'Jimmy' looked more like a subhuman if one were to observe him closely, "None of you would ever be able to survive in a jungle." He stated gruffly from his low, hunched position of standing as he stared out at his quite rattled enemies.

"I'm impressed, excited, and kind of scared." Naruto said to no one in particular as Dan looked on smugly, "You said his name was Jimmy?"

Dan nodded and watched Mad Gear back off warily from his bestial friend who was still coursing with a bit of electricity, "He's an old friend of mine from Brazil. His name is James Blanka, but I just call him Jimmy."

He didn't look like a Jimmy. He was definitely going to be called a Blanka instead... whatever that was supposed to be.

Well at least he was on Naruto's side.

Blanka then turned towards Naruto and got Naruto to tilt his head quizzically as the two stared at each other, both in curiousity for differing reasons. Eventually Blanka pointed up a clawed finger at Naruto and abruptly stood up to full height, alarming Naruto, "You're that man from the television! That Naruto person!"

Dan palmed his face hard as Blanka seemed legitimately excited to meet someone he'd known about from TV. Well that killed the whole feral human vibe that he'd had going for him beforehand.

"I'm on TV? Again?" Naruto asked aloud, not understanding the reference due to having not seen a television set in well over a month at least, "That is awesome. I wasn't even trying this time."

"Yeah." Blanka continued excitedly, "You were supposed to fight someone tonight at the arena, but you didn't show up. What Dan told me about you is true I guess."

Killing intent radiated off of Naruto's body as Dan took a few steps away from the glaring blue-eyed blonde boy, "Jsut what were you telling him about me again Dan? Go ahead. I love to hear what other people that I've beaten up have to say about me. And how does he speak good Japanese if he's from Brazil?"

"We met years ago, long story." Dan quickly said before pointing out at Mad Gear because he desperately needed to change the subject, "Look! Enemies! Angry, angry enemies!" He breathed a sigh of relief when Naruto started ignoring him so that he could begin tearing into the enemies himself. Blanka got fired up from watching Naruto kick their asses and quickly jumped in himself to get a piece of the action, "Whew..."

XxX

(Elsewhere in Aohura City)

Several attacking gang members stood surrounding one person in particular; a person wearing a complete black and red leather motorcycle outfit. With the spikes on the outfit and the skull design on the helmet, it was a rather intimidating sight. At least it would have been had the person wearing it not have been so diminutive in size and stature.

That apparently meant nothing though, mostly because throughout the streets and sidewalks of the area there were dozens of Mad Gear members strewn about with varying degrees of injuries adorning their persons.

"Who the hell is this? How'd we miss recruiting this guy?"

Hearing that they seemed to wish to recruit the biker only made the leather-clad figure angry, "Senshuubu (Cyclone Dance)!" A blinding quick series of wide spinning kicks knocked the surrounding militia members off of the solo biker who once again settled in and prepared for even more to come in to attack at once, "You think you could actually get me to join you after what you did to my brother and my friends?" The biker asked in a clearly disguised voice trying to sound like a male, "Who put Kazama Daigo in the hospital?"

This time, shoring up their forces in a wall of twenty to charge the vengeful biker down, every weapon-wielding Mad Gear militia member rushed at once, "You can ask him yourself when we put you there!"

"Kazama Daigo only has one sibling; a sister named Akira! It's just a girl so finish her off!"

"Chidori Senbon (One Thousand Birds Senbon)."

From behind, the attacking gang members were electrocuted and fell like waves of wheat being cut down to reveal Sasuke standing behind them holding up his one hand surging with blue electricity, "You small fries busted the windows to my shop." He said, sounding a bit perturbed that he'd have to have more work done on Gen's restaurant. He then lowered his hand when he saw that the biker was the last person standing, "Are you alright?"

"I didn't need any help to beat them."

"Whatever. Don't look like such a vulnerable lady next time then." Sasuke said as he turned away. He hadn't planned on doing anything else to Mad Gear tonight, but they messed with his shop and that pissed him off. The ungrateful chick dressing in biker gear like a dude wasn't helping his mood either, "You should take that helmet off when you fight. You'd be able to see better."

"Who are you?" Akira asked him, still trying to sound tough behind her helmet as she treated Sasuke as potentially hostile, "Do you know what happened to my brother? You should answer wisely."

"Or you'll do what exactly?" In response to him, Akira took off the chain around her waist and prepared to use it to fight, "Tch... why does everyone in this town try to act like a badass?" He could see why Naruto liked living there if that were the case. It always gave him something to do it seemed, but right now he had to do his part and keep the Mad Gear fools from tearing up the heart of town, "I don't have time for this. If you're so dead set on fighting these people then keep up because I'm not slowing down."

Akira nodded from beneath her helmet as Sasuke took to a low lying rooftop. She stowed her chain belt back around her waist before running into a nearby alley and a moment later an engine revved as she raced out on a black racing bike to begin following Sasuke's path on the street. At least he was considerate enough to stay in sight for her on the edge of the rooftops.

The antisocial ninja hoped that this Akira girl was at least a decent fighter. He didn't need anyone getting in his way and slowing him down.

That bike was fast enough that the slowing down thing probably wasn't going to be a problem at least.

XxX

(Aohura Super Arena – Batsu vs. Hugo)

The crowd roared in interested approval as Batsu remained perched on the top turnbuckle just staring Hugo down. While he wasn't as intimidated to fight any longer he still wasn't going to be fool enough to leap right at an eight foot human being.

"Suiseikero (Comet Kick)!"

Maybe he was.

Springing off of the ropes to get higher in the air, Batsu flipped and shot a hard diving kick right at Hugo that bounced off of his upper chest, not driving him back a step. Taking advantage of his speed, Batsu dodged a giant punch that smashed off of the ring canvas and ran off of the ropes before shooting off of them at Hugo for another kick that hit Hugo in the belly. His muscular stomach shook from the impact, but other than that there was nothing.

"You can hit me all you want to." Hugo said with a grin on his face as he looked down at the diminutive Batsu, "There's no way someone like you is knocking me down. So come on. Keep trying." The massive wrestler had no issues with taking as many of Batsu's attacks as he could land if they all felt like that. Eventually he'd screw up and Hugo would be able to squash him. There wasn't anything he could do that would actually hurt him.

Bristling at first at the comment, Batsu managed to calm himself down. If he was going to get some free shots in he was going to make them count at least, "Alright then. Kiaidan (Guts Bullet)!" Forming a tangible amount of ki in one hand, Batsu projected it forward by punching it with his other. The attack flew forth and exploded off of Hugo's head with enough of a boom to make the crowd 'oh' at the sight of it.

Hugo actually stumbled back several steps into the ropes but remained upright as smoke continued to conceal his facial features. Poison meanwhile jumped up on the apron and started smacking Hugo's arm with her riding whip as if she were chiding a small child, "Hugo you don't let ki users launch their attacks at your head! That's just stupid okay?"

The smoke cleared from around his face to show nothing more than few singes and bruises from the blast, "Okay Poison." Hugo agreed before turning his attention back to Batsu, now with a more sadistic look on his face, "Sorry, but I'm gonna have to kill you now."

Batsu was ready to dodge another crushing lunge from Hugo, but the man lifted his leg and stomped on the ring canvas several times, causing the ring to shake violently as if it were in the midst of an earthquake. His balance was horrendously disrupted by the bouncing surface he stood on and that left him wide open even for his slow-moving adversary.

"Ultra Throw!" Hugo grabbed Batsu by his neck and spun around in a 360 before hurling him away towards the ropes. Batsu hit them and bounced off before flying back towards Hugo who was ready and waiting with his arms drawn back and wide open, "Giant Palm Bomber!" He then clapped his hands together and smashed the incoming Batsu in between them.

The young delinquent student hit the ground on his stomach and let out a groan of pain as he landed near the ropes by his own group of present friends; Sakura, Cammy, and Karin, "Oh..." He continued to moan in pain, "That sucked just as much as I thought it would."

"Are you alright?" Sakura asked, holding onto the bottom rope tightly out of concern for what was going on, "How are you feeling?"

Batsu slowly started moving up to his hands and knees to try and get back up despite the pain plaguing his extremities, "Do you know how when you were a kid you'd grab a fistful of playdoh and just squeeze it in your hand? That's kind of how I feel right now, and I-. Oh crap!" He was grabbed by his leg before he could stand back up and was whipped through the air only to be slammed on the other side of the ring in Hugo's corner, "...Ow."

"How ya feeling there kid?" Poison, standing just outside of the ring, asked him with a grin at seeing the pain in Hugo's opponent for the evening.

Batsu raised his head just enough to look right at the pink-haired menace and give her a once over from up close, "A nurse's outfit on you would be appropriate right now. That answers your question doesn't it?"

Far from being offended, Poison just laughed a bit at his expense, "Yeah it does, thanks. Hugo?"

This time Batsu held on to the edge of the ring when Hugo tried to pull him up, reaching and clawing for whatever he could get a hold of. His hands grabbed the ring apron itself and Hugo's strenght tore the tough fabric apart as if it were tissue paper as he hoisted Batsu into the air again.

Before Hugo could move around to slam him, Batsu dropped the ring apron fabric over the giant's head and robbed him of his ability to see. In his sudden panic at losing his vision, Hugo let Batsu go. A bad move, as Batsu maneuvered his body around Hugo's and got into a position to tuck the apron ends tightly into Hugo's pink leopard-skin singlet and the belt of his pink pants.

As the man stumbled around the ring trying to find a place to claw the apron out of his clothes, Batsu quickly turned towards his 'corner' with a request, "Give me a chair!" He asked the girls.

"A chair?" Karin asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion, "Of all of the objects that you could ask to use you chose to ask for a folding chair?"

"Why not?" Batsu asked, gesturing to the crowd, "They're everywhere. And if it was Naruto he would have just taken off your shoe by now without you noticing so he could throw it. Now give me a goddamn chair!" He finished in a snapping tone of voice.

Ever on the ball, Cammy had already retrieved one from the front row and threw it in the ring for Batsu to catch. After feeling the steel in his hand he immediately turned around and swung it overhead to hit Hugo on the top of the skull, and it barely got that high at all. Still, the sound of steel on flesh and bone echoed out with a crack, but Hugo sold it as if he had only been punched.

Batsu backed off a few steps and looked at the dent in the seat of the chair the size of Hugo's head before sighing and charging in with a battle cry to begin wailing on the big man again and again.

"Our lives are like hell... every day." Sakura said her face in her crossed arms, set on the edge of the ring. The sounds of Batsu trying to beat the crap out of the blinded Hugo and the crowd's corresponding response to such with each shot that landed could be heard in the background, "Just go down already you big bastard!" She shouted, lifting her head off of the mat.

Now there was an idea. Batsu switched his strategy up from trying to aim at Hugo's hard to hit head and lowered his shot, swinging at Hugo's legs. He hit paydirt so to speak when after the smack of steel rang out, Hugo dropped to one knee. Eyes shining with the advantage presented to him, Batsu hit Hugo in the back of the other leg to bring him down to two knees.

Even on his knees Hugo was still taller than Batsu, and the chair was all bent up and useless, thus Batsu stood right in front of him and began punching away at his canvas-covered face with left and rights, 'When does this fight stop? God, I'm punching myself out here.' But Hugo's face had to be beaten to a fine hash beneath that ring apron on his head.

Speaking of being punched out, Hugo was finally able to pinpoint Batsu's location and lashed out with a punch that actually countered Batsu's own barrage and knocked the young man back and onto the ground once more, almost out of the ring entirely.

Finally able to rip the glorified sheet out of his clothing and off of his head, Hugo's face was sporting several more bruises and cuts, but he didn't seem to be very glassy-eyed in the least, "Hey." Hugo said, rubbing a few bumps on his head from where Batsu had been repeatedly cracking him, "Using a chair is illegal. That's a disqualification, right?" He said as he walked over to the warped chair and bent it into a ball before hurling it away into the crowd.

"There's no DQ Hugo." Poison told him informatively, "This fight doesn't have any rules like that. It goes until he quits or until he just doesn't move anymore. So do as you please." The massive man nodded in understanding as he saw Batsu get up once again, "…Damn it he's tough though."

Once again leaning with his back against the bottom rope on the other side of the ring, Batsu waited to get the coppery taste of his own blood out of his mouth via spitting it to the side before pulling himself to his feet.

Wincing at the blood staining his lip, Batsu started generating more ki in his one hand before preparing to punch it with the other, "Kiaidan (Guts Bullet)!" He began firing shot after shot that blasted Hugo, but he just kept plodding forward, "Hit the mat and stay down motherfucker!" He shouted over the crowd and the blasts as he continued to throw shots, 'This is impossible! What does it take?'

With every shot, Hugo took a step forward and Batsu wasn't looking to dodge. He was effectively cornering himself in the ring, and he didn't even look to bailing out altogether as an option. This was not the time to get into a pissing contest with his opponent and it was driving Karin and Sakura crazy that he could be so hardheaded.

"There are no rules right?"

Both Sakura and Karin looked towards Cammy who had her eyes locked firmly on the fight at hand, "What was that Cammy?" Sakura asked to get the former Doll to repeat herself.

"Other than how the fight can end, by out of the ring count out or by completely debilitating the enemy, there's no chance of this fight being cancelled under any other circumstances, correct?" Cammy queried aloud. And it seemed to be so since they had tossed Batsu a tool to bludgeon Hugo with only moments ago, "He can't be disqualified so why don't we-?"

'I knew eventually someone would think of that.' Poison thought to herself. Cammy was about to tell her friends that they could interfere on Batsu's behalf and help him fight. But instead being worried or angered by the intended treachery, Poison had some of her own planned. Pulling out a small controller with a smirk, she hit the button on it and the sound of metal sliding erupted from the rafters.

From the shadows above, a large cage fell around the ring with a crash, almost crushing the three girls had they not managed to dodge it before it hit the ground. It was comprised of solid steel bars on all sides up to three stories off of the ground, and even on the roof itself. There was no door, nothing. No way in and no way out.

The first to get back up from the ringside floor was Sakura who immediately tried to test the give of the cage. There was none to be had. She wasn't going to be tearing it down, "What's this?"

"You didn't think I'd just let you gang up on Hugo did you?" Poison asked, standing on the top of the cage near the edge as she looked down on the three girls while Batsu continued his battle with Hugo on the inside, "Remember, this fight was originally intended for Uzumaki, and everyone and their grandmother knows that he cheats and makes copies of himself. This was meant to keep him from doing too much of either."

It was also an even greater advantage for Hugo than the ring by itself would have provided, making it far easier for him to trap an enemy. From bad to worse seemed to be the order of the evening.

"Ishizaki!" At her order, Karin was thrown to the top of the cage in one move by her huge butler and landed gracefully on the roof of it along with Poison, "You conveniently left this little stipulation to the contest out of our earlier negotiations."

"Oh I did didn't I?" Poison replied sarcastically, "Well those negotiations were for a fight with Uzumaki. He never showed up and we got a completely different headlining matchup, so that left things with a clean slate." She then started laughing, "Oh, I'm so full of shit… the fact of the matter is that I changed the rules because I can. And the question is, what exactly are any of you going to do about it?"

With a sigh, Karin reached for her brown fighting gloves and pulled them onto her hands as if it were a chore to do so, "Well I cannot in all good conscience allow such a slight against me to be left unchecked. A blatant manipulation of the fighting venue the way you have done with this cage, it is an insult to me as a manager/promoter… even if I care next to nothing about the man currently in the cage. He is not in my employ."

"Fuck you too princess!" Batsu shouted, gathering more ki for a Guts Bullet to keep on holding Hugo back. He had to dodge a quick dive from Hugo to tackle and grab him lest he find his night ended, "Oi! Screw off!"

Poison started laughing at Karin, pointing at the heiress haughtily as she began to stretch, "Really? You want to fight me? Aww, that's so cute, but I think someone's a little out of their element tonight."

"We shall see." Karin said with a smirk before standing up and getting into her self-developed fighting stance, "But the worst I will ever be in comparison to anyone else is the best. The day a harlot such as you defeats me… ah, I cannot even fathom."

So the little girl really did want to fight? Well that was just fine with Poison too. Even though she fancied herself Hugo's manager she had been known for kicking quite a bit of ass before she took the role. Below she noticed Sakura and Cammy trying to make their way to Ishizaki to try and get him to throw them up there too, "Ah, ah, ah… not tonight ladies. Could someone out there please help me from being ganged up on?" She asked with a feigned pitiful lisp.

Upon doling out the command, men ran from the back and even some of the men that had been on the crew for the television broadcasting process took off their headsets and stormed the ringside area to stop Cammy and Sakura. In order to protect Ishizaki the two girls had to begin fighting the Mad Gear lackeys instead, leaving Karin alone on the top of the cage with Poison and Batsu alone inside of the cage with Hugo.

"You think I need their help to fight you?" Karin asked with a curious smirk on her face. It didn't matter to her whether or not she had the assistance from her friends or not. She trained herself from a young age to be able to defeat any enemy on her own, "Ha, I can see why Naruto-san resents being underestimated so much." Her eyes then hardened treacherously on Poison's frame, "It is incredibly annoying."

Poison rolled her eyes but with barely indication as to her intentions she hurled a pair of metal handcuffs at Karin from a place on her hip. Karin leaned out of the way of the projectile cuffs but when she turned back to Poison, the woman was right in front of her and struck her right across the face with her riding whip, knocking her to the surface of the cage room.

Blood trickled down through the bars and dripped down onto the ring canvas as Karin lay face down and Poison bounced her whip in her hand as she walked paces around the top of the steel cage, playing to the crowd, "What happened to all of that tough talk? You're not so haughty anymore are you? All the money in the world isn't going to stop me from kicking your ass sweetie!" She taunted.

Still, Karin didn't move to stand. Her hands balled up into fists by her head and began to shake, "My face." She muttered quietly.

"What was that sweetheart?" Poison asked, placing a hand by her ear to continue punking Karin out further, "I didn't hear that from where your nose was in the steel."

"My face!" Jumping up quicker than Poison was prepared for, she was caught mostly unaware when Karin angrily assaulted her with three lightning quick power punches using only one arm to land them, "Guren Ken (Crimson Lotus Fist)!" The third one sent Poison rolling all along the roof of the cage until she reached the other side and had to hold on to keep from falling off.

Grunting in effort as she pulled herself back up, Poison stood back up, ready to continue fighting, but surprised at the sudden devastating offense from her aristocratic adversary, 'Where in the hell did that come from?' She had no time to wonder as killing intent warned her to duck a swinging overhead kick that probably would have taken her head off. That didn't let her avoid three back elbow strikes to the same point in her ribs that took her breath away and knocked her away again.

"Ressen Chou!" After finishing her attack that probably shattered a rib or two, Karin sneered at Poison and touched at the thin wound on her face from Poison's whip strike, "You wounded my face you tawdry courtesan! If this scars I will make your life a living hell!"

Yes she had been in many, many street fights, but even when she lost to people like Naruto or Sakura they never used weapons on her face… just their fists and feet. Bumps and bruises faded, but open wounds were a little more unpredictable.

Poison had taken more than enough of being beaten on by some snooty little noble girl and got up with a growl, ignoring the throbbing pain of her busted ribs, "Grr… Poison Kiss!" She blew a kiss Karin's way and a heart-shaped ki attack flew her way in an unpredictable wave path.

'She's that kind of ki user?' Karin was officially out of blind rage mode and was back in the analytic pugilist mode. She couldn't use ki, so if Poison could, even for such a gaudy attack, it was a marked advantage that she had.

The difficulty in gauging the path of the attack's travel resulted in it actually hitting Karin, but instead of hurting her the way a Hadoken would have it threw off of her balance and dizzied her significantly.

Try as she might, she was unable to target and land any punches against the incoming Poison who jumped up and wrapped her legs around the front of Karin's head before bending back and using force to drive the top of the blonde girl's head into the top of the cage with a clang, "Poison-Rana!" Poison cackled aloud and got up before cartwheeling away from her downed foe, "Sorry honey. Why don't you have your chauffer drive you to the hospital now?" She said as she moved to walk away.

"Because I am not that injured."

The pink haired baddie turned around again and saw Karin, standing and primping her hair back into place. She had a few bruises on her and the slash mark still on her cheek, but otherwise looked perfectly fine for someone that had been dropped right on the top of her head.

"You shouldn't still be conscious." Poison insisted, wondering why these pests of runts were so tough. Batsu was still down in the cage avoiding Hugo like a champ, Cammy and Sakura were absolutely destroying the hordes of dozens of Mad Gear fighters on the floor, and Karin had just shrugged off a Frankensteiner that would have broken nearly anyone else's neck.

Karin continued to dust herself off idly, "Do you know why I am Naruto-san's manager? It is because I aspire to defeat the strongest fighter in the world and prove my own skill as the best one day. I saw him, I saw all of his potential, and I will make him realize it so that I can prove myself as his better." Karin's brown eyes panned up towards Poison for just a moment at that point, "I need to prove this to myself and to him. And you aren't on the level of fighter that it would require to defeat me."

Angry at yet another verbal slight from this pretentious little entitled rich girl, Poison launched herself into the air and nearly got herself caught into the lights before diving down with a flipping axe kick. It looked as though it would land, but Karin seemingly blurred from sight and Poison had to cancel her move.

She was already open to a counter attack though from her back. Poison almost bent backwards due to the fist buried right at her lower back. Karin wanted her to know just what kind of trouble she had gotten herself into. With both of her hands glowing with lavender ki, Karin started hammering away with blurrily fast punches that drove Poison steadily toward the edge of the cage.

An uppercut to the back lifted Poison off of the ground just enough for Karin to high-kick her away as if she were a can-can dancer, sending Poison flying into the cheap seats of the audience, "Kanzuki-ryuu Shinpikaibyaku! You are _not_ in my league!"

Even with his own fight going on, Hugo couldn't help but bear witness to watching his friend and advisor being sent hurling through the air, defeated by the blonde in the red school uniform standing above the structure that contained him, "Poison!" An angered Hugo grabbed the bars of the cage and began shaking it. What seemed like an impossible task actually seemed to be occurring as he was able to shake it and knock an off-balance Karin onto her backside, "RAAAGHHH!"

"Shut up!" Batsu shouted at Hugo, landing a diving Comet Kick to the back of his head that smashed him face first right into the metal of the cage, "Don't pick fights if you don't like the results!"

As Batsu landed an angry Hugo turned around with blood streaming from his forehead and charged, quickly grabbing his enemy by the face with one hand, "Meat Squasher!" He ran with Batsu towards the opposite cage wall as hard and as fast as he could, and let him go only so that he could use his entire bulky mass to splash him against the solid iron bars like a pancake.

At the sound of the deafening clang Sakura and Cammy stopped finishing off the remainder of Mad Gear miltia members outside, and Karin could only peer down into the cage from her place above.

The tan, spiky-haired high school delinquent went limp and fell onto his face down onto the mat, not moving an inch. Not even his fingers twitched.

Hugo stood over him until it was clear that he wasn't getting up again, and turned to the crowd with a grand roar of victory. The people of course roared in approval of the decisive finish, but amongst the three girls that had undertaken to handle the crisis that evening there was nothing to cheer about.

One of their good friends happened to be lying in that ring, within that cage. And the worst was feared. There wasn't even any way to get inside to check on him and see if he was even still breathing. Hugo had to have obliterated the entire core of his body.

Looking over to the imposing bearded, white-haired figure that was struck by Batsu's father Raizo, Sakura ran over to him as he stood with his arms crossed, "Principle Imawano, do something! Batsu's your son! I know you haven't been in his family since he was born but you've got to make sure he doesn't-!"

"Don't be such a damn fool girl." Raizo snapped, cutting Sakura's plea to help Batsu off before it could conclude, "I made sure he felt far worse than that when he trained with me. I had to in order to teach him what he needed to know. Look at him."

Adhering to the elder's words, Cammy scrutinized Batsu's form and widened her eyes at what she saw, 'How could I not have noticed such a thing before?' Batsu had large scars that looked like they had come from debilitating wounds on his shoulders and arms. Not only that, but underneath the sleeveless mesh shirt he wore into the fight she could see more similar injuries on his torso. She had never seen him without his school uniform top on, but she was certain that those were new.

"I tormented that boy so that something like this wouldn't keep him down." Raizo said, his lips turning to a grim smile as he saw Batsu begin to pull himself up, "Don't you get it? You had better ensure that his heart stops beating completely if you wish to kill him like that. So burn on brat…"

Batsu's body began radiating fiery orange ki as he got back up and glared at a disbelieving Hugo, "What's the matter big guy?" Batsu asked with an angry sneer, "You look like you've seen a ghost or something."

Though he was unable to voice it, Hugo was completely beside himself. No one he had ever hit as consistently as he had hit Batsu had ever gotten up. But here this young seventeen year old man stood and he just kept coming back for more.

When Hugo hit something it broke. When he threw something it sailed through the air out of sight. When he squashed something he crushed it. It was that simple, and it always had been, "What are you made of?"

"It's not what I'm made of that's important man… it's more than that." Batsu said softly as he began forming hard orange ki in both of his hands that looked far more unstable than his normal amount that he created, "Don't you get it by now? You can shoot me, you can stab me, you can throw me off of a cliff, you can burn me, you can run me over with a goddamn dump truck… but you can't KILL ME! Nekketsu Zenkai Kiaidan (Burning Super Guts Bullet)!"

A massive blast erupted from Batsu's hands and Hugo could only cover up as it hit him and exploded, blowing away everything inside of the cage and causing the walls of the cage itself to fall down, causing a huge panic amongst the front rows of people that quickly fled lest they be crushed and injured.

Smoke engulfed the entire ring due to how the cage contained most of the damaging effects done by the explosive ki attack. When it cleared, the roof of the cage had landed on the ring that had been beneath it. An injured looking Karin lay on top of the cage but quickly crawled to the edge and got up onto her own two feet, disoriented though she was.

Holding her head, she realized she was the closest person to ground zero of Batsu's finishing attack and turned around to find that the cage ceiling that she had just been sitting on was now pinning Hugo to the mat, making it so that he couldn't move an inch… not that he was conscious to do so anyway. From the blood coming from his head, and the droning moan coming from his mouth he had been knocked senseless.

There were also small flames adorning his person and lasting burn marks from Batsu's final Guts Bullet. Good on him for that one.

"Oh man…" Batsu stood up from where he had been blown away into the fifth row of the crowd, a dozen steel chairs having 'cushioned' his fall, "Ugh… damn it old man… you and your stupid Seiki o Nenshou (Burning Vigor) technique."

The arena had cleared out as if someone had turned on the lights in an apartment full of cockroaches. The only remaining people were the last few dregs of Mad Gear cronies tugging their defeated friends away, as well as Cammy, Sakura, and Raizo. The two girls that hadn't been directly involved in the major fighting had actually ducked behind Raizo when the cage had come down, "Burning Vigor?"

"The men of my family have a lot of anger." Raizo explained. And he had a point. Batsu was rude, hotheaded, confrontational, all of that, "It makes us stronger and more physically able than others. Most of us are unable to really channel it intelligently and a lot of us have ended up in jail or dead because of it. If the boy was anything like me he'd have been the same, and I was correct. So I simply taught him how to use it without fighting like a berserker."

"It was that simple?" Cammy asked, interested in studying a new fighting technique like that, especially since it belonged to a friend.

A dark chuckle left Raizo and both girls took a few steps back from the scary man in turn, "Simple… you could say that. Inflicting enough brutality on him to drive him past the brink the first time was rather simple. It took forever though." With nothing more to say to the young ladies, he jumped into the air and landed behind his quite startled son before picking him up and throwing him over his shoulder, "Now let's get you back to your mother's place. She's probably worried sick after watching all of that."

"Wha-?" Batsu sputtered as Raizo started carrying him away, his arms pinned in such a way that he couldn't use them to force himself free from his large and muscular father, "Old man come on! I just won! Let me bask in the afterglow of the victory at least! Gah, I'll throw up blood on you if you don't let me go! Hey!"

XxX

(Downtown Aohura City - Penthouse Suite)

Rolento stared out as far as he could see into the nighttime cityscape from the window available to him. Sodom had already reported back that his forces had met with resistance in two particular areas. Both against the assassin from China and from Uzumaki Naruto who had revealed himself while his friends defeated Hugo and Poison in the arena.

Things were too far along for them to stop now though. The jackals were nipping at his heels, but the finish line was right there within reach, 'By tomorrow night at midnight this country will be on the path to change. It will set an example for the rest of the world to follow and the dominoes will begin to fall one by one.'

Let Uzumaki Naruto, let the dark-haired assassin, let Kanzuki Karin, Kasugano Sakura, Hibiki Dan…. Let them and anyone else that felt the need to involve themselves all run around in the dark if they chose to play stand up against Mad Gear. In just over twenty-four hours he'd gladly welcome them to try and stop him and his organizational ambitions.

It was already written on the wall, plans were in motion, and tomorrow night it would all begin again.

The scar-faced man smirked at his own partial reflection in the mirror as he could see the smoke rising from some points of anarchy within the city. Just as he expected, this inferior government was all but useless to help. So easy to bribe and sideline. Not his utopia.

Mad Gear's utopia would influence the common folk who would join en masse once they saw how effective his military rule of order and discipline would be.

Whoever said that people with ambitions never acted on them?

XxX

(Streets of Aohura City – With Naruto)

"WAAAAAGHHH!" A Mad Gear gang member screamed at the top of his lungs as he took a long fall from the roof of a fifty foot building only to be stopped short of hitting the ground via a cable around his leg holding him upside down. He was still whimpering even as he was pulled back up by what turned out to be a pair of Naruto clones.

The real Naruto stood off to the side, leaning against the stairwell back down the building. While Dan, Blanka, and the Saikyou-ryuu students (mostly Blanka though) cleared the streets, Naruto had managed to snatch one of the gang members from the 'battlefield' for interrogation purposes.

While he had absolutely no experience in working over enemies to get information out of them and he hated making even enemies suffer, Naruto knew for certain that he could scare the information out of his unlucky captive.

His clones threw the man over again and once more caught him closer to the ground before pulling him up halfway and just holding him there, "You know your head's gonna pop off if you stay like that."

"Please God no! Just let me go!"

"Give me a location and I will. Tell me where Rolento is." Naruto reasoned, staring over the edge of the building with a dry look on his face as the man continued to whimper in fear of falling. He stayed silent though. In response, Naruto made sure that the man could see both of his clones from where he was hanging. With a snap of his fingers one clone dispelled in a puff of smoke and he fell part way down until the other clone picked up the slack and caught him, "One more chance or we're going to see how flexible your neck is. I think you'll survive personally."

"No way Boss." Naruto's clone argued in return, "He's not us, he's just some guy that got a stun baton put in his hands. His neck would snap like a toothpick. Personally I'd be more worried about his skull cracking like an egg though."

"Alright, alright!" People that were unaccustomed to facing down death were quite afraid of it. Rolento's grand militia built up to take down Japan's government didn't have a scrap of heart because they were just mostly disgruntled civilians that wanted to be tough guys. The group mentality made them strong, but get them alone and show them that they weren't worth the weapons they put in their hands and they'd crack.

Naruto and his clone looked at each other, both shaking their heads as the clone pulled the man up, "If you think you're safe just because I'm pulling you up before you tell me what I want let me say that it's not like I can't chuck you off the roof again when I find out you lied to me."

After being returned to the roof, the Mad Gear member hugged it as if it were his mother. Upon looking up though, he realized the threat of Uzumaki Naruto was very real. He was crazy just like everyone had been saying. Why did he have to join a group that purposefully made this guy an enemy again?

"Any day now." Naruto said, tapping his foot on the ground impatiently. He held up the cable that was still tied to the man's legs, "I guess we have to ghetto bungee jump again don't we?"

"No, no, no, it's alright!" Backing away from Naruto was redundant when his clone was standing right behind him, "Rolento… Boss Rolento… he's… I don't know." He then found himself picked up by the back of his collar as Naruto's clone started carrying him to the edge of the roof again, "No! I swear I don't know what to tell you! Only an officer in the militia could tell you where he is! I'm just a private!"

Bullshit, because Naruto wasn't idiot enough to not be able to distinguish military emblems, including the one on the sleeve of his captive. That was a higher ranking than private, "And now you're gonna be promoted to 'stain' for lying to me." Naruto's clone quipped, "Geronimo motherfu-."

"Something big is happening tomorrow night, that's all I know!" The Mad Gear officer said, "It's almost time for the revolution! That's what we've been told!"

Naruto scoffed and his clone dropped the man back onto the roof, "Revolution my ass. You can barely gain any ground in Aohura City. What revolution are the lot of you going to pull?"

"You think it's this hard to get a foothold on towns everywhere else?" The soldier said as he continued to squirm for distance from Naruto and Naruto-clone, "No other Mad Gear division anywhere else in Japan has to deal with you super-strong bastards. Everywhere else our people are ready to go. We've been using your town like a training exercise for the members with real potential."

"You don't have any guns."

At that a few chuckles came from Naruto's captive. He didn't like the sound of that at all. That guy should have had nothing to laugh about. Period.

A hand rested on the man's shoulder that got him to stop laughing. Looking up he saw Naruto with a pretty serious look on his face, "I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that you're going to be spending the night at my place. I've got a pretty girl as my roommate and there's a cat running around the place now; it's great. The bad news is I need some more information out of you… so it's going to be a long night."

All the man could do was whimper as Naruto dragged him off and started hopping on rooftops on the way back to his apartment.

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: James "Jimmy" Blanka  
><span>Nationality:<span> Brazil  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 23 (Birthday: February 12)  
><span>HeightWeight: 6'3/217 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> B  
><span>Likes:<span> Arapaima fish, tropical fruit, the color green, Dan Hibiki.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Army ants, people who wear masks.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Hunting, generating electricity.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Self-taught savage fighting/electricity.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Ataque de Rolamento (Rolling Attack), Rolo Retroceda (Backstep Roll), Cilindro Vertical (Vertical Roll), Elétrico Trovão (Electric Thunder).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Aterre Barba Rolo (Ground Shave Roll), Relâmpago Bala de Canhão (Lightning Cannonball), Gritar de Terra (Shout of Earth).  
><span>Background:<span> As a child, Blanka was separated from his mother in a plane crash that left him stranded inside of the jungles of Brazil where he taught himself how to fight and survive for well over fifteen years. Sometime during his teenage years he saved Dan Hibiki from dying in the middle of the jungles that the man chose to explore during his wandering training years and struck up a friendship with the man. His skin is green due to his overuse of the chlorophyll of plants on his body to camouflage himself and the method that he used to develop his electrical abilities is a mystery. He is a jungle man not used to civilization, but he acquired a taste for street fighting that forced him to venture to cities to curb his desire to fight. He chose to come back to Japan with Dan after the two of them reunited in Brazil during one of the man's trips to South America.

* * *

><p><strong>Welp check it out folks… I get home from a day of class and then work and what do I find waiting for me upon my evening return? I'm sure you know already if you've been here in the last 24 hours.<strong>

**I just had to spend 20 minutes going back through my other stories and taking out the lemon portions of them due to several received warnings that I had to do so or suffer via getting kicked from the site. That was **_**seriously**_** annoying to have to do, but what can I do? I've got to play by the rules. I'm black. I can't pretend that I don't know the law even if I really don't.**

**Thank God I had most of them backed up or I'd probably be screwed in the very near future. Forced into 'retirement' as it were.**

**Not really, but I'm still lucky (or obsessive) that I kept backups of all of my stuff from day one so that I could do some quick editing and replacing. I think I'm good to go as far as that goes, but man… some people are going to get screwed right to the wall if this actually goes down and people get blasted for lemons that tie into their stories. That's a damn shame. Authors that I'd like to call colleagues in some form too; guys like pokemaster12, etc. **

**Shit dude…**

**This could all be some big Orange Alert terror scare, but in the instance that it isn't it's pretty sucky. I mean, you'd have to be one badass site manager to actually go through EVERY STORY RATED M and actually do this. Or maybe it's simpler than that. I don't know.**

**I think it would be way easier to… I don't know, put in another rating for stories past M, but then again it's probably a personal choice to not do so seeing as how a yaoi filter never took form on this site either. Again, I don't know.  
><strong>

**I admittedly don't really know much of anything outside of how to shoot a television newscast, edit television shows in-studio, or kill a grown man in thirty seconds with my bare hands.**

**Good luck to my fellow peepular scribes that need it in such a dark hour. If push really comes to shove around here I hope that I could take my talents to South Beach.**

**I'm very sure that I'm not going anywhere, but in case this is the last run it's been a hell of a ride folks.  
><strong>

**Kenchi out.**


	25. Calamitous Intent

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. Every day someone's got to pay… on the mean streets of Greenwich, Connecticut.

**Chapter 25: Calamitous Intent**

* * *

><p>The next morning after the devastating previous night, Naruto dressed in orange cargo shorts and a black t-shirt with a leaf on the front and his clan spiral mark along with his name on the back stood in his very quiet kitchen in front of a dozen dark colored bottles filled with some kind of liquid with rags sticking out of the tops of them. A yawn escaped his mouth as he had been up for the vast majority of the night interrogating their friend for all he could tell them about what exactly the endgame for Mad Gear just so happened to be.<p>

Still, he was unable to get the location of Mad Gear's weapons cache out of the man. They had to have a pretty significant stash of weaponry, because when Naruto brought it up the night before on the rooftop the man just started laughing like he knew something that Naruto didn't.

Well in the middle of the night he tagged out interrogation duties with Cammy after she got home from her rather long evening at the arena downtown. If Cammy's direct method of interrogation didn't break the fool then a little good cop/bad cop routine would probably work after Cammy was through with him.

…The poor bastard.

It needed to be stated again because it bore repeating; Cammy was a sweet girl. She meant well. She was a little stiff, but it didn't really take much to loosen her up and she was a smart little thing. That being said she had very little tact and knowledge of what was supposed to be appropriate, and unless something drastic had changed in the two days that Naruto hadn't seen her he didn't think that would have changed.

So until then, he was preparing for the inevitable big blowout of a battle that was going to occur. Hopefully it could be controlled… by someone… because he definitely wasn't going to try to. He was running enough damage control by trying to find a way to put an end to all of this Mad Gear crap, he didn't need to be responsible for policing himself too. There were other people that cared about that who could do such a thing.

And speak of the devil, one of them unlocked Naruto's door with the key that had been presented to her years ago and walked right inside and removed her shoes at the entrance. Sakura, wearing a white jacket with red trim and a short pair of red shorts as was her summer attire.

"The next time you decide to blow town the day you wake up from a coma you could at least stop by first and tell me. It's three blocks." Sakura chided as she shut his door behind her and moved across the room to his kitchen, "…Just up and leave for two days into the mountains to play ninja games with Ibuki-chan." She muttered as Naruto turned around and met Sakura with a hug, "You jerk." She mumbled through the fabric of his shirt where she buried her face.

Naruto tried his best not to laugh as he rubbed her back through the hug, "I'm sorry. I just had to get out and do something, anything. Did you have a long night?" He was unable to prevent a snicker when a muffled 'Mh-hm' from his best friend told him all he needed to know, "Cam told me what happened. I had one too you know, just not one that got me on TV this time. The arcade district got wrecked last night, and a few other places too."

"The news didn't come on last night because of the fight broadcast." Sakura informed Naruto, pulling away from the mutual hug with a frown marring her pretty face, "No one outside of town knows about it Naruto. Neither does anyone that doesn't live in those areas."

Nobody lived in the arcade district. Very few people lived around the high school that Naruto went to. And the people that had caused the havoc the night before were all gone. Fuck, Mad Gear knew what they were doing. It wasn't just some short-sighted random act of mob violence after all. It had been a last ditch effort hunt to take down the potential enemies of the organization before whatever was supposed to be happening tonight, and the major event at the arena disguised it from the rest of Japan's view.

All of the town's spots where notable figures were known to be had been hit. The areas of the high schools with notably strong students, the arcade district where lots of people hung out even with many of the shops closed… it was intentional targeting. Casting a wide net on exactly who was left to take down.

So was Naruto supposed to be a target, or just a distraction to get to the real targets? If he had gone to the arena and if he had fought Hugo instead of street-sweeping like he wound up doing, the Saikyou-ryuu students wouldn't have lasted long enough by themselves for Dan to bring Blanka, and Dan definitely couldn't beat all of those people so Blanka might not have been able to either if he had been left alone. They all would have gone down had Naruto gone to the arena to deal with Hugo and Poison's challenge.

Who else had been taken out like that in the past while he had been down and out in his coma?

Thinking so hard about such serious things wasn't his strong suit, but there he was; pacing about his kitchen and racking his brain. This was unfolding for him way too fast. At first he thought it was just some organized gang making a power play with taking control of Japan as their rhetoric to attract people, but now it seemed to be a bit serious. That kind of social planning to use a widely seen television broadcast to block out news coverage was w_ay_ too advanced a tactic for it to just be a group of people uselessly barking ideology.

While Naruto continued to ponder, Sakura's attention was drawn to the little yellow kitten that she knew that Cammy had adopted over the last few weeks before Naruto had woken up, "Man, that kitty is really loving on that Molotov cocktail." Sakura pointed out as she watched Special Agent Jack Bauer repeatedly lick the side of one of Naruto's prepared weaponized bottles.

Snapping Naruto out of his train of thought, he walked over and picked up the cat before it could continue to ingest the ignition fluid of the homemade incendiary, "Yeah, he's got a thing for gasoline. Batsu said he likes to sleep in it." He informed Sakura as he carried the little yellow fuzzball to Cammy's room, "Cam take the cat. He's trying to lick up the weapons I'm making for you."

The pleasant British accent from behind the door greeted him "One moment." The door to the girl's room cracked open and Cammy poked her head out as Agent Jack scampered out of Naruto's arms and into her personal abode, "Good morning Naruto. Do you want the prisoner back?"

"Is he not saying anything?"

"Oh, he's saying plenty. I just wondered if you wanted to have him back."

"No, I'm good. If you're hungry, I can go with Sakura-chan to get breakfast and bring you something back."

"Yes please. Take your time."

With that the door closed once again and from within Naruto could hear the voice of the guy he had caught last night, "What the fuck is wrong with you kids? Who has a conversation like that about breakfast while they interrogate someone?"

"I haven't eaten since yesterday afternoon." Cammy matter-of-factly replied and left it at that as Naruto walked away from her bedroom, "And since you're so talkative maybe you can tell me a bit more about some of your group meeting places."

XxX

(Genhanten)

Inside of the restaurant that was currently getting its windows restored after the damage that it sustained the night before via the Mad Gear raids. The jackasses didn't even know that it was under his management, they were just out to raise hell. Well mission mostly accomplished.

As he walked around his establishment, he took note of the only person that was not a worker sitting inside at one of his tables, "We're not open yet." Sasuke said in an exasperated tone of voice once he stopped by where his visitor was seated.

Now lacking the jacket and helmet of her full biker gear, Akira wearing a forest camouflage tanktop sat at the table with her cheeks in her leather-gloved hands. Her shoulder-length brown hair concealed her eyes from view until she brushed it out of her face to look up at Sasuke. She didn't say a word but she just frowned up at him.

"I know. You want to find Mad Gear to try and get them back for your brother." Sasuke replied without even being verbally prompted, wondering why she was so docile now when she'd been so tough and commanding last night, "But you screwed that up when you started trying to beat up every crony you ran into on the street. You wasted all of that time and we lost the opening to find the people really responsible." Why he didn't just ditch her last night he didn't know.

Akira still didn't say a word to him, but now her eyes switched to a bit of a glare as it sounded like Sasuke was blaming her for the lack of results from their impromptu team up. She wasn't going anywhere, because he was the only person left that she knew in town (barely knew at that since they had only met last night) that she didn't deem a rival who could fight Mad Gear and who seemed smart enough to point her in the right direction.

In return, Sasuke supposed he wasn't being adamant on Akira getting out of his restaurant and out of his intention to assassinate the top brass of Mad Gear due to the fact that she was not like any other girl that was capable of fighting… at least that he'd met. She was tough and she was actually extremely quiet when that helmet was off. She hadn't said a word since showing up thirty minutes ago and she wasn't even talking when he was speaking to her.

It was a serious change from the norm when he was the one that would be considered the talkative one out of a pair of people.

Even more aggravating still, the bell to the door of his restaurant chimed and his eyebrow twitched when he saw Naruto and Naruto's friend Sakura walk in. Great, because that was just what he needed right then; something annoying and blonde with whisker-marks, "I wonder if this place does take-out." Naruto commented to Sakura as they looked around, "Didn't he already put windows in?"

"Damn it Naruto for the last time, we're not open!" Sasuke said with a glare at Naruto. Seriously, take-out? Genhanten was supposed to be a legit restaurant with full cuisine and a respectable sit down atmosphere. He didn't even know why he felt pissed. It wasn't even his restaurant, he was just managing it, "Until the sign on the front of the door and window is lit up and reads 'open' we're closed you dumbass. Get out, I'm busy."

Both teenage interlopers weren't discouraged at all by Sasuke's request to leave. They just ignored it altogether, "Was your friend always so angry?" Sakura asked Naruto quietly, though Sasuke could clearly hear her, "That's really not healthy. It's bad for your heart you know."

Naruto nodded sagely in agreement and opened his mouth to comment on Sasuke's anger issues until he caught sight of Sasuke's guest and paled, "Oh shit. I knew I'd seen that bike out front somewhere before."

Looking at Akira, Sasuke noted with some interest that her eyes were trying to bore a hole straight through Naruto with the intensity behind them. Not only that, but her fists were balled up as if she would punch him if he got too close. So she didn't like Naruto. That honestly put her up a notch in his book. Naruto seemed ready to bolt had Sakura not grabbed a hold of his arm to keep him from vacating the scene.

Okay, so he found a use for Akira. She could keep Naruto away from him or at least make him shut up. Whatever he'd done to piss her off in the past he really didn't want to be in the same place as her.

The glare subsided when Sakura sat down at Akira's table and grabbed both of her hands in a consoling gesture, "I heard about how your brother and his whole gang got hurt. I'm sorry about that. Daigo might have always disliked Naruto, but he was a good person aside from that." Akira just looked away sadly and nodded.

"They got Daigo, Edge, and Gan?" This was news to Naruto. So he really was right about what he had been thinking on earlier? Kazama Daigo definitely wouldn't have let Mad Gear run roughshod all over the town. It was a periodical weeding out of anyone worth a damn in Aohura City, "Whatever. I've got Cammy interrogating some guy back at my place to find out where Rolento is so we can put a stop to this. If we don't by midnight something huge is going to happen, and for some reason that guy says that we can't stop Mad Gear if it gets that far."

"What if you don't get what you need by tonight?" Sasuke interjected with his arms crossed, "If you can't locate Rolento, or find out exactly what the endgame is for Mad Gear what are you going to do?"

Naruto shook his head and started pacing around the restaurant, "I don't know. I want to say that I'll just go to where the enemy is going to be and I'll fight them there, but wherever they're going to be they're going to have guns." He didn't like guns, "I don't want to take anyone else into that, but I don't think I can do it by myself either if it comes to that."

"I know where their guns are being held and guarded."

Three pairs of eyes turned to Sasuke suddenly at the revealing of such information. He looked very disinterested in the stares he happened to be receiving from the three other people before him and his body language expressed as much. While Naruto and Sakura looked very interested, Akira was just giving him another stern look that spoke volumes without her ever saying a word to him. It was time to put the kibosh to that crap.

"It's your fault we didn't get to it." Sasuke said to Akira in response to her glowering at him, "You kept picking fights with nobodies and I had to keep saving your tail feathers all night long until the streets cleaned out. I missed my opening." A shake of his head came at thinking about how much time he wasted before the streets cleared of Mad Gear, "I like you more without the helmet. You listen better."

"Hold on a minute." Naruto cut in, "You _didn't_ go straight to the weapons hideout so you could protect Akira, someone that you had to have met only all of a day or two ago at most if even that?" He looked from Sasuke over to the biker girl in question herself as she just shrugged at him. She didn't know enough about Sasuke to know how much he hated working with people, "But you hate teammates."

Sasuke scoffed and walked back towards his workers to oversee the construction of the restaurant, "I've got to take advantage of what I can so I accepted the team-up. I'm still sort of hurt just so you know. I don't have your freaky fast healing ability."

Naruto looked down at his stomach and gave his belly a quick pat, 'I'm still not running on full myself. I know the feeling.' Alright so he would let that one slide, "Well are you going to tell us where the weapons are?"

"Come back at four." Sasuke said before heading back into the kitchen, "If you haven't pulled up anything on Rolento yet come here and we'll drop a full offensive on the weapons storage facility. I can guarantee you that someone there would be in contact with that bastard, and then we can put an end to this crap. Now get the hell out of my restaurant." It took a moment, but he popped his head back outside of the door to clarify what he had just said, "Akira can stay because she doesn't annoy me, but you two can get out."

XxX

(Karin's Personal Manor – With Karin)

Being informed that Mad Gear had chapters in other places around Japan had the well-to-do heiress begin to do some digging around. Her body was still a bit sore and she was sporting a bandage on her cheek from the wound she received from Poison's whip, but the work of the wealthy and benevolent was never done.

On a computer map of Japan she had marked several smaller cities with varying proximity to Tokyo, much like Aohura City in population and overall importance in the scheme of Japan's system. They weren't big places; small cities with average populations that many would be hard-pressed to name if they didn't have a reason to go there.

But all of these cities had very easy methods to reach Tokyo. With a little bit more digging she found that Mad Gear had neutralized any gangland threats, the way they seemed to be trying to do in Aohura City, only they had actually succeeded due to the lack of such dogged resistance that held them back. The normal people in those towns seemed to actually love Mad Gear's militia, seeing them as a neighborhood watch of sorts that would actually take action against the hooligans of their town.

It didn't go down like that in Aohura City because the hooligans of the town were what the place was synonymous with. A lot of people actually loved them and picked favorite gangs to support from afar like sports teams. It was a different kind of place, and it showed in how difficult it was for Mad Gear to 'conqueror'.

'This is not good at all.' She didn't want to act paranoid, but things never added up like that for no reason at all, 'All of these cities corner Tokyo.' If the whole crazy rhetoric of changing the country by taking it over and overthrowing the government was real, and it seemed more and more real as more of these things came to light, they would have a real chance of catching the capital off guard.

Rolento was a military man as well, so he had to be able to orchestrate an effective surprise strike with the resources available to him (rudimentarily trained civilians) and make it count. Otherwise his little uprising would be crushed. The police in their town and the other towns under Mad Gear's bribery didn't care, and they couldn't get into contact with anyone that was actually important.

'It always seems to be down to us…' Karin thought to herself with a sigh, uploading all of the information she had compounded into her cell phone before using it to make a call. All she knew was that he had better be home since his new cell phone apparently wasn't active yet, "Hello, Naruto-san? Yes, I am fine. Nothing but mere flesh wounds at worst. Listen, I need to speak with you and the others that are going to fight Mad Gear. I have potential information we need to share. You do as well? That is fine, name a meeting place."

Well, well, well. Naruto was somewhat on the ball for this one already. She would never admit it aloud to anyone that she knew, but things had been awfully dreary while he had been out of commission. Naruto's waking up was apparently the kick in the ass that they needed to take matters into their own hands instead of waiting for proper authorities to do it.

Hopefully when she was an adult that inherited her family's massive wealth she would be more proactive about possible trouble than the ones that currently ran the country, the economy, and the world. It definitely felt better, that was for certain.

XxX

(Aohura City Old Industrial District – Mad Gear Hidden Warehouse)

Sodom was surprised at Rolento's mood. It was notably chipper despite the fact that their soldiers had been beaten up rather badly the night before in two particular locations. In the five other areas they had been dispatched the militia had gone unopposed and it seemed to be a precursor to how they would march the streets of Tokyo after it was all said and done and the revolution ended.

The large American samurai was just as strong as Rolento was, as both of them had been elites in Mad Gear before taking complete control of the group themselves, but that creepy content smile on the military man's face was rather unnerving. It didn't promise that things were going to be going smoothly for someone somewhere, "So you think last night was a success?"

"You said that no one was directly killed as a result of the fighting." Rolento said as they walked past the open stores of weaponry that they had amassed, "Our only casualties were the injured, and while some are more severe than others that is still to be expected. Aohura City was supposed to be the most difficult training exercise for our shining soldiers, and they survived it. I never expected them to actually destroy all of our foes."

"You just wanted to show them what it was like to fight someone considered superior to them."

"Exactly." Rolento said, picking up one of the small arms set out on an exceedingly long table along with new-age light armored vests that numbered every gun present, "The moment that the JSDF gets wind of what happens they will try to reverse what we have accomplished. They more than likely will be superior to our men, but they won't be faster than our men can aim, they won't have ki manipulating abilities, they won't be freaks to the men. They'll be human, and they will not fear a fight with them."

"And we'll have the armory to combat them if it comes to that." Sodom concluded. And it was true. They had not only the infantry hardware of an actual army they had attack helicopters, military transport vehicles, even a few tanks, "You think a shock attack will work?"

"How would anyone that could stop us know we were coming?" Rolento asked, hopping onto a tank's treads to walk on the beautiful vehicle of death, "Everyone will be plain-clothed, the weapons will be hidden until it is too late. The vests go on underneath. With the right positioning after we finish capturing the figures of the government branches we can disperse and confound the enemy until their lack of leadership brings things to a close."

If everything went as planned there would be no knowledge of any kind of revolt until it was already over. No time to declare martial law, no time to get any word out, nothing. The fastest, quietest revolution in recorded history.

"Our men on the inside of the security details are ready to prevent any peep of an attack from slipping out should we get bogged down anywhere."

Sodom felt himself getting excited behind his samurai garb and his mask. This was actually coming together. They were actually going to pull this off. Rolento was going to get the first step in his dream of a utopia, and he himself was going to get his goal of having Mad Gear strengthened by the presence of the people that he felt were the strongest warriors in the world. They would be set up in Japan for life.

At midnight that very night, upon Rolento's orders, the militia in all of the towns with members stationed there would finally be outfitted with their official firearms instead of practice pieces and would board the trains to Tokyo. Within three hours of that they would all be in the city, some already in position to do their intended deed, and by sunrise it would all be over before anyone could do a thing about it. And they would fly victoriously into the city.

XxX

(That Afternoon – 5 pm – Genhanten)

The party was as full as it was going to get for the forthcoming show, as Naruto, Sakura, Batsu, Karin, and Cammy were present in Sasuke's restaurant along with Kazama Akira who was tagging along for her own personal vendetta purposes.

Cammy had actually managed to squeeze some really relevant information out of the captive inside of her and Naruto's apartment, and had managed to pinpoint several Mad Gear hideouts on the map inside of Aohura City. The way they were positioned was in something of a defensive position, but not for the armory, which sat in a far less populated area near the edge of town away from prying eyes.

Karin's finger pointed out a marker she had placed on a map on her phone, allowing Naruto to see it, "This is where Rolento would be hiding, I can assure you of that. There is no place better in this town for such a thing, and it fits in to his connection with the smuggler companies from my father's holdings." Not only that, but it was surrounded in a close enough proximity by the rest of the bases as if they were a defensive perimeter of sorts, "…So what is our plan of action to take?"

"I have to kill them both." Sasuke said, sitting in a chair away from all of the others, "Rolento and Sodom have to die or my mission is incomplete. But they won't be in the same place. I choose the weapons storage area as my place of attack."

So they were splitting up were they? That was well enough anyway. It was a better use of their combined resources than just attacking one place and going about their approach in that manner.

Akira raised her hand to wordlessly indicate that she was going to assault the weapons storage area as well. She got a nod in return from Sasuke accepting this as a feasible method of action. It took a moment of thinking, but Cammy also volunteered her services in that front of the impending battle, "I will go as well. I think I know weapons well enough to have an idea of what we're dealing with if things get that serious."

"I'm with them too." Batsu stated flatly, looking extremely roughed up from his difficult previous night, "It's an uneven number of us and I'm not going with the group that has both Naruto and the rich girl on it. It's not worth the headache after getting busted up by a giant on national TV." Even levelheaded Sakura couldn't control both of those egos coexisting on the same battlefield, and she wouldn't even have the opportunity to try and do so.

So that left Naruto with Sakura and Karin to go for what Karin was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt was the hiding place of Rolento. A shipping company's local skyscraper was their destination.

Both Naruto and Sakura looked at each other and a silent agreement that they were going to kick some serious tail went through between the two as they started playfully punching one another in the arm, "Don't choke and trip up in the middle of an attack Sakura-chan. You do that from time to time."

"Don't get lost on the way to the skyscraper Naruto." Sakura returned just as jokingly, not rising to his attempt to razz her, "Your sense of direction sucks so it's a wonder how you ever found Ibuki-chan's village at all."

Taking good note of the separate 'teams', Karin nodded and stashed her cell phone before getting up from her chair to leave the building, "Very well then. Those of us that are taking the approach of dealing with the smuggling and business avenue of things come with me. As this is my area of expertise you two would only be liabilities if left by yourselves. Come along now."

"I'll 'liability' you… you pompous little-, grr." Sakura muttered to herself, angrily standing up from her chair with her hands poised to try and launch a Hadoken at Karin's back. Nothing big, just one to show her what was what. She would have until she was interrupted by a sharp stinging pain on her backside, "OW! Damn it Naruto, stop it!"

"Be the bigger person and I will Sakura-chan. She might be the devil, but she's our devil." Naruto said as he flexed his hand out from spanking her again. He could seriously get used to doing that, especially since she was honor-bound to not hit him back as long as he could justify a reason for doing it, "Let's go." Still rubbing her butt from the strike, Sakura followed him out as they got into Karin's limousine.

Sasuke just watched them leave and breathed a sigh of relief when they did. Maybe he was left with the more tolerable group? Hopefully he was, "So what's the deal with Naruto and that Sakura girl? Are they dating or something?" If so, how ironic. It was almost enough to elicit a chuckle out of him.

"No because they're either both too stupid to see it and just go for it, or because Naruto trapped himself in the friend zone years ago." Batsu said in response. That was exactly his question to Naruto for three years and it hadn't even been answered. He wasn't even going to get into his issue with Naruto and the other girls that he knew.

"What about her then?" Sasuke asked, gesturing towards Cammy who looked at him confusedly as to what he was possibly implying, "She lives in his apartment, and she looked pretty comfortable from what I saw."

Batsu shook his head and gave a thumbs down, "Nope. I don't think so. Naruto said something a few months ago in Thailand about how Cammy or her sisters would probably try to rip a guy's junk off if they made a move on any of them." He involuntarily shivered at the thought, especially since it seemed like real threat due to how brutally forward he was aware Cammy could be.

She had after all been retrieved for that particular gathering after interrogating a grown man that seemed rather scared of her by the time she left Naruto's place with him still bound in her room.

"I would never do such a thing." Cammy defended, knowing by now that they were referring to her somewhat cold personality to those that didn't know her and her frankness. That didn't mean she didn't know how to be gentle as well… she just found that more things got done with a sterner touch. Naruto knew that from living with her, they got along well. She wasn't an ice queen, "I was very gentle with Naruto when I took care of him during his coma. I owe all of you far too much to ever treat any of you that way, especially him."

Thoroughly bored by the conversation and rather antsy to get out and get to work, Akira's chin had by then sunken onto the surface of the table where she spoke up softly, as was being shown to be her docile nature without the helmet and scary full biker outfit to hide behind, "…Can we just get to work now?" She asked gently, in a barely audible voice that the others didn't hear over the sounds of their discussion.

"I don't think my demeanor really bothers him since he knows I would never hurt him." Cammy continued to argue in her own defense, "Why else would he have allowed me to live with him if that were the case?"

Batsu didn't bring up the fact that there was really not much other choice than to let her live with him. She had amnesia and there was no one else that she could stay with other than Naruto, "You tried to kill him four months ago back in March." Cammy obviously didn't remember that from the look on her face, "…And you don't remember that. Of course you don't, I forgot."

"To be fair, who in this room _hasn't_ tried to kill or severely hurt him at some point?" Sasuke interjected in a rare show of interest as to what was going on around him, "I did it, she did it, I think you did it too because you seem like you might have." Batsu had to begrudgingly agree because he did fight Naruto when he first met him, "He does have that kind of personality."

And true enough that put a stop on the discussion because it was true. All of Naruto's closer friends tried to kick his ass at some point or another with the notable exception of Ibuki who wasn't there to say as much. It was like some kind of twisted fraternity that only included people that had come close to inflicting permanent damage on Uzumaki Naruto… and it had been started by him.

Even Akira had taken it upon herself to try and run Naruto down on a motorcycle only ten months ago.

Wait, where did Akira go?

Outside of the restaurant, the revving of the engine to the girl's racing bike could be heard. Looking outside of the window, impatience could be seen on her face as she revved the engine in her own way of trying to say that if no one was coming she would go by herself. Since no one could hear her voice over their discussion it was the best method available for her to get their attention.

Cammy was the first one up and outside to get on the back of Akira's motorcycle to get a ride. Batsu observed that happen and before his mind could drop to the gutter a thought hit him, "Wait, if Cammy's the only one that can ride on Akira's bike how the hell are we going to get across town to the weapons storage place Sasuke?" He asked, getting no response, "Sasuke?"

But Sasuke was already gone and Batsu cursed to himself as he remembered that those real-deal ninja guys didn't need a vehicle to travel exceptionally quickly. Apparently Akira saw Sasuke leave from the roof too because she pulled off as well.

"Goddamn it, I should have gone with Naruto, Sakura, and rich girl." Batsu said to himself as he walked to the door and locked up for Sasuke while making a call on his cell phone, "Yeah, hey mom if you're out from work by now I need a ride somewhere…"

XxX

(Two Hours Later – With Naruto's Party – Synth Logistics Company Building)

"There are normally not this many security guards." Karin stated with some concern as her limousine had been parked a few blocks away so that Naruto could use his Henge and get a good scouting going of the building they intended to infiltrate. Upon his return he revealed to her and Sakura that there were at least forty-seven suited guards out around the building doing patrols and doing sentry work, "I have been here several times during the spring before all of this began happening."

As a part of her ongoing testing to see if she was worthy enough to inherit her family's fortune, Karin had to see to her father's local affairs in the region and that required her to handle business situations as if she were the head of the Kanzuki Zaibatsu. Thus she had been inside of the building, around the building, had taken a helicopter and landed on the roof of the building, the whole nine yards.

The guards out front were also sort of familiar, to not only her but to Sakura and to Naruto, "Those are definitely Mad Gear members." Sakura said from her place next to Karin inside of the car. They had Naruto on speakerphone of Sakura's phone so that they could both talk to him as he rounded the block repeatedly under the guise of different businessmen, "The guy with the red hair and the glasses with the bandage on his nose, I'm the reason that he has the bandage on his nose. I remember that one. Maybe I should have hit a little bit harder."

"_Then you probably would have killed him Sakura-chan, but oh… that's such a good move. He took the guys we beat up already off of the street so they can heal for a bit and stay busy with training and guard duty? Damn it, who is this Rolento guy?"_

"Shall we set up a meeting on the top floor office and find out?" Karin asked as by now it was past seven at night. The sun was beginning to go down and there was no more time to lollygag around. In five hours the proverbial Pandora's Box was going to be opened on Tokyo, and since no one would believe or pay attention to a bunch of kids crying wolf it had to be up to those very same kids to save the entire damn country.

"_I don't see how. I can't get close without being seen while the sun is out and I bet there are even more guys inside too. They're keeping their eyes open and watching everyone like hawks. Each time I walked past they seemed like they were just about to run me into the street, no matter which form I took. There's no blind spot to get to the building from, and even if I Henged into a fake guard I don't have the credentials to get past the electronic security to even get inside. I hate technology."_

For Naruto to say that there was no place to sneak in from was a big deal. He was always convinced that there was nowhere he couldn't sneak into. He had proven as much when he got into Shadaloo's base without raising a single alarm until he was deep inside. But this was a place with much, much less ground to watch. More eyes were covering less possible territory to scout for an infiltration.

So why sneak in at all? All they needed was one hell of a distraction, and luckily they had one at their disposal that wasn't as obvious as Naruto's clones. They would only spook Rolento if he tried to beat down the guards with them, "Karin…" Sakura said, getting her rich rival's attention, "Those mercenaries at your mansion. Do you think you can actually get them up to do something useful?"

"They are mercenaries Sakura-san." Karin said with a knowing smile, "Like Naruto-san but less reliable even in large numbers and with far less moral scruples. Defensive security work is their main focus, but for the right price I believe that they will rain down hot lead onto whomever their clients wish."

"_Uh, yeah… let's not go _that _far, dattebayo."_ Naruto said as he heard the plan over the line, _"These guys aren't really soldiers. They're office cubicle workers, teenagers, housewives, normal people that like the flash. Just people that are sick of the way things are. I'd rather not get hundreds of people killed in a shootout downtown with Karin's mercs… her dad would tear her flesh from her bones after she did it anyway."_

A shiver went down Karin's spine at the thought of her father catching wind of her being responsible for abusing the power of the mercenaries he hired for her safety. If that went public the reputation that the Kanzuki Zaibatsu had would take a severe hit, 'And that is exactly why I consider Naruto-san a confidant.' She thought to herself, "Ah, I do not think it would be necessary to resort to such methods either. I believe a simple diversionary tactic would be all that is necessary for us to get inside. I will call them now."

"Come back to the limo and sit tight with us Naruto." Sakura said, getting herself into a comfortable position to wait for their help, "There's nothing to do for now unless you want to fight your way up the whole tower." If he did that and Rolento was there the man would flee immediately.

"…_You know, now that I think about it I think I could probably take these guys and get up-."_

"No. Distraction." Both Karin and Sakura chimed at once decisively, cutting off Naruto's sales pitch on running through the whole enemy gauntlet like a samurai on a feudal battlefield.

"_Aw, you both made up. That's so cute. Heh, I knew you two could get along."_ Both girls just rolled their eyes before choosing to pass their time waiting for Naruto's return by glaring daggers at each other.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Aohura City Industrial District – Mad Gear Hidden Warehouse)

There wasn't a more desolate spot in town that someone could choose to hide things at. No one had really used the warehouses in that area for over ten years. The bigger companies that operated out of Japan's larger cities chose to store their things closer to their headquarters in the big commerce hubs instead of in little side towns like Aohura City.

So the district had fallen mostly into something of ghost town-like conditions. The city just didn't have the money to bulldoze most of it for public projects and there weren't very many entrepreneurs looking to buy up the cheap property over there.

Either way, there were no people over there that would be able to see the sole bustling warehouse that was gated off and being protected around the clock by sentries on the ground and at lookout points.

It was a good thing too, because what they caught sight of might have been kind of scary. It probably would have made people wonder if the warehouse had been converted into a temporary supply depot for the armed forces. The three military helicopters on the roof and the fleet of army trucks and hummers on the ground out in front probably would have made them think that.

"Dude they've got helicopters…" Batsu said over the phone from his personal hiding place down the block from the target facility, "This all came from Russia?"

"_Karin says that these things were shipped through the Kiril Islands customs. It's supposed to be far easier for Mad Gear to bribe."_ Cammy said on the other end of the line, _"Akira and I are as close as we're going to be able to get without being discovered. What about Sasuke and yourself?"_

"I can get closer I guess." Batsu started trying to jump rooftops and fire escapes to get himself closer to where he needed to be, "And how would I know where Sasuke is? I don't even know where you two are. You all ditched me at the restaurant, remember?"

"_I wouldn't call it ditching you. We figured that you and Sasuke had worked something out which was why he left. Akira doesn't have Sasuke's number by the way so we can't reach him. Would it help if I apologized?"_

"It does actually." Such a nice little assassin that Naruto kept in his home, so pleasant when she wasn't breaking necks. And it was very weird that he found that to be the most normal thing he could think of at that moment. His life was crazy-awesome. Even his mother was getting used to it from how she dropped him off no questions asked, "So what the fuck are we supposed to do?"

There was silence over the line until Cammy finally spoke up again, _"Akira says we should just attack them. They don't have any firearms in hand so we can take them on."_ More silence for a short time, _"She says that we should do it now before more gather."_

"Why's she speaking through you?"

"_She isn't really. She's just so quiet you can't hear her voice through the receiver. Sorry Akira."_

"…" Batsu opened his mouth to say something else, but a stray random thought hit him right as he was jumping between buildings and almost made him miss his landing point. He had to climb his way up to safety before he could go about asking his weird question, "Hey Cammy you're not wearing clothes with pockets, just that green leotard and the beret. So where do you keep your phone?"

"_In my boot when I'm not wearing casual clothes. Why does it matter?"_ Oh thank God. Because his mind had dropped right to the gutter and stayed there. If she had confirmed any of his hidden perverted suspicions he would have been no more good. The last thing he needed was to suffer a nosebleed right before a fight, _"I don't see what this has to do with the mission."_

It didn't have anything to do with the mission. Just curiosity really. Who knew if any of them would be alive to bring the topic up later? And Akira did have a point, because from his new vantage point Batsu could see five more Mad Gear members entering through the gates.

XxX

(Inside of the Warehouse Grounds)

The front gates closed behind the five newly arriving Mad Gear militia soldiers as they walked across the premises past all of the other hundreds of members that were excitedly chattering amongst themselves.

When a few of these folks greeted the new arrivals, other than a quick 'hey' here and a 'hello' there they simply kept moving until they reached the inside of the warehouse. At that point, the group members started drifting apart and walking around like they had some kind of purpose. Amazingly, a lot of their work went undisturbed as they started sticking slips of paper with strange writing on them, centering around the kanji for 'explode', on the insides of dark supply crates that were still being unloaded, underneath tables that gear was being set up on, to the undersides of ammunition crates, etc.

Eventually, that came to an end though when one of them tried to go up to the higher level from the ground floor via the stairs, "Hey!" One of the more attentive Mad Gear members said as the caught man stopped in his path right on the steps, "What are you doing? You and your friends have been acting weird ever since you came in here, and you know no one is allowed up there without orders!"

Upon getting close enough, the man noticed that the figure of his suspicions had a glazed over look in his eyes as if he had been hypnotized, and wasted no time before brandishing a stun baton to shock him into sweet unconsciousness.

"All of you guys, stop Squad 16! They've been brainwashed by someone!"

Instead of being afraid of someone trying to stop them, over a month of dealing with the overly powerful denizen fighters of Aohura City had them fired up to stop someone that was trying to put an end to their social movement.

It was strange, because they all knew exactly who was being referred to and everyone inside of the warehouse pounced and detained them. Upon the issuing of the order even many of the people outside entered and like some kind of organized mob they picked up the five men and carried them outside before throwing them out over the fence and cheering. There wasn't any way that something so underhanded would keep them from going through with everything.

Those men were still their comrades, but they just wouldn't be allowed back inside the warehouse or on the mission at midnight. It was for safety and security reasons of course.

Yes, they were on the ball.

And then the massive doors to the warehouse shut with clicking clangs that immediately caught their notice. They turned around at the suddenly startling noise and many of them that realized that they had been locked out rushed to try and open some of the doors.

Some of the military vehicles out front were then blown sky high in fiery blasts that made them second guess getting anywhere close to the warehouse. Mostly because there was a wall of fire in the way. That tended to make people hesitant to jump towards a door.

XxX

(Outside of the Warehouse Grounds)

Both Cammy and Akira watched the panic begin to circulate after the explosions out front from their hiding place lying down on a rundown billboard scaffold. They had a bird's eye view of the whole thing, "…Subtle." Akira said quietly, but the sarcasm was evident.

"I don't think any element of surprise would matter any longer." Cammy said as she stood up from where they were laying. It wasn't like there was going to be a better chance to get a drop on them, and even though the approach was as delicate as a rhino, the explosion separated them from their firearms. This was a very workable situation, "Shall we go?"

"How would we get down-?" Akira's question was cut off when she saw Cammy use her very protective red gauntlets to slide down a wire leading from the scaffold to drop into the warehouse grounds, "…I can't do that…" She stood up and looked at the chain belt around her waist before sighing and throwing it up over the wire that Cammy had just used, "For Daigo-nii I guess."

Getting revenge against dangerous people was a serious pain, even when the wounds were still fresh. How could some people find themselves so dedicated to do such a thing.

XxX

(Roof of the Warehouse)

Well Sasuke's genjutsu plan failed royally. He wasn't able to get to everything that needed to be destroyed in the warehouse before his temporary suggestion drones got pinched. That was okay though, you had to be able to adjust on the fly and luckily he was given a banner opening to get himself inside and keep others from doing the same.

He didn't know where the other people that had decided to come with him were, but they weren't on the grounds when he set his explosive tags off and that was what mattered.

Once he got inside and locked the place down he decided to finish what his original plan had called for. Those weapons needed to go, and none were more important in his mind than the attack helicopters on the roof.

Not because he wanted to stop Mad Gear's insurrection, but because if they actually succeeded he would be harder pressed to achieve his mission. So attacking a vital part of their plan, by way of their air support, was only meant to flush out one of his targets.

The soft sliding noise of steel against steel was the only warning Sasuke had before a katana slash was sent out to slice him in half. Instead of it being Sasuke though, it was an empty metal fuel barrel that felt the unforgiving cut due to a timely Kawarimi no Jutsu.

A safe distance away, Sasuke glared at his towering samurai-armored foe who stood back in a very well studied stance that showed that he knew what he was doing. Red armor on his chest with the kanji on the front, blue jeans, tabi socks, geta sandals, and the imposing helmet and mask combination… yeah this was one of the guys he was supposed to take down, "Sodom I presume."

Sodom nodded as his eyes looked over the crouching figure of Sasuke; the assassin from China that had failed in a previous bid to take down Rolento in Tokyo, "_Die job death car_?"

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at the gibberish that had just come out of his intended enemy's mouth. Was that even established language? He tried to repeat what Sodom had said under his breath to test it out for himself before just going for what he felt he should have said from the start, "…What?"

"_Die job death car_?" Sodom repeated as if it was obvious that Sasuke should have been able to understand him.

A bit more thinking on Sasuke's part linked some things together. Sodom had a New York accent and those words sounded like English to him, thus Sasuke switched up to speaking English to address his foe and get his understanding correct, "Did you just try to ask me _'Dai joubu desu ka?'_" He queried, "You seriously just asked me if I was alright or not. Don't speak Japanese again… please."

"So you've come for me like you came for Rolento." Sodom acquiesced to speak English. Even though Sasuke couldn't see it, his face was quite red from being called out on his terrible accent when speaking the language, "That's pretty courageous to come here alone, even for an assassin."

"Tch." Sasuke just scoffed before choosing to get down to business, "It's not really courage if it's nothing to be afraid of dealing with in the first place." He then had to jump back onto the propeller blade of one of the helicopters to avoid another attempt to rend him in half by Sodom. It looked like he had stricken a nerve.

A test of Sodom's reflexes came when Sasuke quickly attacked Sodom by launching three shuriken at him. It was child's play for him to deflect the ninja stars, and Sasuke hadn't really expected to harm him with any of them, because even if they had landed Sodom was wearing armor over his vital areas.

Upon getting sight of the weapons that Sasuke used, Sodom's eyes shone behind his mask, "You're a ninja?"

"I haven't been called a ninja directly in a long time. But yeah, I am." Sasuke admitted, but he was then thoroughly confused by Sodom's actions.

The man had bowed to Sasuke, full on at the waist as if he were showing Sasuke respect, "I've always wanted to fight another battle against a ninja. This is really an honor for me." He looked up to find Sasuke no longer on the propeller blade, and took a series of small burning attacks to his back.

"Katon: Housenka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Phoenix Flower Jutsu)!" Sasuke had gotten to Sodom's blind side and had scored a direct hit with each of his several miniature fireballs that sent the man to the ground, sliding across the roof until he crashed into one of the helicopters, "If you've fought a ninja then you should know not to take your eyes off of them. Game over." He said as he made the tiger seal.

He had already placed explosive tags on the points of the helicopters that would disable them, and upon his triggering they exploded. Sodom was so close to the blast that there was no way he escaped it. He simply had no time, even to get back up from where Sasuke knocked him down.

Either way, that was enough of that ridiculous Mad Gear crap. Armory: trashed. Leadership: crippled. Time to move on now to the next victim.

A propeller came flying right out of the smoke and the fire that Sasuke's explosive tags had caused and he was forced to jump out of the way to keep from being maimed or killed by it depending on how sharp the blades were. He was of the mind that they were sharp enough to mince him up.

He left the ground and Sodom dashed out like a small car flying down the street. He grabbed Sasuke's leg and smashed him into the ground, dragging him across the surface of the roof without slowing down a step before he wheeled around and hurled Sasuke like a ball and chain in the opposite direction, "Daikyo Burning!"

Sasuke was hurled through a set of empty metal fuel barrels and groaned as he started to stand back up again, "Okay… you get one. Everybody gets one." He seethed under his breath. The back of his shirt had been rendered to tatters, as had the skin on the top of his back. A terrible case of road rash along with the trauma of getting slammed like a doll and pitched away like a softball.

That was his mistake. He had deemed his opponent an outright fool for bowing and taking his eyes off of him. Sasuke had figured that Sodom had no chance of surviving the first attack he had dealt him, but Sodom was wearing armor on his body, head, and face. It wasn't as if he himself had actually been burned if he was wearing equipment that was any good.

"I underestimated you at first glance." Sodom admitted, holding up his katana to face off with Sasuke once more. His form was still smoking from being caught in a fire and his pants were burned quite noticeably, "You say that you're a ninja, but you don't dress like one. Ninja or not, I won't be taking you lightly again."

Nothing was said in return from Sasuke who merely activated his Sharingan and stood at the ready. He couldn't get eye contact with Sodom though. The facemask of the man's helmet kept him from peering through the darkness of the eyeholes to ensnare him in a genjutsu. Maybe that was why the ANBU in Konoha wore those full face porcelain masks? So that no Uchiha could beat them that way. His ancestor was the enemy of the inaugural Hokage after all.

But Sasuke had to pay close attention to his enemy when he saw him slowly draw a second katana to dual-wield the deadly weapons. It was time to find out just how well he could actually use those things, "Well I don't like assassinating targets that can't fight me back anyway…"

XxX

(Downtown Aohura City – Synth Logistics Company Building)

The sun had gone down, and now the security force at the company had something to legitimately be concerned with. Jet-black vehicles had pulled up at the front gate and the back of the facility, and the Mad Gear militia under the guise of contracted security guards immediately closed the gates off and waited in something of a standoff with the professional mercenaries that got out and looked as though they were formulating a plan to storm the building.

This was what they had prepared for. What Rolento had trained them to get ready to deal with. It was just a little bit early. A warm-up if anything before midnight that night. They weren't about to be bullied by a bunch of 'professional soldiers' that a concerned citizen with deep pockets dished out the money to hire.

They seemed to be evenly armed, as there was no way that a group of mercenaries were going to engage in a gun battle in the middle of any city in the heart of Japan, thus they had melee weaponry such as tazers, batons, and things along those lines. That was just fine because that was what Mad Gear planned on bringing to the dance as well.

With the standoff at the front and back of the tower taking the focus of the security spotlights so that no movement along the lines would be missed with night having fallen over the city, it was far easier for someone like say… a ninja, to sneak past and begin scaling the side of the building.

Even if he was clad in orange fighting gear.

"Do not drop me Naruto-san! If I fall I will never forgive you."

…And carrying up two sixteen year old girls tied to him in a crappy makeshift harness.

Hey, if he could climb the face of a mountain monument in broad daylight and graffiti it up before anyone noticed him he could definitely pull this off.

"If you fall you'll be dead so I don't think you not forgiving him will be much of a problem. Now stop pestering him." Sakura chided tranquilly with a small elbow to Karin's side as the two girls trailed beneath Naruto while he continued to climb upward, "I'm sure Naruto's done this before."

And he kind of had, but with actual rope, not double dozen-bound ninja wire wrapped around the thighs of the girls and extending upward to where it was super-wrapped around anywhere secure on Naruto; around his shoulders and waist, "Just don't wiggle around too much, and be quieter or we're busted. How long are those guys going to stay there by the way?" Naruto asked about the diversionary mercs on the ground.

"I hired their extra services for twenty-four hours, so I can keep them there for that long at the most before they can contractually return to my manor." Karin answered, trying not to look down. She didn't need to be reminded that her physical wellbeing was in the hands of someone that she had seen fall down in the hallway at school without even running or tripping over anything.

And Naruto could understand her fear, because he barely trusted himself to pull this off either. That was why he had been extremely thorough when applying ninja wire liberally around the thighs of the girls. Much to his good fortune, Karin _didn't_ choose to blacken his eyes when he did so, and Sakura was always pretty much good with just about anything he did. Now that was some serious trust.

Karin's eyes couldn't have been closed any tighter if they had been held shut with clothespins though, and it would have been funny if she didn't have a completely legitimate reason to feel that way. Sakura seemed oddly calm though for being over twenty stories off of the ground with her life hanging in the balance, "Why aren't you scared Sakura-chan?"

"Oh, I am scared." Sakura said in an alarmingly calm voice, "I'm petrified actually. I'm focusing as hard as I can on not screaming my head off because this is really stupid and why'd I let you talk me into doing this?" She finally broke down in a bit of a desperate whine, "I should have just let you fight your way upstairs like you wanted to from the start. Now I'm dangling like a yo-yo in the wind."

Stairs were for chumps.

"We're almost to the top so just be cool." Naruto informed the girls. Make them fight a damn criminal organization in the jungles of Thailand and they were fine. Have a militia under the control of a special forces commander use their town as a base for trying to overthrow the national government and they were both all for fighting them to stop them. But climb one itty-bitty skyscraper tied together with thin metal wire and they got all fidgety and scared.

With only a few large windows left before the top, both Karin and Sakura peered inside while being carried up and came face to face with someone that had been walking down the hall until he had seen Naruto climb up the glass. From that point he just stared even as two teenage girls were hoisted up into his view.

Rolento could only stare at Sakura and Karin and the two girls could only do the same as if they were all confused by the circumstances in which they were looking at each other. The reality of the situation then set in on Rolento and he turned tail down the hall to begin running.

That snapped Sakura and Karin out of their states of disbelief and both girls pushed off of the glass pane with their feet to swing back and kick their way through the window to land inside the building in respective crouches, freed of Naruto's ninja wire harness. Both girls smirked at each other before taking off to try and chase Rolento down.

XxX

What kind of shitty luck did he have? This was what Rolento was thinking to himself.

He had just come back from inspecting the guards on the ground level that were preparing for a raid from the mercenaries outside. There was no concern there. Research on the exact company that had dispatched them for hire revealed their reputation for having nothing more than a bunch of wash-out soldiers filling their ranks. If gunfire wasn't an issue, and it most certainly wasn't in the middle of a city, his men could easily handle them without putting themselves into much jeopardy.

And then on the way back to his office he saw not just one, but three of the remaining few people on 'the list' of the most dangerous denizens of Aohura City climbing the side of his building.

Needless to say he took off toward the stairwell and upon reaching the steps started trying to run the remaining twelve floors to his top floor office to barricade himself in and utilize his countermeasures, but first…

Rolento took his radio from his belt and immediately began speaking into it, "Dispatch the Ka-50 now!" He shouted into the receiver, "I know it's not time yet, but we have a gigantic pest climbing on the outside of the west wall of the tower! Kill him and you'll be promoted! Consider it your last field test!"

XxX

(Outside of the Building)

"Where the fuck did the girls go?" Naruto asked himself. He climbed a bit higher after hearing a dull crash noise, but it didn't take any longer than a few seconds for him to feel that he was missing the burden of the two girls weighing his climb down, "Oh man, they didn't fall did they? How the hell am I going to tell Karin's dad that I got her killed without him ruining my credit for life? And Sakura-chan's mom is gonna kill me with cast-iron cookware!"

The panic had to be put on the backburner when Naruto heard propeller blades whirring. A few moments later from the very top of the skyscraper a helicopter flew overhead and shined a light down, managing to peg Naruto and get him in sight.

"No…" Naruto groaned to himself as he saw the main cannon at the front of the helicopter begin to spin and warm up, "There's a chopper here? Damn it, Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!" Naruto quickly formed the blue ball of chakra in his hand and slammed it through the window just as the helicopter began firing on him.

Naruto covered his head while dodging shells behind desks and cubicle walls that were about as effective at blocking bullets as newspaper.

Fighting a helicopter with his bare hands. Sure, why not? That would be a new one to put in the biography one day.

He just hoped that it wouldn't have to be written and released by someone else other than him posthumously.

* * *

><p><strong>Whoo! I'm going to be 21 in a week's time… and that's actually really depressing on second thought. Why did I even write that here?<strong>

**Now Kenchi's sad.**

**So I'm still here as you can plainly see. I haven't left, been kicked, or been assassinated by the many fine folks that wish to destroy me (knock on wood).**

**P.S.: I've found a potentially good spot to move to in a place called *[yourfanfiction(.)com]*. So for the benefit of you all knowing what's going on and being kept in the loop that's where I'm probably going to be moving the bulk of my duties to in the future if it really comes to that extreme end... which I don't think it will.  
><strong>

**Not really looking forward to it though if it really does go to that point. I don't think it will though. Other than occasional lemons for storyline purposes I don't get unnecessarily graphic in any stories I write, I don't think. **

**That's a lot of work to shift over to another place though… seriously. **

**So what do you jerks think about it? Seeing as how the main thing I'm worried about is whether or not the people that have read the stories before would find some way to follow and keep on doing so. If I do it I'm definitely putting a big unmissable note on the end of the other stories too so that readers catch it.**

**Geez, I'm treating this crap like I'm picking colleges or something.**

**Alright, Kenchi out. Time to go spend my Saturday morning cutting grass and killing a hornet's nest in my backyard before it becomes unstoppable. Growing up means you've got to man up and face down hornets that threaten your training processes. Nature can't stop me!**

…**In the off chance that I die fighting hornets please remember me as an idiot, because that's how my friends and family will.**


	26. Unsung Heroes

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. Fighting a hornet's nest is always a dangerous affair, but you know what makes it easier? A compound bow. You know why?

Shooting those bastards with a _flaming_ arrow!

I took that bitch down like Ted Nugent. I live in Southwestern Virginia fifteen minutes away from the middle of nowhere. I can do whatever the hell I want as long as it's quiet and no one's hurt.

**Chapter 26: Unsung Heroes**

* * *

><p>Naruto didn't really know which thing to fight in his life had been worse upon a later comparison; taking on a gigantic snake that moved faster than humanly possible and could swallow him whole, or taking on a Russian attack helicopter in an upper floor office with no permanent place to take cover.<p>

While in his current state, fighting one of Orochimaru's mindless gigantic snakes would have been completely easy it wasn't when he was twelve, which was where the comparison was coming from.

In the same vein, it was only one helicopter here while Orochimaru summoned around three huge snakes when Naruto killed one and then decimated another, so there was that to be kept in mind too.

'I'd rather have the snakes.' Naruto thought to himself as he hid in a side room underneath a desk while the helicopter's bullets tore through the wall to the extent that he could still see through the holes in it to see the aerial vehicle outside, 'At least those things were really stupid and straightforward.'

And there went the ceiling, crashing down on top of his desk. Damn it, he was not going out like that without even fighting.

"Who the hell does this guy think he is?" Naruto said to himself over the sound of the helicopter's blades whirring as it circled the building to try and get a killing angle in on Naruto. The glass windows that lined the outsides of that floor were all shot through. It looked like a warzone on that floor and that floor alone, "He thinks some cool chopper with a gun on it makes him good enough to kill me? No way."

Talking about it was one thing though. He actually needed to back that up for that pep talk to himself to mean anything.

From under the desk, Naruto shoved the ceiling debris out of the way and quickly made some clones for the purpose of attracting attention when the helicopter started making its rounds once more around the building.

They all fanned out away from where Naruto remained taking cover underneath the desk to buy him an opening to figure out what to do about his current problem.

"_There's five of him now? Which one's real?"_

"_It doesn't matter, shoot all of them!"_

And the front cannon of the military helicopter opened fire on all of Naruto's clones, whichever one was the easiest to take aim at. The confusion provided by how they kept criss-crossing the now entirely blacked out floor of the building, ducking and jumping over and from behind torn apart workstations, file cabinets, and anything that could be used for just a bit to conceal their moves and confound.

Gritting his teeth, Naruto knew that his clones weren't going to last much longer. As fast as they were, there was only so long that they would work. While he wasn't a military buff, when he had first come to Japan and learned about things like planes and helicopters and tanks, he found out about just what those things were capable of… just in case. And he learned that most military helicopters could hold an absurd amount of ordinance.

"_To hell with this! Fire the rockets!"_

"Rockets?" The unnaturally high squeak of Naruto's voice at hearing the sound of the helicopter's loudspeaker could be forgiven as he watched the pods on the vehicle open and fire several small projectiles into the building. Naruto quickly grabbed the edge of the desk and flipped it downward with the top of it covering his front effectively burying himself underneath debris as well, "Rockets!"

Every window that comprised the outside appearance of the building on that floor got blown out in a massive burst of fire, smoke, debris, and other materials that fell down from the air to the ground below.

XxX

(With Sakura and Karin – Stairwell)

"I cannot believe that you managed to lose sight of Rolento. I suppose that if I require something to be done-."

"Don't give me that. You were right there too. You didn't see him make a turn to the stairs?"

Both Karin and Sakura were arguing amongst themselves as they ran upstairs. When they had taken off after Rolento on the floor they had entered the building through they had lost sight of him. That had led to them bickering as they went through looking for him.

Eventually it was obvious that they had a need to begin heading upstairs after the man. He was clearly heading to get to more favorable ground, especially since it would have been two-on-one.

It didn't stop them from bickering back and forth as the stairs they climbed dragged onwards.

"I do not use stairs to begin with, even at school, even at home." Karin said as she put one foot in front of the other and climbed higher and higher up the tower, "That is what executive elevators are for."

"Well you're using them now." Sakura replied dryly, "Or do you want to go back outside and climb the building with Naruto?" That was the only place she could figure he still was since he hadn't come inside with them. Then again, there hadn't really been much time to go over an actual strategy. They had called an audible of sorts and were freestyling their plans.

Karin shook her head and got silent at the thought of having to scale the face of a skyscraper being held up by metal wire. She was quite certain that she would be having nightmares from that point onward of being dropped in such a manner. But then she might be able to turn them into good dreams where a heroic young gentleman would save her mid-fall.

Yes, he would have the most beautiful sapphire blue eyes and untamed blonde hair, and adorably rugged marks on his cheeks that looked like-.

"WAAAH! Watch out!"

Before the girls could continue traversing the steps, the tower was rocked and shook heavily. The quivering building almost caused Karin to lose her balance and fall backwards down the stairs until Sakura held onto the railing to keep her own balance and grabbed onto Karin's hand to keep her from catastrophically hurting herself.

Both of them collapsed on the stairs as the scary crashing noises went off around them. They had absolutely no idea what was going on, but for a moment it felt like the place was going to come down with them inside of it.

Eventually it stopped, and both Sakura and Karin stopped huddling together as they mentally swore that such a situation where they hugged fearfully would only be kept between the two of them. Deciding to press forward as it would be far further going to the ground level than going to the top floor, both continued to take flight after flight of stairs until they found their way blocked.

The stairs had collapsed, keeping them from going any further and the wall leading to the actual office area had been pulverized.

"Hah…" Sakura exhaled desperately, "What happened outside that did this? Did Rolento booby-trap the stairs?"

"I do not think he would use a trap on stairs that he had been running on as well." Karin pondered aloud before snapping her fingers and pointing to the door at the end of the landing that they were on, "The other side of the building. Use that stairwell."

Nothing else needed to be said and they turned to head through that floor of the building. However they ran through the destroyed wall to find something that they hadn't been expecting to see. The entire floor that they were on had been ruined. It looked as if a firing squad had rolled through and had shot up everything in sight. There were smoke and small flecks of fire all over as debris and pieces of ceiling continued to spontaneously fall.

The stunned teenage girls walked further and further within, shocked at the unexplainable damage that had been wrought until an explanation came in the sound of Rolento's voice, "Good work." They followed the sound to see him standing on a pile of debris on what used to be a desk within a cubicle, speaking into a radio, "There is no such thing as overkill here. It can all be rebuilt. This building is in a company that was left to me… not that it will matter after tonight anyway."

'He had to have been using an alias if this company is his.' Karin thought to herself. The owner of the company, at least as far as her investigations had found, showed to be a man named Horace Belger from America. It would explain how Mad Gear was funded so easily though.

Crunching of glass and minerals under the feet of Karin and Sakura directed Rolento's attention towards them. Seeing that they had caught up to him he gave a wide-armed gesture of invitation, "Ah, you've caught up to me. A shame you couldn't have been on this floor as well when my helicopter took care of your pest of a friend. Climbing up the side of my building? Really, I have to give you all points for originality though."

Their pest of a friend. That only meant one person, "You didn't." Sakura said, looking around before kicking a piece of wall out of the way to slowly walk closer to Rolento, "You can't seriously sit there and tell me that you sicced a helicopter on Naruto." Was that was caused all of this damage?

"I'm not sitting my dear, I'm standing, and that's exactly what I'm telling you." Rolento said with a smirk on his face, "I've trained my pilots personally, and they saw to the devastation of this floor and to Uzumaki Naruto. I can see no signs of him here and neither did they."

How the building was still standing was quite unclear. It looked almost hollow on that floor. Thank God for structural support beams.

"To challenge me is to challenge my army. The most prominent and real threat that this city had to offer to my ambition is now buried somewhere underneath all of this." Rolento continued as he hopped down from his pile of debris and took his staff from his back, "The question is, what are you going to do about it little girl?"

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!"

Rolento jumped out of the way of a large blue ball of ki that had been fired at him. Upon landing he looked over at a rather angry pair of eyes on Sakura. Apparently doing what he had ordered to be done to Naruto struck a nerve, "Did you expect me to keep your boyfriend alive while he was intentionally trying to destroy my plans? You'll get as much mercy from me as he did. In Tokyo he crashed my rally and declared right then and there his intention to stop me."

Ignoring the 'boyfriend' remark in exchange for remaining angry, Sakura's glare could cause a man to spontaneously combust as she had it affixed to Rolento, "And then he went and got himself destroyed by someone you ran away from! He was in a coma until a few days ago! The only reason we care about your stupid plans in the first place is because you started picking with our town! You tried to hurt and kill us first!"

"Blame Uzumaki and the Chinese assassin for this town's misfortune." Rolento stated firmly, "They were the ones that made this place a target."

"I'm blaming you!" Sakura cried out as she attacked Rolento head-on. In order to cover her own direct approach, Sakura slid on the debris covered ground, kicking up a cloud that she launched her assault from behind, "Shou'oken (Rising Uppercut)!"

A solid clink sounded out as the dust cleared to show that Rolento had blocked Sakura's ascending uppercut with his staff. He had been able to keep her from leaving the ground entirely, and the only thing that her fist had connected with was the underside of his weapon. He trapped her stiffened arm with the staff and pulled her towards him before kneeing her in the stomach and smashing her over the back with the very same staff.

Sakura fell down to the floor and looked up hatefully before pushing herself up and kicking at Rolento who blocked her again with his staff. A confident Rolento then had to duck a kick aimed at his head from behind as he then found himself having to contend with Karin as well.

He took a full swing of his weapon at Karin's head only for her to duck underneath it and try to sweep his legs out from beneath him, but he blocked that as well by posting the end of his staff on the ground to stop her leg. Sakura tried to attack again, but Rolento used the staff as support to push off of the ground entirely and kick her away forcefully with both legs, knocking her down.

As he landed back on the ground, Rolento lifted his staff and tried to bring it down with the end once again to try and break Karin's sweeping leg. She was able to pull it back though and redistribute her weight on one arm to land a low kick to his side.

A grunt came from him at the stinging blow and he jumped back out of Karin's range, drawing a throwing knife that he threw right at her, "Stinger!" It came close enough to nick through the shoulder of Karin's clothes and cut her flesh as well, but that was all it was; a flesh wound in comparison to what could have happened to her.

"Sakura Otoshi (Cherry Blossom Drop)!" Sakura attacked Rolento the moment he landed with a falling double-handed hammer strike that he blocked with his staff. Though Sakura had put enough force behind the move to crack the floor beneath them. He was left wide open for Karin to kick him right in the stomach.

That sole attack set the stage for both Sakura and Karin to begin working in tandem, pummeling away at Rolento despite his best efforts to stop them. His staff became useless as a tool when he needed to use it to defend against one girl, leaving him vulnerable to the punches and kicks from the other girl. The duo kicked him away with authority to conclude their dual assault.

It was strong enough to send him stumbling and sliding across the floor as Sakura stood ready to take him on once more at Karin's side. As he looked at the two quite dirtily smudged girls he couldn't see an ounce of understanding for his ambition in their eyes, "You think I'm a madman don't you? It's okay to admit it." He said as he brushed their twin shoe prints off of the chest of his uniform.

"Fine, we admit it." Sakura said without a moment's hesitation, "You think we care about sparing your feelings after what you've been trying to do to us for a month? What you did to Naruto?" How could they not think he was insane? The entire rhetoric for his organization was that they were going to bring a new world order about.

"I don't see why it is so hard for you to accept that I wish to change this country into a utopia that the world will model itself after." Rolento said in an honest and heartfelt manner, "I want to bring about a world with no war, no politicians using the people underneath them like pawns on a chessboard. Instead order will reign. Discipline will find value in society again. Surely you can see my point."

Karin let out a scoff and wiped at a smudge on her cheek, "We do not care." They were sixteen. What would they have had time to find themselves disenfranchised with when their lives hadn't even started yet? He was preaching to an audience that was deaf to him, "The only people that remain pawns are those that allow themselves to be pawns. If we remained out of your way while you tried to tear our home apart and fulfill your own egotistical ideal we truly would have been pawns."

"You still are." Rolento assured her with a smirk as he realized that nothing he said would matter to them unless he was surrendering, and that would never happen, "Because pawns fall first… and my revolution hasn't even begun yet! Mine Sweeper!" From underneath his clothes, Rolento triggered a set of grenades and dropped them forward before rolling back away from them as quickly as he could.

The flying metal orbs prompted the two girls to leap away with as much acceleration as they could muster. The grenades exploded and the pair of females screamed as the blasts blew them both away.

Even Rolento suffered from his double-edged attack as he had been injured and knocked away violently from the concussive force of the blasts as well. But he got up to his feet as quickly as his equilibrium would allow because he needed to make sure that neither Sakura nor Karin had managed to avoid his grenade attack.

XxX

(Aohura City Industrial District – Mad Gear Hidden Warehouse – Sasuke vs. Sodom)

While on the ground the Mad Gear militia in attendance panicked on how to put the fires that raged their building out to save what was left of their equipment, they found themselves accosted by three powerful combatants. Meanwhile on the roof there were two warriors unconcerned with the flames surrounding them. The bigger threat at hand was the other, and the fire meant nothing to either of them.

The more pressing issue as far as Sasuke was concerned were the pair of swords that Sodom had brandished to cut him into ribbons.

Letting out a kabuki shout (or what he believed was a good rendition of one), Sodom launched himself at Sasuke, swinging his swords with no room for Sasuke to counter even with his Sharingan noticing everything. It was more than enough for him to evade it all though, and Sasuke did just that.

He had to take great care when he did even that though, because as he had felt earlier, Sodom had no qualms about grabbing him and making him pay for dodging in close. That kind of dexterity had to be hard to develop, so respect to him there. He was still going to kill him though.

Sasuke started to build up lightning chakra in his right hand before placing his left behind it and pointing it towards Sodom, "Chidori Senbon (One Thousand Birds Senbon)!" Countless tiny needles of electricity flew from his hand at Sodom, and much to Sasuke's surprise he jumped back into the flames on the rooftop.

Seeing through the blazing fire was not possible for him. Sodom had no idea how good of a move he had just made with that gamble because Sasuke had to end the Chidori Senbon to refrain from wasting chakra. If he couldn't aim it was useless.

From his blindspot, Sodom came flying out of the fire, swinging his swords in downward strikes, "Jigoku Scrape!" He missed Sasuke again, but the sword strikes were forceful enough to smash a trail into the roof all the way to the end of it.

This man was infuriating. He didn't even know how effectively he was fighting. But it was time to put a nail in Sodom's coffin, because Sasuke had fought enough of that battle.

A quick sleight of hand placed a folded up fuuma shuriken in Sasuke's hand. That got Sodom's attention as he held his swords up, prepared to defend against the wicked-looking projectile weapon, "You'll never touch me with that. It doesn't matter how hard you throw it."

Smirking, Sasuke didn't throw the shuriken at Sodom. He channeled lightning chakra into it and tossed it into the air before tugging on a ninja wire that ran underneath his sleeve to the shuriken. He pulled on it hard enough to unfold the large weapon in the air and get it spinning around.

Sodom laughed and simply rushed at Sasuke, opting to cut him down where he stood. If a fancy little throwing knife diversion trick was his best option it was time to put things to an end.

Sasuke saw him coming and flashed through several hand-seals before aiming his hand into the air where he fired off a shot of electricity that hit his lightning chakra-coated shuriken, "Taka no Ame (Hawk's Rain)!" The lightning around the spinning midair shuriken took the form of a bird of prey and from its 'talons' lightning began to strike at the roof hard enough to pulverize portions of it.

Of course, being electricity guided by chakra, among other things it was attracted in particular to metal. And the most open metal in the vicinity was all over Sodom. Lightning hit his swords, his body armor, and even his helmet and electrocuted him in one hell of a light show as he shouted at the top of his lungs.

"I like using that jutsu on opponents that think their bodyguards with guns will protect them from someone without one." Sasuke said, though it wasn't like Sodom was listening as volts and volts of electricity coursed through his system, "Hopefully by now you're numb. And by the time the jutsu ends your heart will stop. It won't hurt."

At that point however, Sodom could no longer hear him, not that it mattered anyway because his heart had indeed stopped. Even then he remained standing though, not falling to the ground from his position due to how his muscles had locked from having electricity course through them. He still even had both of his swords held up as if to attack with them.

Smoke was emanating through his facemask's eyeholes and from underneath the mouth, and Sasuke walked over to check his pulse at his neck to find none.

Nodding to himself, Sasuke managed to catch Sodom when his body went limp. He picked up the massive man over his shoulders and walked to the edge of the roof before dropping down right in the midst of an ongoing scrum between the remainder of the Mad Gear militia and the three people left in town that chose to fight it out against them. Despite clear numerical superiority it didn't matter from the looks of how many of them had been beaten down at that point.

The weekend warriors all paid attention to Sasuke when he landed amongst them though, more notably to what he had hoisted up on his shoulders. Upon seeing Sodom's limp and non-responsive body they all then looked at Sasuke's eyes, and those he managed to influence then were blasted with killing intent, enhanced by their dead ringleader being carried by him and by the intimidating outline of some creature surrounding Sasuke's person.

He had to thank seeing the same thing while fighting Naruto for the illusion idea, as he knew firsthand just how intimidating that combination of things could be to get sight of, "Next?"

Not likely. None of them wished to fight Sasuke and turned back towards Batsu, Cammy, and Akira only to find similar devilish outlines on their bodies as well. It was backed up by the fact that the three of them were able to fight casually against and decimate over more than half of 400 of them all at once by themselves.

That was the point where they finally had enough and fled. Those children were monsters. Teenagers shouldn't be so ridiculously powerful. If only the three of them could beat so many of them, what was going to happen when they actually fought soldiers and the like that would try to fight against their insurrection? They didn't stand a chance. They didn't even have their weapons anymore.

Everyone that was still awake and able to move around in some way, shape, or form escaped the vicinity of the warehouse in any way that they could. By running right out the front gates and scattering through the abandoned industrial district streets and alleys, or for those too scared to risk running past any of the kids they climbed the fences in droves until they overweighed them and sent them tumbling down. Even then they kept on running. They didn't sign up to get bludgeoned to death by a gaggle of superhuman brats that could rip the doors off of military hummers and use them as weapons.

Batsu, who was holding up a door of a military hummer that he had planned on using as a weapon, looked around at the mass hysteria and then at a smirking Sasuke, "Did you do that?" Sasuke let his silence answer for him as he began walking off of the property, "Man…"

"You killed him?" Akira asked quietly, moving closer to see Sodom as Sasuke nodded and Sodom's body on his shoulders to carry him easier.

"It's my mission." Sasuke stated, not trying to excuse his actions. This was a main reason why he didn't like working with people. He didn't need others getting involved in the fact that if he was going to fight someone, chances were that the person in question was going to die because of it, "…Thanks by the way." With that, he quickly left their reach in a whirlwind of leaves and dust to reach the rooftops.

Akira's gaze lingered on the place Sasuke had vanished to and from until she heard Batsu blow a raspberry from somewhere behind, "Someone's trying too hard to be cool." She turned to see Batsu and Cammy clearing debris and crud off of a tarp that they then pulled off to reveal one of the very few vehicles that hadn't been annihilated in the attack; a jeep, "Mine. Dibs." Batsu said before anything as he jumped in the front seat and hit the starter switch to turn it on, "Oh yeah, you've got to love the no keys part about these things."

He was already thinking about how he was going to get that baby ready for the road. Nobody else was going to be needing it, that was for damn sure. Oh, first he was going to switch out the seats and put an actual sound system into it, and then he was going to paint it the color-.

"What makes you think you get to keep it?" Cammy said, interrupting Batsu's thoughts of his new car with her arms crossed over her chest and an eyebrow raised, "We all fought here tonight. There should be a fairer way of determining who gets to have it." Because Akira wouldn't be involved in the deliberations due to her bike and Sasuke was gone… so she could have it.

While she was an amnesia-afflicted assassin she was still a teenage girl behind all of that, and she wanted a car too damn it

In return, Batsu just scowled at her from the driver's seat, "Okay, you want to play that game, let's be fair then. I go to school every day and all you do is hang out at Naruto's place until you want to go somewhere. You got a ride here from Akira and I had to bum a ride from my mom because you all ditched me, so on that note-." He then quickly backed up and shifted into drive as he peeled out of the warehouse grounds and into the night, "Whoo! _My_ jeep!"

Cammy frowned as she watched the lights of the jeep disappear down the dark road and then turned to Akira who had been standing there watching the entire time, "Could I trouble you for another ride home?" Akira just shrugged and gestured for Cammy to follow her back to where they had hidden her motorcycle.

XxX

(Downtown Aohura City – Synth Logistics Company Building)

A quiet pained cry escaped Sakura as she tried to move her legs to push herself out from beneath all of the office materials she found herself buried beneath. Desks, cubicle wall parts, file cabinets… they all had her pinned in various places. Not only that, but she could feel her own blood from shrapnel that she had taken from the grenade in her arms and in part of her torso.

Taking a quick look around at the utterly ruined office floor, she caught sight of Karin sitting against a support pillar. She too had suffered her share of blast wounds that she had luckily been able to save her body from via her injured arms, but unlike Sakura she was unconscious. She looked almost blissful in sleep if one were to ignore the blood coating one side of her face from where her head had been bumped.

Sakura started pushing thing off of her body to get up but after she finished freeing her upper body and got to trying to shove the heavy file cabinets off of her waist to begin liberating her lower half, a heavy boot stomped down on the cabinet and elicited a shout of pain from her.

The bottom of Rolento's staff pressed against Sakura's chin and directed her gaze up towards Rolento who wasn't particularly unscathed himself, "You're alive. Well aren't you two tough? It truly is a shame that you two can't see the world through my eyes."

Sakura moved her hands to try and fire a Hadoken from her back, but Rolento swatted at her hands with his staff and knocked them out of position before pressing the end of the weapon down on her throat with intent to choke her.

It was all she could do to keep Rolento from crushing her esophagus with that damned staff. That damn dirty grenade trick. She couldn't kick her legs to try and free herself either. Sakura coughed and gagged while Rolento simply did not care. Child or not, she was a fighter, and he would lose no sleep over taking her life just like the rest of them.

From the edge of the building, over the side from below came some form of salvation as a blur streaked across the dark and devastated office before Rolento saw nothing but blue light, "Chou Ikitaihou (Chakra Breath Cannon)!" There wasn't even enough time for Rolento to look shocked as he found himself blown away from Sakura via a huge, human height and width wave of millions of chakra needles from Naruto's wide open mouth.

Rolento's body started bleeding from the pores on the front of his body in multiple places as if he had been pricked all over by needles. He landed and bounced off of the floor until he fell out of the window and had to catch his staff between two metal struts to keep from falling.

Naruto, who looked to be a complete mess with ruined clothes, looking like he had just walked out of a blast furnace, started rapidly throwing the hodge-podge of objects off of Sakura as she held her throat and continued to gasp and cough for air, "N-Naruto!" She managed to get out before another coughing fit got to her, "I thought-! Rolento said you had gotten killed by a helicopter!"

"It was actually kind of closer than you think." Naruto said as he went over to Karin and picked her body up. Despite being completely out of it she shifted with difficulty in his grip and whimpered slightly, instinctively trying to pull herself closer to him for some kind of comfort in her pain. Poor thing, "I got blown out of the back of this place by that stupid rocket."

And he looked like it too. Burns littered his arms and chest, even on parts of his face and neck. His legs were in better condition, but not by too much.

But there was something wrong with that story. Naruto couldn't fly. So how the hell did he avoid falling to a fiery and catastrophic death? It didn't make sense, "Naruto, how did you survive then?"

Turning towards the far end wall that he had climbed back through and attacked Rolento from, Naruto gestured his head in that direction as he set Karin down on the ground, "I was still attached to the ninja wire that I dragged you two up here with. It caught on the end of a beam and stopped me. I climbed back up here." Once again proving that he had calamitous luck. Either things went really bad, or exceptionally well in dire situations, "What happened to you two?"

"Rolento pulled a nasty trick with some grenades on us." Sakura said as she stood up and walked over to Naruto and the downed Karin gingerly, "I've been around fighters that were soldiers before. Guile and Charlie didn't fight like that."

Comparing Guile and/or Charlie to Rolento was like night and day. Rolento's sense of honor was very different from the two of them. As long as he won, that was what mattered to him more than anything else.

Speaking of Rolento, he still hung outside of the window, using his staff as his only means of support to keep from falling, 'I thought he was dead. He should have been dead.' It didn't matter. They were all going to be done with in just a matter of seconds. The Mad Gear ringleader grabbed his radio from his belt and started speaking into it once more, "The target is _not_ dead! Bring the Ka-50 back down for another pass to pick me up and finish the job!"

He didn't have to fight with them. That was what all of their military hardware was for. There was no reason to fight them with a numerical disadvantage against him. He'd just use the helicopter available to him to blow those kids away.

Inside, Naruto's ears almost noticeably twitched at the sound of helicopter blades spinning again, "Oh no… Sakura-chan, take Karin and stay down behind something sturdy."

Sakura wanted to heed the warning and kneeled down by Karin to prepare to move her, but she then looked around at the bombed out hovel that they both stood in and turned back towards Naruto quizzically, "Where do you see anything sturdy left in here to hide behind?"

Before Naruto could come up with a smart-aleck response to his attentive best friend, the helicopter appeared right in front of them outside with Rolento standing on the open second cockpit of the helicopter. He opened it up and hopped inside before the aircraft began circling the building around Naruto, Sakura, and Karin, _"Hahahaha! You can't stop me. Not unless you grow wings. Now kill them!"_

"Fuck it, just stay down!" Naruto said as he saw the pods of the rockets open up again to fire at them, "Isseishageki Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire Volley)!" The small chakra bomblets acted as countermeasures that forced the rockets to prematurely explode before they could devastate the kids.

Sakura covered her face and Karin's body as the blasts went off and Naruto stood firm at the face of it even though he could clearly feel the heat from them. He didn't turn away from the exploding rockets that he had managed to stop with some quick thinking, even when verbally prompted to, "Naruto, _you_ get down before you lose your head dummy!"

Naruto could hear the helicopter's blades begin to move in another direction and shook his head at Sakura's request, "No… sorry. Not doing that." He then turned to his left and cut a straight sprint as fast as he could to the end of the building in that regard.

From the point of view of Rolento's chopper, after the rockets went off and exploded there was no way for him to see if his targets were killed due to the vision obscuring material stirred up by the explosions. Thus he prompted the pilot to go around to another side and try to look inside from another position.

Naruto was aware of this from the altered sound of the helicopter's movement. He was also aware that most people were dominant on their right side, hence why he took off to his left side. And his hunch was correct when he saw the helicopter swing right, heading right his way.

Jumping out of the hole in the wall that used to be windows, Naruto actually managed to get a hold of the underside the helicopter and held on for dear life as he looked down at the ground and realized that this might have been his stupidest move to date. Now what was he going to do?

Yeah, it most certainly was not his brightest move as he crawled back to the tail of the helicopter and clawed his way to the upside of it. He had to make a move before that dust cleared though, or both Sakura and Karin were going to bite it.

By this time Rolento saw Naruto on the tail of the helicopter and opened his cockpit to try and get at Naruto from where he was strapped into his chair, "What are you doing?" He seethed. He didn't even understand how he got himself attached. Then again he didn't understand how Naruto climbed up the tower without anything but his bare hands either, but right then he didn't care, "Get off my helicopter!"

"Get out of my town!" Naruto replied, creating a clone that helped him form a rather huge Rasengan between the two of them, "Odama Rasengan (Great Ball Rasengan)!" That helicopter tail crumbled underneath the force of the jutsu until it blew apart and fell to the ground below. The chopper started going out of control due to its lack of a balancing tail, and Rolento was seething.

Naruto on the other hand was getting physically ill from how the chopper began to spin around. He knew he hated all kinds of aircraft for a reason. And then the helicopter plowed into the side of the building, taking out another entire floor of windows on that side of it. Naruto's body was thrown from its position rather violently to a crash landing on the hard floor, but it was better than the alternative that awaited Rolento and his pilot.

The propeller on top of the helicopter had been ruined by crashing into the building and broke. That was the death knell for Rolento's chopper, and it fell out of the air to the ground amid the angered yells of a man that felt he had come so close to reenacting his dream of a Mad Gear state, 'I was so close! Nooo!' "Damn you Uzumaki! Burn in hell!" He shouted as loudly as he could while he careened to the ground.

"You first…" Sakura muttered. She had seen the entire fall of the vehicle with Karin's arm over her shoulder and cringed when it hit the ground a metal flaming wreck. She was pitying whoever it was that would have to sift through that crash when the flames were put out. What a way to go. She didn't see Naruto on it, so she hoped that he was safe, "Naruto, are you alriiii-!"

The edge of the floor she had been standing on suddenly collapsed as she spoke and Sakura found herself and her rival Karin falling just like she had seen Rolento fall, for at least a second though because she found an arm wrapped around her waist that kept her from falling any further. Hearing a grunt of effort, she looked over her shoulder to see Naruto holding her and Karin up with one arm each.

Behind him holding onto his legs, a chain of clones stretched from the floor of the building that he had been thrown from the chopper onto. The unfortunate clone on top had to root himself down behind an anchor point to hold onto his doppelganger brethren, gritting his teeth and struggling heavily as he started slowly pulling the load back up.

"You two are kind of heavy…" The original Naruto said in a straining voice, still clutching onto both Sakura and Karin tightly so that they didn't fall. He'd be damned if he found a way to knock down a military aircraft with his bare hands just to have to watch those two drop, "…Is it over?"

"I guess." Sakura said, looking back down at the wreck. She could see the Mad Gear militia members that had been on the ground preparing to battle with the Kanzuki-hired mercenaries were crowding the scene. She could only imagine what they were seeing and what they thought, "What now?"

The motion of being jostled by Naruto's clone chain pulling them back up to safety awakened Karin who was still quite groggy as she looked down at the harrowing heights before her. She blinked drearily and then looked over to see that Naruto was the one that happened to be holding onto her and keeping her from falling. Her mind wasn't fully active yet after being clocked on the noggin and she felt as if she were still asleep.

"Oh, another of these falling dreams." She quietly uttered, barely audible for others to hear, "Very well then Naruto-san, my hero, here is your reward." She spoke as if she were recanting lines that she had spoken time and time again in a similar predicament, and her next move was done with a numbingly practiced ease that caught the other two teens off-guard.

Naruto almost let go of the girls out of pure shock when Karin turned his head toward her and kissed him right on the lips, deeply. Sakura went wide-eyed and slack-jawed, unable to register any words as the heiress continued to plant one on Naruto, 'I… did not see that one coming at all.'

Eventually Karin broke the kiss and ran a thumb over Naruto's cheek fondly with a small smile, 'Hah… if only it were not merely a dream.' She then slowly gained enough awareness of her surroundings to notice that Sakura was right there as well, 'What is Sakura-san doing here as well? I do not have dreams including her unless they involve me standing over her in victory.'

Her mind then fully caught up to the reality of the situation, the pain that her body was in, that this was a real situation, and that she had really kissed Naruto for real. It was all simply too much for her and the blood running to her face turned it beet red until she passed out again from embarrassment.

Both Naruto and Sakura stared at the once again limp form of Kanzuki Karin for quite some time until Naruto cleared his throat with the bravery to speak up on the topic at hand, "So." He started, smacking his lips as he could still taste Karin on them. She used her tongue too. Where did she learn that from? Awesome, "This stays between us, right?"

"Absolutely not." Sakura replied with a deadpan look on her face, "The next time you spank me for something stupid, I can't hit you back but I can bring this up. So watch yourself Mister Handsy." She was saving that ammunition for when it was needed, even though she was irked at Karin's audacity whether it was intentional or not. Who said she could do that to Naruto? Sakura certainly didn't.

"I could just drop you and save the two of us a lot of embarrassment."

"You'd drop me for blackmailing you about the fact that Karin kissed you?"

"No."

"Because you lo~~ve me-." Sakura cooed jokingly, grabbing a hold of Naruto's cheek and pinching away at the whisker-marked, soot covered flesh. That scowl was just priceless. He'd get her back later though, he always did.

"-Because I love you." Naruto admittedly interrupted, shaking his head to get Sakura to let go. He had just knocked a damn helicopter out of the sky with his bare hands and instead of instilling fear and awe into her he got kidded with afterwards. Something wasn't right about that, "Yes damn you. Now shut up or I'm taking away everything in your room related to Ryu and destroying it."

That threat wasn't as empty as one would have figured upon further scrutinization. Naruto could break into her room and strip it bare in a matter of minutes any time he wanted to. He'd done it before. The best thing that Sakura could do at that point was change the subject, and there was one subject tailor-made for switching to, "…Naruto, how are we going to get down from here? The stairwells collapsed when Rolento's helicopter blew up that floor."

"Who cares right now? For Kami's sake Sakura-chan, can't I just bask in the glow of victory for one minute? Clean wins don't come this often, dattebayo."

"You consider this clean?"

XxX

(One Week Later)

There was no leadership chain put into the Mad Gear authority system past Rolento and Sodom who ran the entire show together. Poison came the closest, and while Hugo had major status as well he was nowhere close to being capable of leading anyone to anything, and even they had been taken down already. Past them, the quality of solo members dropped sharply.

The order to arm and board the trains at midnight was supposed to be sent out by Rolento as a show of solidarity amongst them that this was really happening. But due to his misfortune with a Ka-50 and a young man named Uzumaki Naruto this never came. Without the order no one had been given enough rank and authority to issue the command to do such a thing and they all simply sat and waited for word.

Word came in the form of the evening news, as the end of the fighting came very close to most timeslots for such a thing. Many people were presented with live feeds from the scene of the fire in the industrial district and the damaged Synth Logistics Company building in downtown Aohura City, complete with the 'standoff' that had been going on outside at the foot of it.

Coupling that with the unexplained incident that had destroyed the arena in Tokyo that saw similar traits, such as the normal civilians seemingly ready for full-scale street battle outside of it, and the country was put on basic lockdown until things could be sorted out and explained.

That was all that was required to spook the rest of Mad Gear's branches elsewhere, because the Japan Self-Defense force was sent into Tokyo and many areas around the metropolis to ensure that peace was kept. The plan most definitely never called for them to directly fight Japan's military in order to get to the leaders of the country first and foremost, and they all cut out and went home.

It was like dominoes falling.

People were still picked up, names were still dropped in a bid of those that had been in the militia to try and save themselves, and even when the state of emergency had been lifted from the country interior there were still arrests being made to many civilians who thought they could just return home. After all, there was no way they'd arrest them all right?

They were kind of right. Not all of them. Not even close to all of them. But a hell of a lot of them, yes, a hell of a lot of them were arrested.

Credit for the destruction of the building went to the mercenary group employed by Karin's family shooting down the helicopter containing Rolento before he could rain down fire from above onto them in the streets. They were admonished and suffered severe repercussions for it from the city, but it enhanced their reputation and increased their business worldwide to the extent that it didn't matter, so they managed to win and couldn't hold the impish manipulation of their force against the client Kanzuki Karin, as it worked out for them goldenly in the end.

The fire at the warehouse was left an open mystery due to the lack of telltale explosives that would indicate how the blast that had caused the fire came about. Just an armament malfunction was what it was chalked up to being.

With that near-catastrophe averted, life soon enough returned to normal. As normal as things got in that corner of the world anyway.

And Naruto still had three weeks of his summer vacation left before he had to return to school in July. Damn his previously comatose state for keeping him down for a month, but at least he had some time to himself regardless.

"I can't believe that jackass just up and left to go back to Hong Kong to report to his boss." Naruto griped as he aimed and fired a handgun controller on an arcade system shooting game. The arcade district of Aohura City had been repaired, and Naruto was wasting away his lazy summer day in his favorite part of town alongside Batsu, "I didn't even get to kick his ass for getting me stuck here to begin with."

"-And for the setting you on fire and shoving a hand through your shoulder thing… right?" Batsu asked as he and Naruto were going co-op on the same game. Why was Naruto's aim so much better than everyone else's? It was ridiculous, "…You take the 'him dropping you here' thing way more seriously than the other stuff." He pointed out. That jerk Sasuke would be back though. He tried to be cool, but he wanted to stay around Naruto, it was clear.

"Kyuubi patched me up as good as new so I got over it. I had more important things to worry about, like finding out where the hell I was." Naruto explained reasonably, at least by his standards. Speaking of Kyuubi, it was still unresponsive, but he felt himself getting healthier and healthier every single day. He had to find some way to help the biju out. There had to be something, somewhere that could assist, "I'm sick of fighting carefully."

A snort came from Batsu as he stopped firing and waited for Naruto to have to reload in-game before taking any more shots. Otherwise he'd never get a chance to hit anything, "You can't call anything that we just got through doing careful. We're damn national heroes and no one's ever going to know."

Naruto rolled his eyes and kept on shooting at the targets that presented themselves on the screen, "Yeah, I'm sure that bringing that up has gotten you plenty of hero sex from Sakura-chan's friend Hinata. Sakura-chan told me she only talks about you these days. I can only imagine how annoying-." He then took a solid blow off the side of his head that got his full attention, "Did… did you just pistol-whip me with a plastic controller?"

"Oh it didn't hurt and you know it." Batsu said, smirking as Naruto's side of the screen started getting lit up with damage, "Ha, you're dead." In retaliation, Naruto grabbed Batsu's controller and shot out all of his virtual ammunition before handing it back and leaving Batsu a sitting duck where he was soon killed, "Hey! What, are you jealous because _you_ don't get hero sex?"

"I'm not having this argument with you!" Naruto exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air and walking away with Batsu following behind. It wasn't that he didn't want to have that argument; he'd have that argument all day long if he had to. It was that Batsu was prepared to have that argument in public, and Naruto wasn't cool with that, "I wish you'd have never told me that you were hooking up. I was better off never knowing that."

Both boys made their way outside and hopped into Batsu's confiscated jeep that was parked out front. Removing his homemade security measure from the wheel to keep folks from stealing it until he could change the starter over, he hit the button and started the vehicle, "I had to tell you about it. Who else would I talk to it about? She saw me on TV and was worried about me. The night we got back from taking down that warehouse too. It was amazing."

Naruto had his hands over his ears while he hummed loudly to himself. The last thing he needed to hear about was Batsu's Penthouse article story. He continued to do so as his snickering best friend drove them down the street. By the time they stopped at a light though, Naruto had stopped and so had Batsu, "What are you going to do after high school?" Naruto asked idly.

"Go to college I guess." Batsu responded with a shrug, "My grades aren't that bad that I'd get turned down from anywhere but the best places, and I think I could get a loan off of you or rich girl if I had to." The thought of having to sell his soul to that devil wasn't very reassuring though, "My last year is this fall. What about you?"

Naruto was only in school because he had been forced to be at the time while they tried to find somewhere to put him when he first arrived in Japan as a ward of the state. Eventually they gave up and left well enough alone, but Naruto still remained in school because he had met his best friend there by then and wanted to stay with her.

It was quite clear that Sakura was going to a university in two years time. Ibuki wanted to go to college too after she graduated. They were smart girls and their grades were awesome, but this time he wasn't really keen on doing the same. He had no motivation to.

"I guess I'll just keep on doing what I'm doing, especially since I'll have the opening to do it after I graduate." Freelance missions for those willing to hire him, and his real goal that he still wasn't convinced didn't exist, "I've got to find a way home."

"Why?"

That question caught Naruto off-guard, and he realized that he had never told anyone that he was looking for a way home. He made certain to never let that slip, but since every other secret he'd been keeping to himself for years had spilled out he had lowered his defenses on that last one. It seemed irrelevant in comparison to the others, "Why what? Why look for a way home?"

"Yeah." Batsu confirmed, keeping his eyes on the road as they kept on rolling, "You've been gone for four years by now. You showed up here when you were twelve, now you're sixteen. So what's the point? Do you really want to go back that bad?"

"No… but I promised." Naruto said, crossing his arms over his chest and taking on a deeply introversive personal view, complete with squinty-eyed gaze, "I promised myself that I'd find a way home."

"But you don't want to go back." Batsu deadpanned, "That doesn't make any sense. Why would you make your entire life goal something that you don't even want to do? You don't do anything else that you don't want to do no matter what, but you're trying to find a way to do the impossible, and your only motivation for trying it is some bullshit promise that you made to yourself when you were a runt?"

"You don't understand." Naruto sighed out, turning his gaze toward the side as he watched the storefronts and the people on the sidewalk fly past them, "If I can't keep a promise to myself then what good am I to anyone else when I promise them anything?"

"You've never screwed over anyone else with a promise that you didn't keep." Batsu said as he palmed the top of Naruto's head and shook the younger man's head around like a bobblehead doll, "So cut yourself some damn slack. Do what you want, not what you feel like you have to do. What do you think Akira?"

Turning to his right, Naruto let out a frightened yelp when he saw that Akira in her complete biker outfit, skull helmet and all, was riding alongside them seemingly listening in. Damn, what kind of engine work did she do on that engine? It was coasting instead of accelerating, but it still should have been able to be heard.

Ignoring Naruto's discomfort, or delighting in it because he couldn't tell which one it was through that helmet visor, Akira spoke, "Someone that does what they want the way you do shouldn't be so inflexible on something like that. I don't know anything about it, or even what you two are really talking about, but that's what I think." She concluded with a nod before speaking again, "Where's Sasuke?"

"Hong Kong. He went home for a bit to report to his boss." Naruto answered, staring at Akira's dark helmet visor where he thought her eyes would be, "He'll be back soon enough… the jackass. Why?" He asked carefully, figuring that Akira only asked him about Sasuke because they seemed to know each other well.

"Too bad." Akira said before turning to face the road, "I liked him quite a bit, he was cool. I especially like that he wasn't too fond of you." Naruto gave her a stunned look. Really, you grab a girl's chest one time when you think she's a boy and she holds a lifelong grudge against you, "I'll have to make sure I look him up when he comes back here." With that she pulled off and rocketed down the street on her racing bike.

A still confused looking Naruto slumped in his seat and ran a hand through his spiky locks, "Even here Sasuke gets girls without trying. And why is Akira so damn aggressive with that gear on? It's like she's bipolar and her moods depend on what she's wearing."

"Dude, I don't even want to hear you bitch about the thing with girls." Batsu said, smirking to himself at the thought, "You've already heard what I had to say about that, and it's not like I don't have even more ammo to use on you now after the thing with rich girl." Why did he even tell him that?

There was also the hot spring thing with Ibuki, but he wasn't telling anyone about that one because no one needed to know. Man, he had a busy week last week. Not bad for a guy that had just woken up from a coma, "We talked about that. She just thought it was a dream when she did it. You know that you try doing weird things in dreams."

That did nothing to refute Batsu's point and only fueled the fire further, "Oh, so she has dreams about you now? Did you ask how far they go, because I really doubt that they stop with one stupid kiss. She seems like the type."

"Batsu shut up. Or I'll snitch to your mom about what you did with Hinata and you'll never leave the house again." What, did Batsu think he was all awesome and untouchable now because he had a girlfriend? Admittedly though, Naruto had been given worse reasons for Batsu to have a big head in the past. This one was actually reasonable in comparison.

"No you won't, you're better than." Batsu was quite certain that Naruto would never go stool-pigeon to his mom, because that was not how they got one-ups on each other and they both knew it, "But I thought that it was unprofessional for contractors to have the hots for their mercenary hires. Don't you have some kind of code for that or are you just morally free to nail your cutest clients if you feel like it?"

"Karin is my cutest cli-. Grr…" Naruto saw what he did there. Trying to catch him off guard. Sneaky fucker. And he was supposed to be the ninja out of the two of them, "I will turn this jeep into oncoming traffic just to fuck with you. I blew up a helicopter, I can survive a head-on collision too, I'm sure of it."

Still undeterred by Naruto's threat to cause a major automobile accident out of spite, Batsu of course took the long way back to Naruto's apartment just to keep picking with him more and more, as was his responsibility.

Yep. Everything was back to normal. As normal as things got around there anyway.

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Roomies<span>

Naruto's eyes opened and were met with the blazing sun shining into them. Why did he put his bed there again? He needed to move it when he didn't have so much going on. But not right then though. It was summer, he was free, there had to be something out in the big wide city for him to get into today, and damn it he was going to find it.

The moment his feet hit the floor, Naruto stretched out quickly and made sure he was in a pair of shorts and a shirt before he ventured outside of his room. He had to remember that he was living with someone now, and he had to be dressed aptly for being in the presence of a lady, even if that lady was a killer.

…Actually, _especially_ _since_ that lady was a killer.

As Naruto walked through the hall of his two bedroom apartment, he entered the living room/kitchen area to find no pretty little assassin girl already awake and doing what it was that Cammy did in the morning. That was strange because she always woke up before him, even back when the school term was still in session and he was required to get up every morning on time.

Thus he walked his way back through the small hallway and stopped off at the side room that used to be where he had previously kept his weapons and equipment until Cammy required a place to stay. Naruto knocked on the door softly but received no answer. Finding the door unlocked, he turned the knob and nudged it open far enough to stick his head inside and look within.

Cammy was completely asleep in her bed covered by her comforter, with the kitten she had adopted sleeping right by her side. Aww… she was so adorable she almost looked like she was incapable of killing grown men with her bare hands. But she was, and he knew it, so no early morning pranks or he'd probably end up getting his arm broken out of a reflex from her.

She was apparently able to sense the shift of atmosphere that came with someone new entering her room, because her blue eyes cracked open and looked toward the door where she saw Naruto. Well that was new. He had never ventured into her room a single time before then. She wondered what brought him there this time.

"Good morning Cam." Naruto greeted, fully standing in the open doorway with his body leaning against the frame now that she was awake, "Didn't mean to wake you up, I just wondered why you weren't up like usual."

"I guess I was just sleeping too well." Cammy reasoned, shifting underneath her covers to prepare her body to try and get up, "I usually don't sleep too soundly you see. I have these… nightmares I guess you could call them, more often than not."

Well that was no good. Why didn't she tell him about that before? The entire reason Cammy lived with him to begin with was so that she would feel comfortable in a new environment. Having nightmares almost every night wasn't a sign that she was content with her surroundings.

Naruto picked up Agent Jack off of the bed so that he didn't jostle the kitten awake and sat down on the edge of it, "What are they about?" He asked her. There was a doubt that there was anything he could do, but it was still worth a shot.

"They come in spontaneous bits and pieces. A lot of them are about some powerful man in a red military uniform giving me orders." Cammy said, looking rather despondent as she curled up underneath the covers and continued to explain, "He ordered me to do things like kill people that I didn't know, and I couldn't stop even though I didn't want to. It was like I was looking at myself from the outside."

'Bison…' Naruto thought to himself with a hateful snarl, 'He got blown straight to hell and he still won't leave us alone somehow.' "I think those are your actual memories. Remember what I told you about how you probably wouldn't want to know about what you used to do? That's why."

"I saw you too. I was ordered to kill you before in one of the dreams. I remember hearing your name in a briefing." Cammy peered uneasily over at Naruto from where her head was laying on her pillows, "Naruto why did you help me after I tried to kill you?"

"Because honestly, Karin convinced me that it was better to help you than fight Bison by ourselves."

"No, I mean after the battle with Bison. You could have just left me in Hong Kong at the hospital with the other girls."

Naruto shook his head and rubbed Cammy's thigh consolingly, "Do you remember what it was like when you fought me in school?" Cammy shook her head. Well, she couldn't be pressed to have to remember everything. It was great that she was getting back what she had so far, "When people fight you can feel what kind of person they are from the battle. The first time I didn't feel a thing from you. I didn't feel any anger, fear, excitement, nothing."

Cammy didn't really understand what Naruto was talking about. That didn't explain why he decided to open his home to her and allow her to be so close even after everything that had happened when there was no logical reason to, "What does that have to do with anything?"

A grin sprang forth on Naruto's face and his hand switched to patting the girl's leg, "Well, that scared me at first. A lot." He confessed sheepishly, "When we first met back up, you probably don't remember but I almost snapped on you on Karin's yacht when you came asking for help. I didn't trust a single thing about what you were there to pitch. That was why."

Cammy's eyes widened. Naruto was never really scared of anything. Wary and reluctant to deal with things at times, yes, but never admittedly scared, "I scared you when we fought? But we've fought since I've been living here and you never acted like-."

"Just having people try to kill me doesn't scare me." Naruto continued "When it usually happens, it's strange but I can feel people's feelings during fights and at least I can understand why they're doing it, and that helps. I couldn't understand anything about you. You were like a drone. You were just numb, even to pain when I hit you. Then we met again and we fought Bison together, and I felt everything. Even if you didn't know what it was, I saw it all on your face."

"All of what?" She didn't remember the actual battle, again just bits and pieces of it, most vividly when she stabbed him in the chest with one of Naruto's strange black knives and then everything went all hazy and painful, "I don't understand."

But Naruto knew exactly how to categorize what he wanted to say, "You were angry that he brainwashed you, that he used you like a tool and wanted to kill you and the Dolls when he called you all useless. You were confused and scared when he told you… something else. You showed remorse over what you did under his control right before you tried to finish him, even though he already said that killing him would kill you too. And then in Hong Kong after it was all over you smiled."

That memory put a smile on Cammy's face right then. When she woke up with no memory she had been terrified, but those people that she didn't know why but she still wanted to trust; Naruto, Sakura, Batsu, Karin, they all were so kind to her and offered help to her when she had no background and no family to be left to. A smile was the least she could do to convey how she felt at that point just a number of months ago.

Before those things Naruto didn't trust Cammy and saved her out of debt for what she had done to help, he had still been very wary of her, "After that, I didn't see someone that tried to kill me because that wasn't you anymore. You were just a kid my age with nowhere to go that didn't know anything except her own name, and there was something I could do about that. And here we are. You live here with me now." That was that, "Now get your butt up. Go to the bathroom and wash up so I can use it too and get dressed. Let's go find something to do today."

"Yes sir." Cammy chirped cheerfully, sitting up straight and giving Naruto something of a playful salute, "Is something wrong?" Cammy asked when she saw Naruto's eyes nearly pop out of his head once the sheets that had covered her previously had fallen to the wayside.

"I… didn't know you slept naked Cam." That explained why she had never purchased any nightgowns or pajamas with the money he had given her to buy clothes for herself.

"Oh." A completely calm Cammy said absently before picking up the nearby kitten Jack and hugging him to her chest as a good morning to her beloved pet. It restricted part of Naruto's fantastic view, but not by very much, "Well I do. That isn't a problem is it?"

In the words of Batsu from months prior, if she was cool with it he was cool with it. And she seemed to be cool with it. So no, it wasn't a problem at all. However Naruto verbally conveyed this in a different manner, "…You are the most awesome roommate that doesn't pay rent ever."

* * *

><p><strong>I used to have a hornet's nest in the tree right by my back door. Then it took an arrow to the knee. A flaming arrow! And yes, I know that hornet's nests don't have knees, but you're missing the entire point of that statement if that's what you're dwelling on.<strong>

**I am officially done with my bastard summer classes. And I will officially be fully prepared to get anything in on time that occurs during my actual fall semester that ever comes up in a deadline. I will never complain about the length of any assignment that needs to be done over the course of oh so many weeks ever again. It will never be as bad as it just was in that department. Ever.**

**But you're all not worried about that, and who can blame you? Nah, you've all got your own things to deal with, so get on back to it. I hope this was a good break for you.**

**Kenchi out.**


	27. Life's Instruction Manual

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I'm not worthy I guess.

**Chapter 27: Life's Instruction Manual**

* * *

><p>"You ready?" Naruto asked, shaking his arms out as he stood on the rooftop of his apartment home. This was the place he used whenever he wished to train and didn't feel like going far from home, "Just hit me with a good one whenever you are. Go ahead." He couldn't get into anything too destructive up there, but light sparring and training that required a lot of repetition was just fine to do.<p>

Standing across from him also on the roof was Batsu, and he had a look on his face that was more skeptical than anything else, "I'll tell you again that this doesn't seem that smart to me. I'm sure there's a better way to work on a technique like this."

"If you have any other ideas I'd love to hear it."

"…I've got nothing."

"Okay, so fire up the Guts Bullet and shut up, because you don't have to deal with it."

Shrugging to himself, Batsu charged up ki in one hand before punching it with his other, "Kiaidan (Guts Bullet)!"

The energy projectile flew through the air at Naruto who bravely stood strong in front of it. He waited until the exact final moment to do anything before punching it dead-on, forcing it to explode on him and throw him back across the roof.

Eventually coming to a stop lying flat on his back, Naruto just stared up at the sky while his right arm sat smoking right next to him, "Ow." He said dryly as he lifted his arm in front of his face and found his fingers twitching and fidgeting, "That'll fix itself soon enough won't it?"

"It did the last seventeen times we tried this." Batsu said as he grabbed Naruto and picked him back up onto his feet and dusted him off, "Did you hit your head too hard yesterday or are you really just that hardheaded? What are you trying to do here? I don't get it."

Naruto looked at his right hand and got the nerves in it back under control to end the quivering of the limb before he chose to answer, "Some people you and I fought in the past; Zangief, Balrog, and then Bison. They were able to do something to neutralize ki projectiles. And I was like, 'I've got to get me some of that.' Which leads us to now, which is what we're doing."

"Now: where I've been knocking you on your ass for the last hour and a half with fireballs." Batsu said, deciding to climb down and put an end to that session, "I'm done. I'm wasting too much energy, and this stopped being funny after the tenth time. I'm going home."

"Fine, go ahead and ditch me! I don't need you." Naruto said, shaking his right arm out to get full feeling back into it once more, "I'm sure Sakura-chan would love to shoot fireballs at me all afternoon. I wouldn't even have to tell her that I'm training for something in particular, she'd just do it anyway no questions asked."

Back on the ground, Batsu's shouting voice made it back up to Naruto on the room, "She's out with Kei and Hinata-chan genius. That's why you asked me to hang out this morning to begin with. Even Cammy's with them. And how is this ditching you? I've been here since nine. We played video games for three hours, we did two of your stupid missions, and then we did this for two hours. I've been with you all day."

Crowding the edge of the roof, Naruto looked down as he watched Batsu jump into his confiscated hummer and fire it up to go. All Naruto did was give a deadpan wave to Batsu who returned it before pulling off.

Admittedly, Batsu had killed more than enough of his day trying to help Naruto fight the still life. So it was no problem to let him leave since it was five in the afternoon by that point. Naruto had more tweaking to do when it came to the new jutsu he was trying to develop anyway.

And by tweaking he meant forming the theory behind it from scratch to begin with, because all he had been doing was punching Batsu's Guts Bullet at different angles to make sure that the process wasn't as simple as merely hitting it in the right spot in the exactly correct way. It wasn't.

But hey, trial and error was how facts were learned. Developing ninjutsu for combat was a science. A science he couldn't use clones as stand-ins for this time because they weren't durable enough to take the failures of his attempts.

A counter for a projectile ki attack. How hard could it be to work out by himself? He'd have it down just like he worked out a way to finish the Rasengan, just like he worked out his own other techniques. He was the man, and chakra was his plaything.

As he stood on his rooftop looking over the street below, Naruto's cell phone went off and got a huge sigh of relief from him, "Thank Kami. I didn't want to be left alone thinking about this by myself." He flipped his phone right open and placed it by his ear, "Best ninja in the world at your service. What can I do for you?" He said with a grin on his face as he waited for the reply, a reply that got him to palm his face, "Oh… how did you even get this number? Wait, you want me to _what_?"

XxX

(Two Hours Later – Aohura City Waterfront)

"Okay, you've got me." Naruto said, rather displeased by the current turn of events. As requested in the phone call he turned up prepared for combat, which meant he was dressed in his normal gear, "Are you really going to hire me just to fight me?" The people gathering around to watch was kind of annoying too, but he was used to that by now. Everyone in town was used to street fights and treated it like spectator occurrences.

Standing across from him on the casual walkway path right next to the river, stretching out in preparation for the coming conflict was Makoto. Much like Naruto she had shown up dressed to fight in her karate gi, and seemed to think that her move of hiring him was ingenious, "Of course I am. Any other time you would either run or hide instead of fight me. So I figured, why not make an offer you couldn't refuse; 35000 yen for a real match."

She was going to pay him money for a fight. Win or lose. How in the world would he have turned that down on his worst day?

"Yeah, well you interrupted some really productive training for this." Naruto drawled lazily, giving out a straight lie to the younger martial artist as his training, while potentially groundbreaking for himself had barely been any kind of productive, "What's your big deal about fighting me anyway?"

Makoto just let out a huff as if Naruto were ignorant as she continued to make sure she was thoroughly prepared, "You're one of the best fighters based out of Japan. Don't you keep track of your own fame?" Naruto just gave her a vacant look in response, "Don't you care about your reputation as a fighter?"

Naruto took the time that Makoto used to stretch to dig into his ear idly, "Well kind of, but I don't lose any sleep over it. Actually, other people seem to care about me being the best more than I do." Case in point: Karin's sponsoring of him as one example, and Guy's previous problem with him as another, "The only reason I'd care about being the best is if being the best kept the people I love safe. Heh, but being strong seems to do the opposite actually."

"It's better than being weak though." Makoto said as she stood up from stretching her hamstrings on the ground and settled into a karate stance, "The way I see it; the stronger you are the less overall problems you have. It's just way more serious when problems do come your way, that's all."

And Naruto had to agree. His troubles with combat were fewer and far between than they used to be, but when he did have trouble the situations seemed bigger and bigger. And even though he had taken down Shadaloo and later Mad Gear, who knew what could be next? He already knew of one psychopath that tried to take his life, and once Akuma figured out that he failed to kill him there was always a chance that he would be back.

Makoto continued speaking with an excited smirk on her face as she stood and faced off with Naruto, "And that's why you've always got to keep getting better, and why you've got to keep testing yourself to make sure you're ready for those big problems. You know what I'm saying don't you? Fighting someone like you, that's my big test and a test for my dojo's style."

Naruto cracked his knuckles and bounced loosely on his toes before getting down and ready for action himself, "I know what you're saying." He said with a huge grin. Maybe the younger girl wasn't so scary-aggressive after all, "And this one's free of charge, so bring it on."

A fight with her wouldn't be so bad. He'd grant her what she wanted for free because it didn't seem right to make Makoto pay for something that he himself was admittedly getting excited for. For some reason he liked that persistence she showed. This was probably going to be fun.

"Hayate!" Before Naruto could even try and break down what kind of fighter Makoto was, she darted across the space between them in a blur and her fist impacted off of his face like a whip had hit him.

"Ow! My eye!"

XxX

(Early Evening – Karin's Personal Manor)

Sitting outside in the massive garden in the back of the rich girl's property, Naruto wondered to himself just what the hell she needed with all of that land. Seriously, did she really need all of that? She didn't even do anything with it but put stuff on it. Admittedly it was a pretty garden with all kinds of plants, streams and the like, and the maze of hedges was awesome and all, but still.

A clearing of someone's throat got Naruto to turn around to find Karin's skinny, bespectacled steward Shibazaki holding an ice pack out to him.

With a grateful look on his face, Naruto took it and placed it over his right eye. He knew he'd been avoiding a scrap with Makoto for a reason. One match and she blackened his damn eye good. How could someone that small generate that kind of force?

He still won with very little damage dealt to him after he chucked her into the river, but he was going to be walking around with that shiner for a few days because of his still under the weather inner biju. By then he had changed into regular street clothes instead of fighting gear because his battle had been long over.

"Hey Shibazaki." Naruto said, getting the attendant's attention before he could leave him once more, "Where is Karin? I mean I know she's busy with her whole inheritance thing with her dad so she's got work to do every so often, but she was the one that said it was okay for me to come over."

Shibazaki adjusted his glasses on his face as he addressed Naruto, "I wouldn't know. I would simply beseech you to be patient. She will come outside when she finds it prudent to do so."

A frown grew on Naruto's face as Shibazaki took that moment as the time to leave Naruto to his own devices in the garden by himself.

Sighing, Naruto just continued to sit down and rest the ice pack on his eye. He could have just replaced himself with a clone and snuck inside to find wherever it was that Karin kept herself, but snooping through her home was one-hundred percent off-limits. He'd hate someone doing that in his own place, so why would he do something like that to someone close to him?

She would come out and talk to him when she was ready he guessed. It had been a week since her little dream-state faux pas, and he hadn't spoken to the girl face-to-face in that entire time. Had it been strange? Of course it had been strange. And more than a little surprising as well, but Naruto got past the weirdness pretty quickly. Stranger things happened to him than being kissed on a regular basis.

Even on the phone she seemed a bit anxious to be simply speaking to him. But she was home and he knew she was home. She might have been friends with Sakura and Cammy and to a far lesser extent Sakura's friend Kei, but she still had to keep that aura about her. It seemed to be more trouble to act like she didn't enjoy spending time with her friends than simply doing so.

That made her predictable enough to know where she was going to be a good chunk of the time though, so there was always that.

XxX

Inside of the mansion though, just inside of the sun room that allowed those within a place indoors to view the entirety of the back property present at the manor, Karin paced around as he was able to see Naruto just laying down and hanging out on the grass of a small hill overlooking most of the garden.

'He is waiting on you, it would be rude to merely leave him out there. You were the one that allowed him permission to visit in the first place.' Karin thought to herself, her brow furrowed as she tried to will herself to go outside, 'You must keep your composure. If he is able to then you must have the fortitude to do the same.'

So what that she had given her first actual kiss to a punk, a ruffian, a hoodlum/hooligan, or whatever one wished to call Naruto? While her father possibly would have had a heart attack over it if he ever found out (because Shibazaki sure enough almost did), it didn't matter a bit to her. Aside from the questionable method of obtaining a living, the rough and abrasive ungentlemanly conduct, the litany of secrets just now beginning to come to light that rested with him, and many other detrimental things Naruto was a stand-up young man.

And after listing all of those things off in her head, Karin grit her teeth and felt the need to hit something. Why the hell did she find that bastard desirable? It didn't make any sense! It was supposed to be a business arrangement! Just business!

'What did you do to me?' A fitful Karin fretted mentally before resigning herself to the hole she had dug herself into in a moment of haziness.

Well it was time to deal with whatever was to come. She figured that she had better get out there before the sun went down and she left him out there in the dark. Knowing him he would possibly wait out there for half of the night if someone didn't come to get him.

Despite her own misgivings about going outside, Karin did just that and walked over to the observation hill where Naruto had decided to rest and wait. The sound of evening insects and her own footsteps in the grass accompanied her path to where she eventually reached Naruto who had his eyes closed, only cracking them upon having her shadow cast on him from where she was standing.

"It took you a while to get out here." Naruto said with a smile, "I thought you'd forgotten about me."

That was something that was impossible to do. But Karin didn't voice as much. She tried to draw the path of the conversation toward the most obvious thing that she could see, "…What has happened to your right eye?"

"I got punched in it earlier during a match." He replied showing her the complementary icepack that he had been given by Shibazaki when the man had asked if he wanted anything. His idea of a refreshment on that day was something to relieve his swollen eye.

"I see."

"Do you want to punch me too?"

Karin just stared at him strangely, "What in the world makes you believe that I would desire to punch you?" She asked with her hands on her hips and a pensive look on her face. She hadn't wanted to punch him since they had fought and he had defeated her.

Naruto just shrugged in return, "I don't know. I need to come up with _something_ to get you to chill out. You've been all jittery when you talk to me, and you haven't even bothered trying to do anything with any of us since we beat Mad Gear. That was supposed to be time to do something cool to celebrate. Come on and tell me what's wrong."

Damn it. He wasn't dense enough to not pick up on the fact that she had been rather tentative in regards to him. And her discomfort must have shown as clear as day in the setting sun in her body language, because Naruto just let out a sigh and gave a pat to the ground, indicating that he wished for her to have a seat next to him, "…In the grass?" Karin said distastefully, "You must be joking."

"You pay how much money for landscapers to treat this grass better than any other rich person has their maids treat their bedspread." Naruto deadpanned, "Sit your ass down." He more or less ordered as he grumbled to himself, "…The grass ain't even from Japan to begin with… I know what the grass is supposed to look like in this region."

Smirking despite herself, Karin did as she was asked and sat down next to Naruto who was still lying flat on his back. Pulling her knees to her chest and forgoing a more dignified way of sitting, her smirk fell when she turned her head and looked over next to herself at Naruto who was just relaxing with his arms behind his head and an icepack covering his right eye while he looked up into the sky.

Why wasn't he saying anything?

"I was just thinking." Naruto said aloud after what seemed like an eternity, "I want to know why you're losing it over a stupid kiss. Was it your first one?" He asked, looking over at Karin who nodded stiffly, "Is that why? Or is it because it was me? I mean I know it was 'unprofessional' or whatever, and I'm not some blueblood, but it's not that big of a deal. Things happen."

"It has nothing to do with professionalism Naruto-san. Nor does it have anything to do with what you are supposed to represent." Karin assured him, keeping her voice level as she pressed forward, "I am admittedly not very good at conveying feelings like attraction without being too forward, and I am afraid that in my previously dazed state I got too far ahead of myself. I apologize."

Naruto just grinned over at her in turn, "Oh it's okay, nothing to apologize for." His brain then caught up with his mouth and he gave his employer a deer-in-the-headlights look, "Wait, you're attracted to me? Like, for real?"

"I thought it went without saying." Why would she have kissed someone that she didn't find attractive? She wanted to believe that she were not perceived as being somewhat shallow, but that would have been a blatant lie to herself.

"Uh… why?"

"What do you mean why? Are you asking me why I find myself attracted to you?"

"Duh." Naruto pointed at himself as if to accentuate a point, "I don't get what you see that nobody else has seen in four years." It had been said before, but it needed to be repeated for context; Naruto did not look like everyone else. His appearance was strange compared to really anyone else.

Karin turned away from him haughtily as if he had compared her to every other blue-collar person that he had run across, "Have I ever come across as the slightest bit xenophobic to your exotic looks?" _Very_ exotic since he apparently wasn't even from that dimension or wherever the hell he came from, "You may not look normal, but if you believe that you are not handsome I would have to say that you are sorely mistaken. There are far worse people in the world to look at than you."

Not knowing quite how to respond to that, Naruto just said the only thing that seemed appropriate, "Thanks. I appreciate it." He didn't really know where to go from there, "So you wanted to kiss me because you thought I was hot. Okay, mystery solved."

"No!" Karin disputed heatedly. She was definitely not that shallow, "That is not the only reason. You have many other admirable traits that I find appealing. You are a kind person with a strong set of morals that you do not compromise for anyone's dollar. You are a rather rough individual, but you are still easier to approach than many others. I find you charming. And you are exceedingly loyal to your friends, including me. I see you as someone I can speak to about vital matters and trifling personal issues alike. I have told you before that you are my closest confidant. I meant that."

She could talk to him about things that she couldn't to anyone else in her employ, because they all worked for her father. Thus the wrong thing that she said or did could get back to him and she could kiss her inheritance goodbye, as her father already was against having to hand it down to a girl. Any excuse to keep from doing so and he would take it.

Naruto made her feel safe, and it had nothing to do with fighting ability or physical protection whatsoever. She could emotionally vent with Naruto, and sound ideas off of him for honest feedback. Anything she said to him stayed with him, and sometimes he would give real-world advice that didn't suck.

And he was always helpful, even at personal cost sometimes. That was what it meant to be his friend.

"Well if we're pointing out everybody's 'diamond in the rough' good points, I guess I'll name some of yours too." Naruto interjected, much to Karin's surprise, "I don't care that you're rich. Yeah it's cool and helpful when we need stuff done, but even if you weren't I think we'd still be good friends if we met under the same circumstances."

So he didn't tolerate her because of her connections and resources? It wasn't even a factor in why he considered her a friend? Why not?

Seeing the skeptical look on Karin's face, Naruto decided to elaborate further, "You're a really driven person. I've seen you train, I've seen you work, I've seen you search for information on things. It's impressive. If there's something you want you get it. If money isn't enough to get it you just find another way to take it. You don't underachieve because you're wealthy, I love that about you. Sure, you might have a snooty little princess attitude, but I just think that's your defense."

"A defense you say?" Karin echoed with a raised eyebrow of interest and a smirk, "Excuse me but I do not think I understand. What defense would you be referring to?"

Naruto just rolled his eyes and reached out to give Karin's arm a pinch that she let out a yelp at, "You act all tough and superior, but then there are times when you talk to me like this; like in the back of your limo or in your study. We do this all of the time since I'm your confidant or whatever you called me; I actually listen to you when we talk by ourselves you know. I'm not watching the paint on the walls dry."

Rubbing her arm where Naruto pinched her, Karin gave him a smile. Not a smirk conveying that she was in a superior situation at the time, it was an actual heartfelt smile, and she didn't give too many of those.

"…Then again there are other times when I think you're a walking, talking, pretty little she-devil in human form minus the horns and the tail." And there went that warm feeling like someone had opened a window in the dead of winter. Way to kill a mood Naruto, "But I like that about you too. If I didn't like bad girls with mischievous sides I wouldn't like Ibuki either would I?" Oh, well what do you know, the feeling was back again.

Karin scooted a bit closer to Naruto and looked over at him complacently as he seemed a bit alarmed at the action, "Ara, don't be so shy Naruto-san. Praise me some more. By all means, continue. You apparently find me beautiful so tell me what you think of me."

"I like your eyes. They're pretty, but that's not all. The way you look at people you can cut down weaklings and wannabes. Just the way you look at people makes you hard for just anybody to approach. It's like you can see who's real and who's not."

"Continue."

"You're bossy. Kami help me, I don't mind that. We all know that if I really don't want to do anything, no one in the world can make me, so that's why I guess. And when people say no to you you're cute when you're mad, so that's fun."

"Go on."

As Naruto continued to think of ways to say what he liked about Karin, she got close enough to reach out and grab a hold of his hand. This got him to stop thinking long enough to look over at her and the glowing sun setting on her soft features. She looked vulnerable. Waiting for what he had to say as if it were some kind of lifeline.

He brushed his thumb back and forth lightly across the back of her hand as she squeezed it tighter, paying rapt attention to him, "I know you Karin, better than most people do. Behind all of that fuss and pride of yours it's not like you're a hard person to care about. You're really a good girl."

If the feeling in Karin's chest had actually been indicative of what it felt like, she would have believed that her heart was close to bursting. Any other gentlemanly suitor from around the world that she had been presented with since she was old enough for the process had always been so boring and false, statuesque and cold. This boy was not.

He would not say what he thought she wanted to hear to keep on her good side. He was passionate when he found the reasoning to be so. He did not fall into line of her fortune like some lemming, nor did he fear reprisal for any actions against it. He had even offered to beat up her father once while in Oiroke no Jutsu form to make him get over his chauvinistic view of his daughter that was holding her back.

"…Naruto-san, if you would like your kiss back I would say that now would be the time for you to take it." Karin said quietly with a face as red as a cherry. Understandable once she knew that she had Naruto's attention, "It is merely a suggestion. Nothing more."

Well the one thing that Naruto had come to find after years of being put in quick-thinking situations was that when he tried to stop and think about things that needed instant responses outside of combat where his adrenaline was pushing him along to act fast bad things happened. So he had to go with his gut. And go with his gut he did.

Sitting up from the ground, Naruto realized just how much closer to him Karin had gotten since he had first lain down on his back. He lifted up a hand and put it on her cheek which was quite hot from the blood that had been rushing to it, but she calmed down significantly and smiled at him eyes closed when he leaned her in and met her in the desired kiss.

Naruto had been deadly nervous to initiate contact, but he had learned to let his nerves drive him instead of repel him from doing things and this had been no different.

Karin hadn't been bold enough to kiss him as passionately as she had done when she thought it had been a dream, but at least now she could take the time to enjoy what she had. She wrapped her arms around Naruto's neck and felt him wrap his own around her waist in return.

He was surprisingly gentle. She didn't know why, but she for some reason expected him to be incredibly aggressive and gropy.

As the two eventually broke off, Karin took a few breaths, face still a bit flushed when she realized that she was now sitting in Naruto's lap with his hand very far up her leg and her skirt; directly on her backside as a matter of fact.

Naruto froze in place at Karin's very direct stare sent right at him. He had also realized where he had put his hand, and he was prepared to suffer for it if it came to that.

"4021."

"Whu-?"

Making a point to shift around in his lap and tease his clearly present erection, Karin merely traced Naruto's whisker-marks with her fingers, "Do not lie to me and say that you are not significantly enamored with me by now. Thus that makes you number 4021."

Returning the stare of the girl in his lap deftly, Naruto just shrugged his shoulders, "Fine, I'm number 4021, I don't care. Something cooler is going on here right now, so let's get back to it before I have to start dodging bullets."

Dodging bullets?

And then Karin saw what Naruto had already been well aware of for some time; several infrared lasers trained on Naruto's torso and even his head from many different angles. Great. She forgot that the mercenaries that guarded her property also took Shibazaki's direct orders too.

"I'm guessing no one's taken the safety off and shot at me yet because you're still right here." Naruto said, seemingly not caring about the guns-for-hire were it not for the fact that they were interfering with his making out with a rich girl. Either way, he had a Kawarimi prepared with a loose tree branch from a nearby tree just in case.

The flustered girl muttered something in French of all languages that Naruto did not understand as red dots danced over Naruto's frame. It was probably a curse of some sort, and he felt similarly.

Karin looked around and was able to spot several mercenaries in the setting sunlight at various ranges taking aim, "I feel as if this should stay between us… and I need to have a talk with the stewards sent to me by my father about overstepping their bounds, as I would hate for assassins to be sent after you to protect my family's reputation."

With a shrug, Naruto indicated that he didn't really care one way or the other and pulled another smile out of Karin. Maneuvering her body so that the beams were on her as well instead of just Naruto, she pulled him back into another kiss while they had the chance.

XxX

(Three Days Later – Naruto's Apartment)

Naruto's eyes cracked open from where he had been slumped over asleep on his couch only for him to look at his stomach where his seal was worriedly, "Kyuubi still isn't awake yet." It had been well over two weeks since Naruto free from his coma had last heard a peep from the biju, "There's got to be something I can do."

How did you fix something inside of you that was basically a living battery?

"No good news?"

Looking over at the kitchen table where his western assassin roommate Cammy was sitting patiently with her chin resting in the palms of her hands, dressed in civilian clothes instead of her fighting gear of her leotard. Naruto peered up over his couch and shook his head no for her benefit.

The exasperated Konoha ninja sprawled himself out on the couch while the kitten walking around the apartment started pawing and swatting at his dangling arm, "No news at all." Kyuubi had said that it couldn't die from what Akuma had done, but the silence and darkness from within the cage didn't convince him, "This sucks. Can't someone that actually knows about things like this check this out and tell me what's up?"

Cammy frowned and folded her arms on the table before sinking her chin down on top of them, "I don't understand how you don't know more about something that important that resides within you. You said you were told everything that you knew about it, well why don't you know more?"

"Cam…" Naruto started to say, peeking up over the back of the couch in her direction, "No one told me anything useful. I know what Kyuubi is because we all got told about it so many times in school and it was my favorite story that involved my hero so I knew as much as people could say about that. Other than that, only one person ever tried to show me what to do to get any power out of my situation."

Jiraiya trying to get Naruto to draw upon the Kyuubi's chakra in their training when he was younger was like a master mechanic trying to apprentice someone else that was completely green on how to fix a transmission.

To be fair though, there had only been three months to really get into that process after Konoha's invasion, and there were important domestic concerns to be attended to right up until the mission to go get Sasuke which led to Naruto's trip to a new world.

But seriously, with all of the weird crap that existed, there wasn't anyone that knew what could be done to repair a great inhuman creature of vast power sitting inside of his body? Like a shaman or an awesome Shinto priest of some sort. He needed some freaky spirit crap going his way right about now. Damn it, he needed more contacts! Or at least one that knew how to find one of those kinds of people.

A sneeze from Cammy got Naruto's attention towards her as she rubbed her nose lightly, "Bless you…" He said absentmindedly before thinking back to who he might have known that could help him. This led to Naruto more or less playing six degrees of separation with everyone he knew and looking at Cammy put her in that slot.

The guy she was sent out to kill that originally made her self-aware and broke Bison's brainwashing of her. That was something relevant. What was his name again? Dahli, Dalman? Something like that.

Whatever, it didn't matter. He was supposed to be some important Yoga master in his village in India, so he would have to be well-known enough that someone could point him in the right direction. Either that, or Naruto could just Google Indian Yoga masters until he got a picture of one that triggered Cammy's memory.

With a new proactive plan of action ready to be set into motion, Naruto flopped back on the couch and threw his hands into the air victoriously, "Cam come here really quick-." Naruto said before the air was driven out of his lungs by Cammy landing right on stomach from jumping over the backside of the chair, "Why?"

"You told me to come to you quickly, so I jumped." Cammy argued, getting off of Naruto as he glared slightly at her, "What do you need?"

"I'm going to India to find the guy that messed with the wiring in your head and took Bison's brainwashing off of you because I need his help. Do you know his name?" Naruto asked, lazily splaying himself out on the sofa, "If you don't that's okay. We'll think of-."

"Name: Dhalsim. Hometown: Kerala, India. Is anymore information required Master Na-." Cammy interrupted almost robotically before she stopped herself and her eyes lit up again. Where did that come from? That was kind of creepy. Oh well, just roll with the punches, "Um…"

"It's okay. There's something wrong with everybody that we're friends with." Naruto sat up and grabbed Cammy's hands to sit her down before she started to freak out at the sudden regression to her previous mental conditioning, "Sakura-chan's obsessed with some guy that's never around, Batsu's a karate-bum of a street punk, Karin is a pushy scary-rich socialite, Ibuki is a ninja that lives in a village of killers in the mountains, I'm from another dimension or something and have a monster stuck in my belly. Compared to most of that, being a brainwashed clone of a megalomaniac isn't that big of a deal."

Cammy seemed extremely embarrassed at her little episode, "I really have no idea why that just happened. I barely knew what I was even talking about from my dreams." And she almost called Naruto master like he was her commander or something. Totally weird.

If Naruto were to be honest, he was freaked out a bit too. But he was just going to let it slide, because he was not a psychologist and he wouldn't have even known where to start in sifting through Cammy's problems. He had enough of his own upstairs, he was sure of that, "Alright, so I'm going to go get plane tickets to India, and a Hindi-to-English or Hindi-to-Japanese dictionary."

"There's no need for that." Cammy pointed out helpfully for Naruto's benefit, "Many people in India speak English, and I can speak Hindi… I think."

"You _think_ you can speak Hindi?" Naruto asked with a curious look on his face. Who doesn't know if they can speak a language or not? But then again he forgot that he was talking to a girl that didn't remember her training or education, "Are you sure?"

A nod came from Cammy's pretty little blonde noggin, "I think I can speak most of everything."

Naruto just stared at her before grabbing her hand and pulling her to the door to get the ball rolling for his travel plans, "…You are the coolest roommate that doesn't pay rent ever. Alright, let's go get some tickets and see who else wants to go. Road trip!"

"Plane trip actually. I'm just saying."

"Damn it Cam, don't mess up my buzz with facts."

XxX

(Two Days Later – Rural Village in the Kerala, India)

A hastily strung together travel trip at the tail end of summer vacation before the next school term didn't exactly bode well for having people able to tag along. Sakura and Batsu were absolutely not allowed to go by their families due to the fact that there would be one week left before school started back up, and international trips involving them had a tendency to run longer than anticipated.

Karin had business meetings for her father and actual real world work to attend to, thus she was unable to go as well.

Naruto tried to spring Ibuki to go too, but that backfired because she was still stuck in her ninja boot camp and he couldn't pull her out. Summer couldn't end quickly enough for her tastes at all. She wanted to go back to the city.

Thus as the only people that had no concrete responsibilities to adhere to, nor any legal guardians to keep them from going, both Naruto and Cammy set out to find Dhalsim for possible assistance with Naruto's inner troubles.

It took them away from the large southwestern coastal city that they had landed at and had them travel to a smaller village further inland.

And thank goodness that at least for now there would be no more flying, because Naruto absolutely despised it. Cramped metal death traps, that was all they were to him. It pissed him off that Cammy was completely okay with flying, but then again Cammy didn't seem concerned with many things.

"I hate planes." Currently adorning a pair of white cargo shorts and an open white short-sleeved button-up shirt with a grey t-shirt on underneath, Naruto muttered as he drove a rental car through the smaller streets of the diminutive village. There didn't look to be too many cars in the village, not that there seemed to be much need for any due to how small the place was, "How were you so calm when we flew? You just slept for most of the flight."

Wearing civilian clothes consisting of a white t-shirt with a red broken heart on it and a small red pair of summer shorts, Cammy just shrugged as she looked around through the window of their vehicle, "Because I'm not afraid of flying." She hated how restrictive the seats were though. Naruto's shoulder was more comfortable than leaning back in her chair despite the fact that he was a bundle of nerves the entire time.

"It's not the flying part that I'm scared of. And I'm not scared, I'm just wary!" Naruto snapped momentarily before dragging a hand down his face to calm himself, "How can anyone feel safe in those things? I get claustrophobic as hell, and all of the shaking and clattering. Ugh, no thanks. I'd rather be in a helicopter. At least then I could be sure there would be a way out and a parachute for me if it went down."

Once again, Cammy didn't understand Naruto's reasoning, "If you don't like confined spaces then why are you alright with driving a car then?"

"It's different." Naruto replied, reaching over and putting a finger against Cammy's lips before she could ask another follow-up question, "Just let it go Cam and help me find Dhalsim."

"Well we're heading toward the first place that we were told to check for him." Cammy said as Naruto began to slow the car down once a temple near the edge of town began to come into view, "Shall we begin?"

Naruto nodded and both got out of the car, climbing the stairs to reach the actual site of the local temple. There were a multitude of people there as they entered and quietly walked amongst the people praying and reflecting silently. How in the world were they to determine which one of the people there were Dhalsim?

…Maybe the guy meditating while hovering ten feet off of the ground was a good place to start?

Both approached the area that the man was in, a place surrounded by the animals that seemed to be cared for at the temple, including a pair of elephants and even a tiger, Naruto stopped just out of range of the tiger that was growling at him, "Excuse me." Naruto said, keeping a careful eye on that tiger, "We don't mean to bother you, but could you tell us where we could find Yoga Master Dhalsim?"

The levitating man was bald with brown skin and three vertical red stripes on the top of his cranium. He was shirtless with a necklace of three skulls around his neck and wore a pair of tattered yellow shorts. While he was barefoot, he had metal rings around his ankles and his wrists. The man's figure was built and muscular especially paying attention to his long arms, but he was very lean and thin almost to the point of emaciation as his rib bones could be seen underneath his skin.

"You are speaking to him." Dhalsim said as he slowly lowered himself to the ground where he unfolded his long legs and stood on the ground before turning to face Naruto with his white, pupil-less eyes. He looked a bit intimidating, but his demeanor wasn't antagonizing in the least. This was a man of peace, "I see you've returned little assassin girl." He said to Naruto's fellow blonde companion.

…How did a guy like this beat Cammy back when she was in blank soul killer mode? Naruto didn't want to be the kind of guy that judged a book by its cover, but without having the intent to cause harm to someone fighting Doll-Cammy seemed to be far from the most advised activity one could choose to engage in.

Cammy walked forward looked up at the lanky Indian man before lowering her head slightly, "I'm sorry for anything I did to you or your village when I was an assassin. I don't remember much of it, but I remember some of my battle with you."

"It is probably for the best that you are unable to remember." Dhalsim said, "I do not hold grudges, especially since you've seemed to find your own sense of purpose since then. That was why I freed you from the mind control set upon you. Now what do you require of me?" He asked, turning his attention to Naruto, "I was able to sense your approach from miles away. Inside of you rests an overwhelming power, although right now it is more akin to a smoldering flame."

That didn't sound good. But on the other hand, if Dhalsim was able to feel the Kyuubi within him from far away, perhaps there was something he could do after all, "I came to ask you for your help. A month and a half ago I was attacked by someone that tried to kill me, but he screwed up and all he did was cut off my connection to the power that you could feel inside of me. I'm worried and I was wondering if you could help."

The question hung in the air for a moment and Naruto wondered if he had done something wrong. Like was he supposed to bring some kind of offering or something? He didn't know how things worked with spiritual people like the man he had come to see.

Dhalsim seemed to be studying Naruto thoroughly, staring the boy down intently as if he could see past his flesh and bones. Naruto didn't balk from the observation though and stood forward, intently waiting for the man's response.

"I cannot distinguish what kind of person you are from your spirit." Dhalsim said, walking past Naruto and Cammy as the two followed him through the temple. They watched as the people there showed him respect and he returned their gestures as they walked toward the entrance, "It is erratic and too jumbled for me to determine if you are truly someone that would abuse such power or a not. A consequence of whatever problem currently ails you I assume."

Seeking to vouch for Naruto, with whatever her word was worth to someone she had tried to kill only a mere matter of months ago, Cammy did her best to defend her roommate, "But Naruto is a good person. He took me in to help me and never asked me for anything in return. I don't know of anyone that would do such a thing and be evil."

The words actually got Dhalsim to consider them though, "Maybe so, but are you certain that there was no ulterior motive to his actions?" He looked over to the scar-cheeked girl to make sure that she was really mulling what he was saying through her head, "How certain are you?"

"I would stake my life on Naruto's integrity." Cammy stated confidently, "From the company he keeps, to how well he treats me; someone he had no reason to save, to simply having observed him every day I have no reason to distrust him. There's no one that I believe in more." With a hesitant smile, she took the surprised look on Naruto's face as a sign that what she said resonated with him.

"Aw Cam…" Naruto said before moving over to the confused girl with his arms open, "Come on. Bring it in. You know you want to." The moment her wrapped his arms around her in a hug she slipped out of his grasp and bent one of his arms behind his back in a joint lock, "Ow, alright, alright! Okay, maybe you don't want to."

Cammy released him and backed away, seemingly mortified at her instinctual reaction to being wrapped up, "Sorry, it was a reflex."

By now Naruto should have known better, as Cammy had unconscious defensive tendencies that he saw on a regular basis. He just hadn't seen that particular one before. All he could really do was shake his arm out and make sure he could still use it, "Some reflex…" He muttered before brushing the whole thing off.

Having watched the entire sequence between the two youngsters, Dhalsim crossed his long arms over his chest as his face remained stoic in thought, "How did you plan on having me assist you?" He said questioningly.

"Does that mean you'll help?" Naruto asked hopefully.

"Don't get ahead of yourself young one." Holding up a hand to stop Naruto from getting too fired up, as he didn't seem like the type that was hard to rile up, Dhalsim continued, "I have to approach every situation neutrally. I cannot afford to compromise spiritual discipline with emotional content."

Naruto gave Dhalsim a squinted-eye look and a frown, "I don't know what you just said, but okay I guess." Dhalsim walked toward Naruto with an arm outstretched and the foreign ninja backed away out of reach, "Whoa, whoa, whoa."

"I need to see exactly where the problem with you lies." Dhalsim explained, trying to calm the boy down. Even Cammy had moved to prepare an attack just in case, "I cannot even begin to help you if I can't."

With that being lain on the table, Naruto begrudgingly nodded his consent. Having someone's hand on his head was a very vulnerable position to be in. But Dhalsim said he was a neutral kind of person so what reason would he have to double-cross him? That paranoia that came with being routinely attacked by freaks and criminals was starting to catch up to him.

This time as Dhalsim approached, Naruto let him rest a hand on his head and simply stood perfectly still as he felt the spiritual master's energy flow through him. It felt strange as his chakra/ki/or whatever he wanted to call it had a strange tint to it.

After a few moments, Dhalsim removed his hand from Naruto's head and backed away, "I can feel the disconnect between the energies inside of your body. There is a wretched taint plaguing you, giving strength to something dark inside of you."

That didn't make sense to Naruto. The Kyuubi was hurt. What other dark thing existed inside of him? It didn't make sense.

"I can help you expel it." Dhalsim revealed, "But I need to test you first. If you do not pass I will not help you. I will not be able to responsibly take the risk in doing so."

Risk in what?

Stepping back from Naruto to allow him to stew over what he had just said, Dhalsim merely waited for the boy's response. He was not going to try and sway him one way or the other. That was not why he was there, and it was not his business to make the choice. He was only there to facilitate.

Naruto wasn't in the mood to jump through hoops, but again he wasn't in the position to refuse either, "Okay. What's your test? Whatever it is, I can do it."

Dhalsim closed his eyes and took a second before choosing to inform Naruto of what he needed from him, "I need you to search inside of yourself, and admit to me, to your friend here, and to yourself, of the things that you truly fear."

That was it? Tell him what he was afraid of? What was the point of that? And even if there was a point, nothing sprang to Naruto's mind immediately, "I'm not afraid of anyone." Naruto said confusedly, "I'm afraid of the people I care about being hurt. That's all."

The Indian Yoga master merely shook his head. That was simply not good enough of an answer for his tastes, "I cannot help you until you have the true answer for me."

"How do you know what the answer is?" Naruto responded heatedly. He was being called upon an answer that he had given honestly, "I'm not lying!"

"Then you are not aware of the truth yourself." Dhalsim stated firmly, "I felt through your emotions even as I searched for the source of your true troubles, and I know the answer that you need to find, even if you have no idea it even exists. It is there, you merely have to find it." If Naruto thought that simple anger over his circumstances would convince him, he was sorely mistaken on this day, "You have received the terms for my assistance. Whenever you feel as if you have the correct answer return to me and I will gauge if it is correct or not. Until it is, I cannot run the risk of helping you."

Naruto's fists tightened at his side as he seethed over his given options, "So that's it then? All this way, and that's what I get? A 'go home and try again later' response?"

No nonsense was seen on Dhalsim's face whatsoever as he stared right back at the child, "You have no idea the consequences that will be in store for you, and for anyone else around you should I simply ignore what I've sensed and give in to your childish impatience. Trust in yourself, search yourself, and you will find the truth. And if you are unable to do so, then it is better if you are not put back into contact with your second power."

"But-!" Whatever Naruto was going to say was cut off when he saw the worried look that was being given to him by Cammy. He was not going to be some confrontational, violent jackass to someone just because they had a condition for choosing to assist him. Nothing was free, and it could have been worse, "Alright… you win. I'll go home and figure out what it is."

Dhalsim nodded and chose to give Naruto something of a nudge in the right direction to help, "I feel that with a personality such as yours you will have to dig deeply for what you're looking for. It is not something that you would choose to think of, but it is something that is always present. The things that you fear drive your major choices, they're forcing you to hesitate and split yourself between what you feel you must do and what you truly want to do. You are quite conflicted about your current existence in this world. We cannot do what needs to be done to solve your problem if you remain as you are. Come to peace with yourself and return to me then."

"I will." Naruto said solemnly, getting a bow of respect from Dhalsim that he returned before walking away, Cammy following him, "Come on Cam, let's go home."

"Just like that?" Cammy asked as she caught up and moved alongside him, "But we came all this way. And we're just going back to Aohura City? You didn't get what you wanted."

According to Dhalsim, there was nothing that was worth trying until Naruto was able to answer his question. But why? Was it some enlightenment b.s. that he was never going to reach within his lifetime, or was it real? And he was conflicted about his existence in this world? Sure, he was torn between wanting to stay and wanting to find a way home at the same time, but was there really some buried down reason for that other than the obvious?

He had to find out. He had to come up with something if he wanted Dhalsim's help in removing the taint that plagued the connection between himself and the Kyuubi within him.

"It's okay." Naruto told Cammy, turning towards her to see the saddened frown on her face, "Hey, cheer up. It's okay. Really, it is." He said, giving her a grin to try and lighten her mood. If being down in the dumps was going to put her into a similar state of being, he'd paste another brave face on for her, "He never said that he wouldn't help me, he just said that I had to get this answer he wants from me first."

Attentive as ever, Cammy knew that his smile never reached his eyes the way that it normally did, "But who knows just how long that could take? What will happen if you don't find a way to help the Kyuubi monster?"

Naruto just shook his head, "That's not going to happen. I can do it. All I've got to do is soul search a bit." What was it that he feared? Ghosts? No. Once again, he wasn't afraid of ghosts he was just wary of them. There was a difference damn it, "…Maybe more than a bit." He muttered, running a hand through his spiky hair.

What had Akuma done to him in Tokyo?

The man possessed an attack that he could use that was powerful enough to rupture the security of the most powerful seal that the strongest Hokage in his village's history could devise.

Not knowing what could be done to help, Cammy seemed uncomfortable with being so powerless. All she could do was sit back and watch and wait. She couldn't do much of anything to help out someone that had done and continued to do so much for her, and a part of her ached at the thought of it.

A surprised look sprang onto Naruto's face when both of Cammy's arms snaked around one of his and she set her head on his shoulder. He seemed to cherish physical contact with people close to him, so she figured that was just as good as anything she could have done at the moment. She simply remained like that as they both continued to walk away from the premises of the temple.

'I know you can do it.' Cammy didn't know how. She didn't even know how he'd begin getting started. But that didn't matter. When Cammy said she had faith in him that was not a lot of hot air, she meant that. The number of issues he'd managed to solve was huge. Still, even so… 'It seems like you can fix everyone else's problems but your own.'

XxX

Back with Dhalsim, the man found no reason to return to his meditation on this day. He was too uneasy by what he had felt within Naruto. Though he was able to school his expression and keep this from him as it would do no good to worry him over something he needed preparation to fix anyway, it was still something worth worrying about.

It was not about the Kyuubi either. It was something a little more subtle than that.

Whatever sat inside of Naruto, between the connection of his own energy system and the energy of the grand creature that lay within that was disrupting their symbiotic connection, there was something dark. It fed off of Naruto's insecurities.

That did not seem like a major deal because it was so small inside of him that he would never notice it, but the insecurity in Naruto was there. It was there the entire time he was asking Dhalsim to help him. Even if Naruto could hide the way he felt as well, Dhalsim sensed his real thoughts when he sensed for the root of his problem.

There was a smaller voice in Naruto's head, an angrier one. It was quieter, but his message was clear and repetitive; that he would not disappear, and that he would get what he wanted.

Though it was unclear what that was, it could not be anything good. The worst part of it was that the little evil was closer to the power of the creature inside of him than Naruto was which was why Naruto himself couldn't reach it.

'We will see just where your resolve lies Uzumaki Naruto.' Dhalsim thought to himself as he returned home to be greeted by his wife and son, 'When you return I will be prepared to assist you. But you need to be honest to yourself and bring your fears to knowledge before I have to bring them to life for you.'

If Naruto didn't, and he came back to restore his contact to the Kyuubi the way he sought to, there was a good chance he would wind up losing more than just the thing that had been with him since the day he was born. He would lose everything else, and he would only have himself to blame.

Could he solve a problem that didn't involve him using his fists to work it out?

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Master of What?<span>

For some reason, Naruto and Sakura found themselves at the Saikyou-ryuu dojo, and they simply couldn't figure out why.

At first the real purpose for them visiting was because both of them had been worried about the fate of the students of the facility, and yes they were worried about Dan and Blanka too. Even if Dan was an annoying blowhard he helped out the town when it needed people to do so, therefore he was alright with them. And Blanka might have looked strange, but he was really just a big, wide-eyed country guy from the jungle (What?) that had never really been in a large metropolitan area before.

Naruto demanded to be the one to take him to Tokyo itself so that he could see Blanka's reaction to what _that_ place looked like. It was going to be way funnier than his reaction was, he was certain of it.

But the novelty of their intended good intent to pop in and check up on the students wore off after sitting in on the class for a few minutes.

The entire class sat on the hardwood floor, facing the front of the class patiently as Dan addressed them all, "You all did such a wonderful job when you bravely stood against that group of thugs trying to take our town hostage." He praised, "You've done so well that you actually got two fighters that were already famous to check out our gym." He gestured towards both Naruto and Sakura who were sitting against the back wall with deadpan looks on their faces.

"I was actually here before, remember?" Naruto said, raising a hand to get some more attention before pointing to a clearly patched area of the wall, "I did that." They did a good job repairing that place though if that was the only hole he could point out, "But if you really want me to join, I guess I can…"

Remembering that Naruto had indeed technically gone dojo-busting against his place, unprovoked as a matter of fact, Dan quickly sprang into action, "No." He flatly stated before turning his attention to the second visitor of the class, "Well what about her? She seems interested in learning on how to improve herself further as a fighter, and there's no better place to do that than right here!"

Sakura almost looked physically ill at the prospect while Naruto snickered a bit at it, "Uh, that's alright." She didn't want to be as blunt as Naruto and state that she too had already run through Dan in actual combat like a hot knife through butter since he seemed to have forgotten that defeat as well, "Really, I'm sure all of these guys would be self-conscious if they had to train in front of a girl." Especially a girl that could literally sleepwalk through them.

"No we wouldn't." Was the unanimous response from the class. Absolutely they wanted a girl in the class with them. Amongst other things, impressing girls was high on the list of reasons that they wanted to learn martial arts to begin with.

"Go ahead and sign up Sakura-chan." Naruto insisted, trying his best to keep from laughing, "Fighters of similar styles should train together, right? That's why you try going after Ryu so much."

"That is not why I-. Hey, I don't do it that much. It was only twice." Sakura said to a widely grinning Naruto before she turned away with her cheeks puffed out indignantly, 'Naruto I love you with all of my heart, really I do, but sometimes I want to sew your freaking mouth shut.'

Dan chortled aloud and scratched his nose as if he had been given his final hard-sell to get Sakura to study with him, "Ryu? Heh, I've met him in the past and I can say with great certainty that when it comes to the two of us I consider us great rival disciples. See, both of us defeated Sagat. The only thing is that I didn't join the first World Warrior Tournament. If I did it would have been the two of us meeting in the finals for the right to fight Sagat."

'Yeah, except you didn't finish your training under Ryu's master and nobody believes that you actually beat Sagat in a real fight.' Both Naruto and Sakura thought to themselves, sharing a look between each other.

"Come on." Dan continued to press the issue, "If you join now you get the discount price of 3395 yen a month and you get a free t-shirt!"

Sakura just continued to stare at him while she could feel Naruto shaking at her side with silent laughter, "Okay I'll join." A cheer went up from the class as Dan flexed victoriously and Naruto finally gave in to the hilarity, slamming his hand on the ground as he rolled around in mirth, "…But you've got to show me how good your style is before I do. I want you to defeat someone first."

Dan stopped posing and waved off her request before she could even further it, "I'm not fighting Uzumaki, and I'm not fighting you. I have a strict policy to never engage students in combat… and he cheats." In response Naruto just stuck his tongue out at the flamboyant Saikyou-ryuu master.

"That's okay." Sakura said before pointing to the far corner of the room, "You can fight him." Everyone's vision turned toward a snoozing Blanka who was wearing a similarly pink version of Dan's gi and black undershirt, "Blanka's not a student."

The students all nodded in agreement. Blanka just hung out around there while Dan was training students because he lived with the man and didn't know much about cities. Sometimes he'd be an assistant to whatever Dan wanted to teach and all of the students knew him and liked the man, but for all intents and purposes he wasn't a part of the staff or anything.

"I accept your challenge." Dan said before smirking and creeping on his toes toward his native Brazilian friend quietly, "Students pay attention to a technique I learned while studying under the great warriors of stealth and shadows, the ninja."

"What ninja?" Naruto spouted loudly before being shushed by the whole class.

Dan continued to sneak in Blanka's direction until he felt he was close enough to launch his attack, "Saikyou-ryuu Secret Technique: Bear Trap!" He shouted as he jumped through the air and landed right on Blanka and wrapped him up in an attempt to smother him into submission, "Just give it up bud, I'm getting me a cute new student today!"

When Dan grabbed onto Blanka and started to try and bind him, the green-skinned man had a flashback to being in the Brazilian rivers and the many dangers that encompassed his life back then, "Gah! Jibóia (Anaconda)! Elétrico Trovão (Electric Thunder)!"

Everyone in the dojo bore witness to Dan being lit up like a streetlight as a freaked out Blanka continued to shock away at him as if he were a deadly constrictor snake. Sakura even pulled out her cell phone to take a picture while Naruto nodded in painful understanding, knowing full well that being electrocuted sucked.

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Makoto  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Female  
><span>Age:<span> 15  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'3/110 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> B  
><span>Likes:<span> Family, a challenge, fighting.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Crimson ginger, being called a boy, not being taken seriously.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Training, seeking out famous fighters to defeat to increase her dojo's reputation.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Naruto Uzumaki, Ibuki.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Rindoukan-ryuu Karate  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Fukiage, Hayate, Oroshi, Karakusa, Tsurugi.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Tanden Renki, Seichusen Godanzuki, Abare Tosanami.  
><span>Background:<span> Makoto is a very straightforward and brash young tomboy, obsessed with training in the martial arts and proving that her family's style of karate is the strongest in the world. She is always seeking out powerful challengers to face in order to prove this, and is very determined with an almost bulldog-like tenacity in her pursuit of an intended matchup. Though she is persistent when she wishes to fight, Makoto is very respectful of masters or people that she deems to be powerful. Her fighting style suits her personality and is rather brutal in its simplicity when it comes to her powerful punches and kicks of choice as well as the routine chokes and groin strikes that her full-contact style utilizes. Being far from a figure of femininity, she still detests being compared to a boy.

Name: Dhalsim  
><span>Nationality:<span> India  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 41 (Birthday: November 22)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'10/106 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> O  
><span>Likes:<span> Curry, meditating, elephants, protecting his village and loved ones.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Sweet foods, meat, violence.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Preaching, selflessness, mind reading.  
><span>Rivals:<span> None.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Yoga  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Yoga Fire, Yoga Flame, Yoga Blast, Yoga Teleport, Yoga Spear.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Yoga Inferno, Yoga Catastrophe, Yoga Shangri-La.  
><span>Background:<span> A highly respected and wise spiritual leader, Dhalsim's main concerns are with the continued safety and survival of his small and poor village for which he raises money with the use of his fighting skills. Utilizing a very unique combat style based on the principles of Yoga and Kalarippayattu, his physiology is unique in that he can manipulate his body's composition to stretch his limbs far beyond any human limit which he uses to fight. Dhalsim's intense dedicated spiritual training has unlocked several supernatural techniques such as the ability to breathe fire, read minds, sense energy and evil, suspend himself in midair, and teleport amongst other abilities. Though he is an extremely powerful warrior perceived as one of the most powerful people in the world, he detests fighting as it goes against his pacifistic beliefs and chooses to avoid it whenever it is possible, never battling for personal means.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter done. And what's good with you guys?<strong>

**Okay, so I don't know how serious this purge crud is, and I'm just about to put my lemons back into the stories that I took them out of because… well I haven't seen anything happen personally. I've heard some things involving the actual origin behind it all, but nothing really concrete or solid, so yeah…**

**I'm just confused here. I don't like being confused. I like knowing what's going on with things that I'm involved in, I don't like getting half-information and whatnot, and when I don't I get progressively irritated to the point of anger. Useless anger to boot, and that's the worst kind.**

**I forgot what my original point was in this half-assed rant so I'm just going to draw this to a close.**

**Until the next time folks, I hope you enjoyed and will continue to enjoy into the future. I'll probably wind up updating one or two of my stories either today or tomorrow if you read more than this from me, definitely within the next three days. Kenchi out.**


	28. Shrink Wrapped Shinobi

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I'm going to have to steal Kishimoto's life by taking his face off… like in Faceoff. Only I don't see how that would work because I'm black and he's Asian, my hair isn't like his hair, and I'm pretty sure I'm taller than him and I outweigh him by at least thirty pounds.

Come to think of it, I've never seen that whole movie all the way through for some reason. I always miss the start of it. How the hell did that surgery work? It's not like Nicholas Cage and John Travolta have similar builds and cranial structures.

Why am I even talking about this? I've been hit in the head too much.

**Chapter 28: Shrink Wrapped Shinobi**

* * *

><p>A knock came at the front door of Naruto's apartment before keys unlocked it from the outside, "Come on Naruto, it's time for school." Sakura said as she walked in and shut the door behind her, "Oh. That's actually kind of surprising."<p>

As she kicked off her shoes to venture further in and looked inside of the living room of the apartment, much to her surprise she saw Naruto sitting on his couch in front of a turned off TV, fully dressed in his uniform and ready to go with a notepad in his hand that he seemed to writing in while thinking deeply about something.

What was surprising was that Naruto was actually awake and ready to roll for once. Normally one had to kick him out of bed to get him going. Even though Sakura had recruited Cammy to make sure Naruto was awake by the time she got there in the mornings, even that had proven to not work in the past after some initial success in the beginning.

He had been doing so for the past three weeks since school started up again, a few days after his return from his trip to India. Was Naruto finally growing out of his sleeping-in phase? That was absolutely wonderful. Showing responsibility in more than just work, what a shift.

"Good morning Naruto." Sakura greeted, plopping down next to him on his couch. A frown came over her face when she saw that he still wasn't paying attention to her presence, "Hello?" Goodness, when Naruto spaced out he spaced out hard, "…Cammy's doing warm-up stretches in her leotard behind the couch."

"What now?" Naruto immediately turned his head almost a full 180 as if he were an owl, but saw nothing behind him. He had been had, "…Not cool Sakura-chan. She actually does that, I've just never seen it happen." But Batsu somehow had… the bastard.

That got him a small knock on the shoulder from Sakura who had more than gotten used to him by now, "That would be the thing that would get you to snap out of it wouldn't it?" In a bit of a huff at being busted out, Naruto sat back normally with his arms crossed over his chest, "What's the matter grumpy?"

Sakura had set aside a bit of extra time in coming over to Naruto's house to get him for school just in case it took some creativity to wake him up on some days, so while they needed to get going, a few minutes could be spared to hear out some problems from the interdimensional ninja.

It took a moment to get a response because Naruto was staring at the notepad in his hands. Apparently instead of words as she thought he had been writing, he had been doodling pictures of what appeared to be Ryu and Ken firing twin Hadokens at him and looking depressed when Naruto somehow harmlessly negated them.

Good to see where his priorities lay.

Once he realized that Sakura was giving him a dry look at his drawing, Naruto cursed as that was not the original reason he had pulled out the notepad that morning. But he still couldn't think of the actual reason that he needed it for to fill. He thought it would be easy to figure out what Dhalsim had requested of him, because it was his own head. How would he not know about what his own inner thoughts were?

But he had been drawing nothing but a blank. Between work (which was mostly accompanying Karin to meetings as security in big cities these days), between training to stay sharp, and between staying in school Naruto didn't really have a ton of time to waste on spacing out.

He thought he was on to something when he thought about the Kyuubi within him, but he honestly didn't fear it. It was an intelligent and reasonable creature he had found, not just an entity of destruction. It seemed to be partial to those things, but not single-minded on them. So what the hell?

"Sakura-chan what am I afraid of?" Talk about a surprising question that came straight out of left field. Naruto was a surprising guy, but even so there wasn't any indication that this was what was coming along, "I'm trying to think of the thing that I fear the most, but I'm not afraid of anything like that."

"Ghosts, zombie apocalypse scenarios, the concept of Freddy Krueger, losing to Hibiki Dan, airplanes-." Sakura said jokingly as she listed things on her fingers. Her smile dropped when she realized that he wasn't smiling with her or whining about what she marked as his fears, "Oh, you're serious."

A stiff nod from Naruto was her answer. He was dead serious, "I'm not talking about stupid crap like that. That's not the kind of fear I'm talking about."

No. He was sure that the kind of fear he was looking at was the kind of thing that could alter a man's entire method of normal operation. The kind of thing that could stop someone like him from acting, even at the cost of right from wrong. Fear in the way that he implied was the kind of fear that would make someone compromise their entire set of morals and values.

Naruto had fears like that? Sakura couldn't see it.

He wasn't afraid to get hurt or die, as much as those that loved him utterly despised that aspect of his personality. He didn't care about his status or being seen as a nobody by the world. His goals in life didn't seem to be so complete that they encompassed every aspect of his being. Naruto always had direction even if he didn't seem like it at times.

So now it was amateur psychiatrist hour or something? Well okay. He was letting her help, so the least she could do was give it a try, "Well think about the things that scared you in the past. Maybe there's something there?"

That was the problem though. The things that used to scare Naruto so much that he wouldn't act, he didn't fear those things anymore. He didn't fear dying in battle or dying in general; dealing with Zabuza as a boy fixed that, and then bearing witness to the Sandaime Hokage's own mortality solidified that. He wasn't afraid of the kind of person his childhood and lifestyle could turn him into; because dealing with Gaara had fixed that as well.

"I got over the things that I used to be afraid of like that." By shock therapy if one had to give any kind of label to the method used to do so, "I haven't been so scared of something that I couldn't act in a long, long time."

A truthful statement from Sakura's own observation. Naruto acted skittish sometimes when faced with things that he didn't like or didn't want to do, but the fact of the matter was that if he really had to go out and get something done there wasn't anything that would keep him from getting it done. A paralyzing fear? That was tough.

She only had one thing that could help, "Okay Naruto… I want you to think about your ultimate worst-case nightmare scenario." She saw him open his mouth to speak but held it shut, "Think hard, be serious. What's the worst thing that you think could ever happen? It has to be something that you actually think can happen too, because it's something you're legit afraid of."

"Then why am I asking you about it now if I could come up with something like that on my own?"

"Because you don't know that you don't want or need my help, you know?"

"…Yes?"

Sakura let out a sigh and grabbed Naruto's arm to get him off of the couch, "Let's just go to school already Naruto. You can have your big internal freak out in class today instead of sleeping. At least it'll be productive that way."

The deceptively strong teenage girl got him to the door where he started putting his shoes on to leave, "Ah, okay. Just let me make some clones to stay with Cam and we'll leave." He really didn't feel like going to school, but he'd do it today, "I'll figure this thing out myself."

XxX

(Later that Week – Tokyo, Japan – Nippon Budokan)

Maybe coming to the scene of his most crushing defeat would drudge up some fear?

That was what Naruto figured when he stepped onto the train that morning and decided to skip school entirely so that he could make the long ride to and from Tokyo. The site of the arena was gated off, but it wasn't like Naruto cared a bit about something like that. He just hopped the fence and headed on in.

Most of the arena's wreckage had been cleared aside, but it still hadn't been moved out yet, and Naruto sat amongst the lot of it in the pit that used to be the arena seating. The chairs were scrap at that point so he sat on the tattered concrete ledges that the stairs had been built into.

"Still nothing." Naruto said to himself aloud as he rolled a coin along the backs of his fingers idly until he started growling at his lack of progress. It had been a week since Dhalsim had told him what he needed to do and as far as he figured he had made no progress. Even Sakura's advice didn't help.

A nightmare situation implied something that he wouldn't take part in no matter what. Well it always came back to the fact that if his friends needed him, everything else became irrelevant. Nothing else mattered.

"Got what you needed yet kid?"

A huge shadow loomed behind Naruto before a huge hand settled on his shoulder. Next to Naruto in a large blue tracksuit was the powerful face-painted sumo wrestler Edmond Honda.

He hadn't had anything else going for him that day and when Naruto called that morning with plans to go to Tokyo, he took it upon himself to ferry the young man around. He hadn't seen him since the tournament at the start of that year, so it was overdue.

"Nope." Naruto said in reply as E. Honda took a seat next to him, "Hey, what do you fear more than anything else E?"

Naruto almost fell forward when E. Honda gave him a friendly pat on the back that was harder than the man thought, "The strongest of the sumo fear nothing Uzumaki! A true sumo can face down any challenge no matter how imposing!"

He should have expected that answer, "Well I'm not really talking about scary fear. I'm talking about… I don't think it's tangible fear that I'm talking about." Naruto then gestured to the arena around him, "You see this? I was in this? I did a lot of the damage to the inside of this place with a friend of mine, but we weren't the ones that brought the place down. One man did that by himself."

"One man?" E. Honda repeated under his breath, "I can see why that man is what you fear, but you shouldn't falter." He then noticed the smirk on Naruto's face, "I don't understand why that's funny."

"I'm not scared of Akuma at all. If it can bleed, feel pain, die, feel fear, whatever. If it has some kind of a weakness I'm not afraid of it." Naruto said, punching into his palm. Akuma was extremely powerful, but he was still just a man, "If I can fight it, it won't stop me from being me you know. But I have to find out what could stop me in my tracks. There's something I'm not seeing."

Ah, now he understood. Conceptual, intangible fear. That was a really intrinsic question.

E. Honda crossed his arms over his massive chest in thought as he tried to bestow even the tiniest bit of wisdom onto his younger and much smaller little friend, "Well if you're really asking me that question I guess I would say that the thing I fear the most is dishonoring my family." He grit his teeth just considering it, "I can't even stand the thought of it. Either that or being caught in a situation where I'm forced into indecisiveness… that to me is the ultimate show of weakness as a man."

"I can't think of anything like that E." Naruto said heaving a deep sigh, "How you even come up with that anyway? You don't seem like the type that would be caught in either of those situations."

"Of course." E. Honda grinned down at Naruto. He had unknowingly complimented him and it was much appreciated, "But it doesn't necessarily have to be a consequence of your actions. Some fears like that are illogical and completely unfounded. The way we grow and develop as people can cause these things to form in our minds. It's inevitable. I've just had the time to think about such things. You're still extremely young, so it's probably never had to cross your mind before now. Just give it time. It'll come to you."

Time. Sure. So by the time he was 27 like E. Honda he'd have an answer. That wasn't really what he needed at the moment. The longer the Kyuubi stayed injured the more worried he grew. He still couldn't get the beast to respond when he spoke to it, either mentally or inside of his mindscape. It was still asleep. Nothing seemed to be changing either.

Perhaps after expending so much energy to heal Naruto for good, which didn't occur until after the duel with Mad Gear had ended, it needed a good long rest to recharge chakra before starting in on fixing itself. Kami knew how complex that probably was.

But what Dhalsim told him sprang to mind. Whatever Akuma did to finish him off in their battle, it left some kind of 'taint' inside of his body in his system.

With a perturbed growl, Naruto got up and kicked a metal strut three times, hard enough to bend it in half. E. Honda raised an eyebrow at Naruto's strangely aggressive behavior, but it left just as quickly as it came when he sat back down. He apparently didn't seem to have hurt himself, so that was okay.

Weird though. Naruto got riled up very easily, but he never lashed out physically at anything. He'd yell up a storm, but he would usually wait until his cursing vocabulary was exhausted before throwing a punch at anything. This was really bending him out of shape. Maybe if they sparred the kid could blow off some steam? He'd suggest it later.

"I hope you're right." Naruto said as he calmed back down again, "I really do."

XxX

(Aohura City – Aohura City Town Plaza)

Batsu hadn't realized how much he counted on Naruto for routine shots of testosterone when he hung out with his friends until he actually had to do so without Naruto for once. School had let out, and Sakura had called his girlfriend Hinata to meet up. He came along because he had a car (jeep actually), and he wasn't doing anything else.

Between Sakura, Hinata, Ibuki, and Karin, he definitely felt like the odd man out. He didn't say this of course, but it was obvious if anyone cared to pay attention, not that they did.

Thus he was left holding onto his girl with one arm as the entire group sat on the edge of the fountain at the center of the park, "Is this really that strange?" Hinata asked aloud. She knew Naruto but she didn't know him on a personal level, "He skipped school. So what?"

"He was long gone by the time I got to his house this morning." Sakura responded. He had woken up even before Cammy and had slipped out to go somewhere, and his phones were off, both business and personal, "Yeah, he's skipped before, but he usually does something to try and cover his tracks. I let it go yesterday when he did it, but two days in a row?"

Naruto didn't even leave clones to train or keep Cammy company today the way he did yesterday either. It was hard to tell, but she was pretty worried about it. He only came back to go to sleep and then the next morning he'd do the very same thing.

Admittedly, Batsu had also noticed that his buddy had been acting weird, and it was all because of that question about what he feared, "Dude, we're in high school. Who has time for all of the weird soul-searching questions? Smell a rose, get a girlfriend, be a damn kid." Despite the fact that Naruto's definition of childhood ended way before theirs did in that world, "…But in his own mind he's probably doing what he thinks people his age have to do by now."

"That's stupid." Ibuki stated firmly, "I mean I get that he's not from this world or anything, but he's been here for four years right? I understand that some things die hard, but come on." She took her life as a ninja deadly serious even though she wanted to spend time living like a regular girl. Well it seemed like Naruto lived like a regular kid that took the ninja elements of his life deadly serious in return.

"There must be something that can be done for him." Karin said, her brow furrowed in thought, "I do not believe I have ever truly helped him the way that he has helped me. It is vexing to allow such a thing to continue when he has assisted me in similar personal matters."

As the girls continued to chatter amongst themselves, Batsu's eye started twitching. He was just about done with it. He knew what to do, and it was quite simple opposed to all of the complex and unnecessary scenarios and ideas that the girls were trying to stitch together, "Alright, shut the hell up about it already!" He shouted loud enough to stop them from conversing, "Damn! Stop thinking so hard about this!"

He was actually loud enough to get people walking through the park to stop walking and stare at them momentarily until they could feel the imposing presence of the powerful seventeen year old and got back to their business.

Unfortunately now he had to explain himself to four angry combat-capable girls, including his girlfriend, because he had told them to all shut the hell up.

In an attempt at his defense, Batsu stood up and made sure he had enough distance to turn and run if it came to that. Still, he had to speak his mind and he did just that, "Did you ever think that for once the guy needs to be left alone with his thoughts?" He said as he kept backing away just in case, "It's not like Naruto doesn't know where you, or should I say we, all are. If he wants help he can come and find us anytime."

The guy knew how to help himself. But if the chicks got to talking and came up with some intervention scenario where Naruto ended up cornered, that would make things worse. As his long-standing friend, Batsu knew that cornering Naruto was the absolute worst thing that anyone could do and honestly Sakura did too. If pressured he'd run if he had the opening to do so, or if he actually did end up cornered he'd clam up until he freaked out.

Nobody needed that drama.

"So we simply wait?" From the tone of Karin's voice she apparently didn't like that idea whatsoever, "We merely go about our business as if Naruto-san is not acting like a phantom of himself?"

"Just give it some time." Batsu said with an annoyed expression on his face. He wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was the only one out of them that was a guy, "I'm a dude… Naruto's a dude. If anyone would have some perspective on what would make things better or worse who do you think would know?"

That seemed to sate them for the time being, and disengaged Batsu's fight-or-flight instinct. With nothing more to really say he slowly walked back over to his girlfriend and retook his previous position next to her. Thank goodness, because he was expecting to have to run. As strong as he was, there were some battles that he just didn't feel like fighting.

'But then again, you're all going to ignore me so I don't even know why I said anything in the first place.' He thought to himself as they started talking amongst themselves again. What was so wrong with just letting a man brood?

It made enough sense to Sakura though, "Well… I did tell him that he probably didn't need my help." How roundabout would it be to say that and then get all worried? And Naruto was clutch insightful. That was the best compounded term to describe it. If he needed to figure this thing out on his own he'd get it done.

XxX

(Later that Night – Train Ride Back to Aohura City)

E. Honda and his stable of sumo wrestlers liked to drink. Seeing the largest men in the entire country getting sloshed and then taking turns trying to sing karaoke did Naruto's soul a mountain of good and helped him chill out in a much needed way. Hell, he even got loose enough to join them.

Those were some cool people. He needed to come back and hang out with them again with some more of his friends next time. That was just a good time all around. E. Honda was just awesome people, that was all there was to it.

But it came to an end and he had to climb back onto the long bullet train ride back home. At least the seats were comfortable, and at least this time on both occurrences when he got on the train there wasn't a gang travelling on it trying to assert control over the country. Luckily it was nigh impossible for something like that to happen twice, even for someone like him.

"Well it looks like I finally found you."

Naruto wondered just what that meant until someone plopped down in the plush seat across from him, someone he had seen before, though not since his impromptu trip around Asia in the spring, "Chun-Li?" It couldn't have been anyone else. With that ox-horn hairstyle of hers it was pretty unmistakable to find someone else like that in Japan. Even if she was now wearing a blue dress with a white belt around her waist and brown pantyhose as opposed to the outfit she had worn during their time fighting Shadaloo. Those legs were totally unmistakable, "What are you doing here?"

Chun-Li set her hands on her knees as she crossed one leg over the other, "Interpol dispatched me. Apparently there's been quite a bit of trouble in Japan lately, and a lot of it has occurred around your neck of the woods. Destroyed world-famous arenas, a militia rising up to try and take over the country, things like that and they seem to get settled without anyone having any clue who did it. It falls into line with a list of events that seemed to occur around the Chigoku region. Some of Interpol's theorists think it's the same person or people. Almost like a vigilante."

A satisfied smirk came over Naruto's face, "Man… whoever handled all of that stuff has to be some kind of badass or something."

"Or something…" Chun-Li muttered, grinning at the dry look Naruto gave her in return. She assumed it was him and/or his friends, and she didn't really care that he was pulling off what law enforcement couldn't, "What's with the gloomy aura though, and the disappearing act?"

"Were you looking for me or something?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to find you when you don't go to your school?" Chun-Li replied rhetorically with an amused look, "Yeah I had agents shadow your haunts for two days but you never went anywhere, and I doubt you'd appreciate someone knocking on your door at two in the morning when you made it back to your apartment." Or maybe before then, whenever he got back. She didn't know. The watch ended after midnight anyway, they weren't staking him out.

Naruto gestured around to their current surroundings on the train and plopped his hands on his lap, "Well I'm here now. What do you need? Am I getting arrested or something? Because whatever international law I broke I did it to keep myself from getting killed."

"What are you-? No… ugh." Chun-Li said before placing a hand against her head, "Look, I came to talk for a reason. I've got something that you should know. I couldn't gather enough evidence to bring Shadaloo's crimes to light."

"What?" Naruto hissed lowly to keep from yelling out loud, "What do you mean? What else did you have to do? We did everything. We proved that the Psycho Drive existed. We even had Birdie as a witness to flip just in case. That didn't get anything?"

"Birdie was just dumb muscle." Chun-Li knew what Naruto was currently feeling above anything else, "My report is on the record for everything that happened, and Guile is a character witness, but he's still feeling remorse for Charlie so he wasn't reliable to my bosses. We destroyed everything else, and the Dolls aren't much use to prove Shadaloo's crimes as they are. We brought them down, but we can't prove that there was anything that needed to be brought down to begin with."

It took Naruto a second to register that, "So you're just saying that there aren't going to be any shiny metals getting pinned on our chests or any crap like that?" A nod was his answer, "Well that's okay. It sucks that you can't prove that all the work you did was for something important, but we know and that's what counts right?"

Yeah, that was what mattered. And even now without Bison's leadership of Shadaloo they were sloppy and she was still taking down their drug trade in China like an exterminator, finding them and taking them out.

"Enough about that, let's talk about something different." Chun-Li said with a calming smile, "I haven't seen you all in months. I spoke with Cammy and checked in on her when I stopped by your home yesterday, but I haven't seen your other friends since I've been here. How are things?" They might have been a bunch of kids a few years younger than her, but she liked them just fine.

Naruto's countenance dropped into a frown and he rubbed the back of his neck, "Ah… could be better, could be worse." That didn't work, because now Chun-Li was giving him the expectant big sister look as if he were holding out on her, "What's with that face?"

"I was expecting you to say something like, 'Things are always awesome when you're Uzumaki Naruto.'" Chun-Li said, mimicking Naruto's voice for kicks, "Something like that. So that means that it's more 'worse' than anything else." She had to laugh a bit at the look on his face after she attempted to do his voice.

"First of all I don't say lame stuff like that, dattebayo." Naruto said, pleasantly surprised that when she imitated him she didn't throw that part in, "Second of all it's not bad. I'm not in any trouble. Some mystic just gave me a riddle that I need to solve before he can fix my spirit… and stuff."

"Your spirit you say. Sure, why not?" Ugh, riddles. Chun-Li hated riddles. As the self-professed 'Strongest Woman in the World' she found things much more acceptable to her when they were straightforward. It was kind of why she hated being an Interpol detective, but she loved that job and her father did it before his death so there was that, "Well what is it?"

"I need to figure out what I fear more than anything else."

"But you can't think of anything tangible, right?"

"Yup."

"Called it." For a kid like him though, that was pretty tough. Naruto didn't seem like he was afraid of anything, 'Come on. Use that investigatory mind of yours and help him out.' She had successfully profiled dozens of suspects in her career without ever even meeting them. A kid that she already knew should have been easier to work with, "Okay Naruto, what was the last thing that made you afraid more than anything? And remember that fear is different than just being scared, they're not the same thing. Fear is far more serious."

Naruto just shrugged his shoulders. He'd already been through this repeatedly and nothing ever changed when he went back to it, "Nothing. I haven't been afraid of anything since I was twelve." Chun-Li just made a hand gesture, motioning for him to elaborate. They had to start somewhere damn it.

When he had just wound up in this world they ferried him off to Japan to get him out of the way, and he was just short of losing it. But he got lucky. Government workers put him in school for one year so that there was time to find some family or a guardian to look after him, however that was barking up a completely nonexistent tree. He didn't have a chance by himself.

But his luck manifested itself in the form of a very energetic twelve year old girl named Kasugano Sakura that was enamored with watching him fight one day in school after a few weeks. She didn't find him too strange, and she quickly befriended him with no fear. What a save that turned out to be.

"If it wasn't for Sakura-chan I don't know what would have happened to me." Naruto recalled with a shake of his head at the thought of it. He probably would have done something foolish and wound up in trouble or dead. With her intervention and patience with his lack of general knowledge she helped him learn enough to survive until he was able to work as a ninja. At first it was just D-rank missions, but it did what he needed, "I was never really afraid of anything again because I'd already felt the most frightening thing I could ever think of."

Being all alone in the dark again. Like when he was a child only far worse, because he not only wouldn't have had the even the Hokage or Iruka-sensei, he would have been somewhere that he didn't understand with absolutely nothing.

"That's all you've got huh?" Chun-Li asked, getting a nod from Naruto, "Okay, that's something good. Alright, if that's the case then when was the last time you were so upset that you couldn't let it go? It stuck with you for days, maybe longer."

That was an easy one, "When the Dolls attacked our school and almost killed Ibuki and kidnapped Karin." Oh yeah, he was definitely picking that one for sure. He was so mad he didn't have any problems with outright trashing Hibiki Dan's dojo for no good reason. He felt terrible about that nowadays, but it had blown over and back then he'd had a smoldering rage, "I was so mad when I first saw Cammy again I probably would have tried to kill her if Batsu hadn't held me back… and she was asking for help."

Chun-Li's leg suddenly snapped out and kicked across the aisle against Naruto's seat, right between his legs. Thank goodness she hit nothing but the chair, because that scared him to death. He almost had an out of body experience, "That's it then." She said victoriously. Good lord, she celebrated by kicking stuff? That was so wrong, "You're scared of losing your loved ones."

That was a stupid fear as far as Naruto was concerned. His friends were all tougher than nails. They'd been through every single thing that he'd been through right along with him. If he was afraid for them that would be an insult to them as respective warriors.

"My friends can handle themselves." Naruto assured Chun-Li with his arms crossed over his chest, "They don't need me. If it weren't for the situations that I get them into there wouldn't be anything that could hurt them badly enough to be concerned."

A sly look came over the twenty year old woman's face at that admission, "Then that's a good answer in of itself. You're afraid that _you'll_ be the ones to get your friends killed. That somehow they'll get hurt because of you. Yeah, because the Kanzuki heiress, you left her behind in Thailand before we attacked Shadaloo's base. She wasn't coming with us if you had anything to say about it. You were fine with Cammy coming because you two weren't friends yet."

He didn't trust Cammy at the time, possibly far less so than anyone else in the party. He kept that mindset until she gave him a reason to care about her well-being.

He didn't wait for his friends Batsu and Sakura to catch up because he didn't want them in the middle of that mess that he had set them out to get involved in. Sakura wound up showing up with Ryu and Ken later, but he hadn't intended for her to be there at all. Did he even know that he had meant to do that? Even though it was Charlie, Guile, and Chun-Li who had the real problem with the kids getting involved, Naruto went along and he didn't fight hard at all to argue for his friends to take part.

Naruto looked down at his open hands when he realized that she had a point, "I didn't fear anything like that in Konoha because it always seemed like there was someone more important than me and stronger than me that was around to handle the things that we couldn't." There was always someone like Kakashi or Jiraiya to save the day when things got too big. A veteran, a real legend that would make sure that everyone got home in one piece every single time, "It was never really because of me that my friends were being targeted either…"

It was just circumstance back then. Bad things happened at that time only because of the situation at hand and it rarely had anything to do with him. But the sole reason that Shadaloo felt the need to bring his friends into the little game was due to him turning down their invitation when they showed interest in him. Vega tried to take Sakura and use her as leverage, and then there was the aforementioned attack staged by the Dolls.

That was also why he was so obsessed with finding what was wrong with the Kyuubi and fixing it. For better or worse it had always been with him, and during a time when he had no one after being transported to this world he had the Kyuubi to keep him mentally grounded even if it had a one-track mindset at the time. It still existed and at a time when he didn't know that Sasuke was there as well and he didn't know anyone else yet he took some kind of sick solace out of its presence.

Without knowing that it was around, always aware of what he was doing, always at the ready to act for him even if it was only for its own interests he felt naked. And it was because of his own lack of control over himself that it happened to begin with; Akuma wounded him badly and he let it happen. The Kyuubi took control of him at a weak moment, and he really couldn't blame it for trying to make an escape from its prison. That was on him for losing his edge and allowing himself to become mentally weak enough that it had the opportunity to do so.

"You have things that you don't want to lose because you screwed something up." Chun-Li stated, tapping the side of her head with her index finger, "I can see why it wasn't easy for you to figure that much. You can't run around doing what you do, doing what I do, and thinking that you're ever going to fail. Thinking about how things are going to go wrong is the best way to get people killed. So you block it out. I totally get it."

And with someone like Naruto, who took this operational kind of mindset to a level where he never went into anything dangerous with the perception that he could lose or that he would fail or let anyone down, thinking about others dying because of him never presented itself as a possibility.

"I already had to deal with something like that with Charlie." Naruto said, recalling the incident months ago. Even if everyone still said that it wasn't his fault that did nothing to change his mind, "So why would I still be afraid of that?"

Because even though he liked Charlie they weren't friends. Charlie was a good man, but Naruto only knew him for a handful of days before the battle with Bison's forces that resulted in his death. Now Naruto replaced the thought of Charlie staying behind to keep Bison from stopping their escape with Sakura, or Batsu, or anyone that he saw every single day. That was all it took to get that creeping feeling in his heart. His hands grew so weak that he couldn't form a strong fist.

He had to bend over in his seat and hold his stomach to keep from being physically ill at the prospect. Chun-Li just leaned forward and rubbed Naruto's back gently while he groaned in discomfort, "Did you ever think of being a shrink instead of a cop?" He muttered between groans.

Chun-Li just shushed him quietly like a guardian with a small smile on her face, "No, but it would definitely pay better wouldn't it?" A train attendant came past them with a cart, but Chun-Li waved her off, "Sorry, but he's not very hungry right now."

XxX

(The Next Morning – Aohura City – Naruto's Apartment)

Another day, and every day for the past week by the time Cammy woke up at her usual bright and early time wearing a large white t-shirt as sleepwear for modesty purposes.

In the past Naruto and her other friends that knew how early she got up would question her on how she could routinely get up at such a God-forsaken hour for absolutely no reason. In the end she and the others just shrugged it off and chalked it up to whatever had been done to train her during her brainwashing and conditioning process.

She was used to it, but Naruto wasn't. However by the time she awoke every morning and got up to get herself ready for the day she would find that her proprietor was already up and usually gone.

Today though, she stood at the door with a smile on her face as she checked the spot meant to be set aside for shoes and found that Naruto's sandals were still there. That hadn't been the case for quite some time. From there she crept to his room and opened the door to find Naruto asleep in his bed in a sprawled out heap with Agent Jack Bauer somehow finding a place to curl up and sleep on his stomach.

Truth be told she wanted to punch him in the stomach for being a ghost for the last week but the kitten was there, so she just shut his door back and decided to slip next to him on his bed to see what was the big deal about sleeping in.

"What are you doing Cam?" Oh, so he wasn't asleep. He must have just returned home. Either way he sounded groggy even if he was really awake or not.

"Sleeping." Cammy remarked matter-of-factly in her British accent, "Or trying to anyway. Be quiet so that I can."

"Go to your room then… and take the cat." He was back to whining again about things that he wasn't going to do anything about. That was a normal Naruto thing so he had to be back to normal it seemed, "I've got to get up at 6:30. I've got another hour and a half left to sleep."

"Tomorrow is Sunday and Agent Jack is comfortable where he is and so am I, so unless you plan on getting up just to remove us we won't be going anywhere." Cammy heard Naruto mutter something about 'freaking cat' and turned to glare at his slumbering frame only to barely make him out in the dark, more specifically one of his physical features that sat on one of his cheeks, "Whiskers like a cat…" She said in a bit of whimsy as she got closer to observe them better.

"Say wha-?" She was about to poke his face when his eye cracked open and almost caught her in the act had she not dipped her head down on his shoulder to feign as if that were her purpose the entire time, "If you're gonna stay in here stop moving…"

"Whatever you say Naruto." Freaking early birds.

Cammy waited until he was asleep and then proceeded to mess around with his whisker-marks as originally intended. He was a really deep sleeper when he was secure with his surroundings. Yes he was definitely back to normal for the most part. So what was next?

XxX

(The Next Morning)

Naruto's training on the rooftop of his apartment building had an audience. And not his usual audience of his inner circle so to speak. It was too early for any one of them to drop by, "What do you think you're doing up here idiot?" But it wasn't too early for Sasuke apparently, dressed in his dark Chinese shirt and pants.

"What do you think you're doing back in Japan jackass?" Naruto responded in kind, standing in a ready defensive stance while wearing his combat gear and facing away from Sasuke, "You left two months ago. I thought you were going home."

"Having Gen calling me out for being a freeloader is more annoying than you used to be." Sasuke responded. The assassin always wanted him to work since he was in-demand. To shut the old man up he went back to Aohura City to run his restaurant for a bit longer until a real manager could be set in, "I've got Interpol on my ass too. They never try to bust me, they just send someone after me to make sure I'm not killing people that aren't high-ranking criminals. Gen's assassins have governmental immunity in China because we take government contracts."

Interpol… that was intriguing. Chun-Li didn't say anything about that on the train or try to get any intel from him. Then again she didn't know that he had run into Sasuke either, or even that they knew each other.

Keep those cards close to the vest for now, because something awesome might happen later and he wanted to be there to see it. She hadn't left Japan yet and he needed his funny bone tickled at Sasuke's expense.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow as he watched Naruto do weird breathing exercises and make random hand-seals. Even when he activated his Sharingan to look at them they didn't go together to do anything useful. He was just forming them for the sake of doing so, "Answer my question. Is this supposed to be accomplishing something or is it just some weird holistic breathing exercise?"

"I'm trying to figure out how to neutralize or reverse ki or chakra attacks." Naruto explained tersely, "I don't know how many you've been hit by, but I've been hit by a lot and they fucking suck."

Yes they did. And that wasn't a bad idea if there was actually some way to do it. Was it ingenuity or just lack of common sense that spawned ideas like that? Probably a healthy dose of both.

Well training was always good. He needed to train on some new techniques too to keep sharp if Naruto was experimenting with new moves, especially if they were still going to have it out and finish their battle from the Valley of the End the way they had originally agreed upon. It didn't seem like the kind of thing that you could plan or just spring on someone casually. They needed an appropriate platform for it, otherwise it would never come off as intense as it did when they did battle in their world.

The steel door from the stairwell that led to the roof of Naruto's small apartment complex was kicked open with a slam and up walked Sakura in her normal school uniform, and her gloves were on as she scrutinized who was up there, "Well you're looking refreshed. Want to fight?"

Sasuke's eyebrows rose up in surprise. Just like that? Really? "Huh. Well it looks like you're going to get a lot of practice on stopping ki attacks here. Good luck with that." He then frowned when Naruto waved him off dismissively, "What?"

"You're not stealing my hand-seals teme, now beat it. I'm not stupid." Naruto said as he stretched out and prepared for a spar, "I'll call you later and we'll get Batsu and go hang out and do some dude stuff."

Damn. Was it that easy to see through? Oh well, it was worth a try to attempt and get a tactical edge for later. A ninja didn't fight fair. In expected Sasuke fashion he scoffed at the idea and turned toward the edge of the roof before bending his knees to jump off, "Tch, the day I hang out with you-."

"-Will be whatever day I call you and we both know it." Naruto finished in Sasuke's stead, "Keep acting like you don't want to go, but Sakura-chan doesn't think you're cool anyway so I don't know who you're posturing for. Go try that crap with Akira. She wants you to call her by the way."

"Fuck you…"

"Get off my property already."

"It's not your property dumbass." Sasuke said, jumping off and leaving after getting flipped off by his former teammate.

By now Sasuke's abrasive attitude didn't bother him the way it used to since he knew better what was behind the prickly bastard's attitude, thus he turned back to Sakura and pointed to where Sasuke left, "I know what you're thinking, and yes; every ninja in Konoha knows how to do that."

Sakura had a bemused expression on her face as she listened to the banter until it concluded. It did her heart good to see Naruto back to his old antagonistic self once more. As much as it rubbed more than a few the wrong way, he wouldn't be himself if he didn't do so, "Interruption aside, ready to roll?" She asked.

"Spending my Sunday morning kicking my best friend's cute little ass all over my rooftop." Naruto asked as he set down in a fighting stance with a smirk on his face, "Sometimes the best things in life really are free."

"How about two-for-one then?" Sakura asked with a grin, and Naruto dodged a swift slide that came at him across the ground like a streak much to Sakura's chagrin, "Ibuki-chan you missed him. After all that time setting it up?"

Ibuki in her ninja garb pulled her facemask down momentarily to pout at Sakura and throw a mini-tantrum as her tanuki sat on her shoulder, "You tipped him off before I could catch him in the move! I hope that B action flick line was worth it because now we've really got to fight."

"…Three way dance?" Naruto offered weakly after hearing that Ibuki wanted to get in on the spar as well, "Free-for-all, elimination style, every man for himself… err, woman?"

"No. More like two-on-one. But you have clones, so you can handle that can't you?" Sakura remarked with a beaming smile on her face, ignoring Naruto's bewildered look at having to take them both on at once.

It was a conspiracy, "Wait. It's Sunday, there's no school today. Why is Ibuki even here? Shouldn't she be back in her village until Monday morning?"

"I was allowed to stay over at Sakura-chan's house overnight." Ibuki reported with a happy expression on her face, "I think Master Enjo likes how much better I seem to be getting by spending so much time around you all. And I'm gonna thank you right now by kicking your ass and running home to tell him about it."

Before things could start, a horn honked from the front of the complex and Naruto looked over the side of the roof to see Batsu in the front seat looking up at him, "Yo! Come on man, let's go sneak into a baseball game! I think we can get into the away dugout before we get caught this time! Let's go get some autographs and awesome pictures!"

Naruto looked back at the girls and then down to his friend, "I've got to fight Sakura-chan and Ibuki first."

"Oh, okay. Good luck with that. I'll just go inside your place until you're done."

"Batsu get up here and help me!"

"No! I didn't dodge that bullet yesterday just to walk onto a firing range today!"

Naruto just stared at him with a deadpan look on his face for several seconds, "What does that even mean?" He eventually shouted down to Batsu, 'I love my friends, but seriously…'

"Heads up!"

The yellow-headed shinobi then had to turn and block a falling kick from Ibuki that led to them trading several strikes in a stalemate prior to breaking away. Naruto patted himself down and checked himself over only to find nothing wrong with him after the surprise attack, "Safe! Sneak much?"

Ibuki turned back to Sakura and stomped on the ground in a disgruntled manner, "Sakura-chan stop tipping him off! Don't you want to win?" Sakura just grinned sheepishly. It was simply in her nature to fight fair, "Honestly, I'm trying to fight like a ninja here and you're tying my hands." She then threw a kunai that stuck to the shut door of the roof stairwell to stop Naruto from sneaking back down to his apartment, "We're not done here mister."

"Yes we are." Naruto said before pointing over to the end of the roof, "Because I'm a clone. Boss jumped off the roof into Batsu's jeep when you two were arguing." It then dispelled in a puff of smoke to prove its point. If that didn't do it then hearing Naruto yell from the ground certainly did.

"Go man go!"

On the road, Batsu's jeep peeled out and sped into the street while Naruto rapidly changed in the back into his civilian clothes with no shame whatsoever to anyone that may see him in his skivvies. With a sigh, Sakura shook her head and placed her hands on her hips, "Great… lost him again."

Ibuki pulled her kunai out of the door and grinned over at Sakura cheekily, "Heh, that sounds like a good enough metaphor for your relationship." Even Sakura's glare didn't pull the look off of her face, "Problem?"

"Don't say stuff like that." Sakura grumbled as she passed the kunoichi and headed downstairs to go get Cammy, "It sounds weird. I don't even want to know what you meant."

With a laugh that echoed through the stairwell, Ibuki followed behind her quickly, "It's only weird if you interpreted it that way dear…" She sing-songed after Sakura, "And you know exactly what I meant."

XxX

(North America – Undisclosed Location)

"Good to have you back Boss." Balrog's hulking frame walked down the hallway holding a videophone in his massive hands. Since Vega had been killed and Sagat had taken time after the destruction of the base in Thailand to train himself in peace until contacted again, Balrog had been the go-to man for everything that the recovering leader of Shadaloo needed, "So what can I do for you today?"

On the screen, Bison was visible, no longer using Rose's body as a shell, but seemingly with a new replacement, _"My scientists might have forged a new body for me, but the mental wounds of my defeat are fresh."_ He said with an angry snarl to his voice.

"You want me to put together a few hit squads?" Balrog asked with a grin. He liked travelling using Bison's money. It was always a ride in style, the best planes, the finest women to wait on him hand and foot, the best liquor. Shadaloo was the best.

From the phone, Bison cackled at the thought. Balrog wasn't one to trust with matters more intimate and complex than A-to-B orders. He'd screw it up, no doubt, but he was perfect dumb muscle, _"No, instead of using our own resources and risking attracting attention to our criminal activities again I have a better idea. I'll force my enemies to destroy each other for my amusement, and whoever survives will be mine to finish off."_

Shadaloo's operations were brought down in Southeast Asia… but they had workings going on everywhere else in the world, and money was still coming in. It was time to use some of that to get some sweet revenge on the fools that thought they cleared the world of him.

"_Money is no object here Balrog. Begin getting word out for qualifiers over the next few months and start promoting everywhere you can reach, you should be good at that with your experience as a professional boxer. Contact Sagat and tell him if he truly wants to prove he is the strongest, and if he truly wants another opportunity to prove his superiority against Ryu he should prepare himself… because the Second World Warrior Tournament will be sponsored by me!"_

He would lure them all into his trap by revealing that he was alive. A select few might have known just who he was, but to the world at large nothing was proven. His enemies would come out of the woodwork and he would watch them obliterate each other just to find and reach him to finish what they started.

When it was all said and done he would massacre them all.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter complete peeps.<strong>

**Random thought. I wonder if I should do a short Naruto/Rival Schools crossover to go over some of Naruto's earlier years in the Street Fighter universe? I mean, I'm probably one of only roughly fifty people that would read it and actually know what the hell is going on, but I'd have fun writing it. But nobody really cares, it was just a random thought.**

**Alright, I'm done here. A pretty transitional chapter all things considered, but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing. **

**Au revoir, Kenchi out.**


	29. A World of Comforting Illusions

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. The most hilarious cover of the song 'You Give Love a Bad Name' by a band called Mega Mountain I found on Youtube the other day… it's so blatantly horrible it's amazing and it's so hard to find.

**Chapter 29: A World of Comforting Illusions**

* * *

><p>Quality time with his number one employer, close friend, and very pretty socialite Kanzuki Karin wasn't really that quality. She was always busy, which wasn't that bad because Naruto could go with her to wherever she needed to be as her bodyguard. No, that wasn't the thing.<p>

The thing was that her attendants Shibazaki and Ishizaki never let the two of them alone to do physical teenager stuff.

Even when she brought Naruto with her on a business trip to finalize a deal that she had established for her father in the United States. A substantial investment in the most successful luxury hotel chain in the world to get them to expand into Japan. It helped that she already had an in with the tycoon that owned the chain. It was just going to be a matter of showing up and laying her cards on the table.

Boom, another win for the Kanzuki Zaibatsu courtesy of the soon-to-be heiress. Her father could suck it. She was so awesome even though he was exceedingly tough on her and he knew it. For a girl set to inherit things in a male-centric tradition she was certainly rising to the occasion better than any male heir would have done.

There weren't any nerves whatsoever as she rode in the limousine on her way to the meeting. Of course, the current presence of her favorite bodyguard ever might have had something to do with that.

In a silver dress, Karin sat off to one side of the limo as she shot a bemused glance down towards her lap. One hand idly rested on her cheek propped up on the armrest, "You are aware that if you wrinkle that suit before you return it the cost of cleaning it is going to come from you, are you not?"

Laying down long-ways on the limo seat with his head in Karin's lap as she ran her fingers through his hair was Naruto, indeed clad in a black suit with an open jacket, white undershirt, and orange tie, "It's your fault for putting a suit on me whenever we go somewhere like this. How am I supposed to fight in this thing if I need to?"

Private jet or not, that entire plane ride was miserable for Naruto who had only been that far by air one time prior; when he had been sent from the United States to Japan in the first place. Back then he hadn't had the time to freak out about the fact that he was in the air as he had still been terrified of his situation of being in a new world.

With that problem thoroughly adjusted to by this point, he had time for more pressing matters like protecting Karin. While he was lazing about in the limo he had an entire squad of clones keeping everything on the up and up outside. It must have been quite a sight to see. If he had made enough of them he probably could have reenacted the Agent Smith thing from the Matrix movies for kicks.

"Other bodyguards are asked to work in professional attire." Karin informed him with a smug smile, "Aside from that, you should get used to wearing a suit. The reason being that when we go on another date you will be wearing one and we will be going somewhere elegant. My choice of course."

"Yes my prissy, vain, hard-to-get playing boss lady." Naruto said with his eyes closed, getting her to pinch his cheek and put a grin on his face, "Just wherever you pick no theater again please. I did that for you."

"It was adequate for a first effort admittedly, but you have a long way to go to move past the role of possible suitor and constitute definite boyfriend material Naruto-san." Karin jested good-naturedly, "…Be aware that in order to do so you must do more than sit and act as if you are paying attention to stage drama that you care nothing about. You may have fooled my family, but I could tell that you were suffering in silence."

Naruto's face reflected that he was aware of the memory. Karin spent her birthday night two weeks prior at a play with her family, and Naruto went with her as her date so that she wouldn't have to meet another of her father's handpicked suitors on that evening. It technically wasn't a date since they weren't alone, but then again where did you take the girl that could and probably had gone everywhere worth going in the world?

He was proud of himself actually. He refrained from nodding off the entire time, and he didn't feel the need to curse or raise his voice like a hoodlum to make a scene. He almost wound up going stir crazy and chewing his arm off, but he didn't, "Your parents don't like me though. Your dad kept looking my way like he wanted to suck the youth out of my body and leave me a withered husk."

"Oh my mother thought that you were absolutely charming. But true enough, my father is not a fan."

"You love that though don't you?"

"I am quite certain I have no idea what you are talking about." Right. Sure she didn't. Maybe it was the fact that she could see both of them from both corners of her eyes and there wasn't anything her father could do in public about Naruto's presence as long as he didn't make any social missteps, because she didn't lose the smile on her face the entire evening, and it wasn't because of the play they had been watching.

So yes, there was probably a very good chance that she enjoyed how uncomfortable her father was with Naruto being around such a high-class affair, especially as her date for the evening. Too bad.

In the meantime while waiting for the limo to arrive at its destination for the meeting, Naruto just shut his eyes again and let Karin rub the marks on his cheeks. Perhaps Jiraiya's limited influence on him had some lasting effects because he was a sucker for pretty girls doting over him in some manner.

"You make that dress look good by the way." Naruto said off-handedly, getting Karin to say 'aww' at the compliment. Yeah, having a girl as his best friend for several years helped him learn how to talk to them without a doubt.

A clearing of someone's voice attracted attention to the fact that the privacy window had been opened and the sharp bespectacled eyes of Shibazaki peered in through the driver's seat, shooting daggers at Naruto with his gaze, "We are almost at the Masters Hotel. I would suggest that Uzumaki-san makes himself presentable for the meeting Kanzuki-sama."

Karin rolled her eyes at Shibazaki and his continued distaste for Naruto before smirking and leaning down to kiss Naruto on the forehead, making sure that her aide saw it clearly, "Very well. I believe it is time to put your skills to work Naruto-san, my body is your express responsibility from this point forward." She said as she reached for a black jacket that was meant to go on over her outfit.

Naruto's face turned red, but he figured that if it was possible to do so Shibazaki would have caused him to spontaneously combust by now with nothing more than pure sight, "You mean your body's well-being right?"

"Of course. What did I say?"

XxX

The meeting was more or less just a formality. The proprietor of the Masters Hotel luxury chain was someone that was very familiar to the visiting party. It was more like friends catching up than a real business gathering.

As he walked beside Karin and followed their host through the halls of the hotel while on tour, Naruto couldn't help but frown and look at his own attire for a moment, 'I've got to wear a suit, but Ken owns this place and he gets to walk around in whatever he wants? Balls.' And indeed Ken was wearing very casual attire for such a meeting. Just everyday clothes, along with his extremely lengthy blond hair flowing down past his waist.

Karin merely rapped him on the arm once again to get him to stop, "Would you behave? You can remove the suit when the meeting is over."

"That's the spirit girl. Keep your man in line." Ken barked, chuckling when he saw the glare from both Naruto and Karin. Naruto probably would have flipped him off if he could have. The kid was totally short-fused, it was awesome.

"I do not need to keep him in line. He knows that I own him."

"For the last time; nobody owns me, it's renting me. Renting!"

Walking along with Ken on his arm was an absolutely gorgeous blonde woman, his wife Eliza. And unlike her husband she did indeed decide to dress up in the proper attire for the situation, a sleeveless red dress that came up to her knees and black heels, "Oh don't tease that boy." She chided good-naturedly, "He's fine. As if you would be able to dress yourself without me."

Ken rolled his eyes at his wife's chiding before speaking to the youngsters again, "It's good to see you two again. So now that everything is basically a formality at this point, why don't you catch me up on what's going on in your neck of the woods?"

Where to begin?

"Well do you want to hear about me getting ripped apart by some guy in a black gi, how we had to take down the gang that wanted to take over Japan, or about how I've got to go on a spiritual journey inside of myself to fix my balance of power?" Naruto asked, tugging uncomfortably at the tie around his neck until Karin gave his hands a swat to get him to stop.

Ken paused in confusion and looked at his wife Eliza before both of them turned around to stare at Naruto, "Let's start with the one that's probably easiest to explain. You got beat up by someone that wasn't me?"

"Bad." Naruto said with a nod, "Some guy named Akuma, he was a monster." He then saw Ken's posture stiffen, something that his wife noticed too as she looked at him worriedly, "What's the matter?"

'He fought Akuma too?' Ken thought to himself. He remembered how three years prior he fought the man after witnessing him kill his master. He was beaten in one move and wasn't deemed worth his time to kill. Naruto had come across him and survived a bout against him as well, "Listen Naruto, I want you to forget about that guy. You won't find him unless he wants you to."

A nod came from Naruto, as he didn't want to go looking for Akuma anyway. Not unless Akuma was some kind of mystical guardian of a dimensional portal and he needed to kick his ass to use it to see his home like some kind of final boss in a video game, "There isn't any reason for me to look for him unless my bruised ego is a terminal illness. Trust me, one crappy situation like the one we got stuck in fighting Shadaloo is more than enough for me."

Ken sucked air sharply through his teeth at the reminder of what happened in Thailand and looked down toward the ground, "That's more or less the reason I came back home after all of that was over too. I still want to beat his ass, but making Akuma pay isn't worth wasting my life over." As he said this he shot his eyes towards his Eliza. He really seemed to love her, and as sappy as that was it put a smile on Naruto's face to see.

Maybe that was why Naruto liked Ken more than he liked Ryu? Ken loved life and all of the things that came with it, but Ryu just seemed to only care about fighting. Ken was pretty focused on it too, but he had a world aside from that for him.

Ryu only cared about traveling around and getting stronger only for the sake of fighting. He took things too seriously at times and everything centered back to martial arts for him. On the other hand Ken was the kind of guy you wanted to hang out with to get into some shenanigans. And anyone that knew Naruto knew that he loved him some shenanigans.

There was nothing wrong with being focused on being the best, and he honestly liked the guy because he wasn't a bad person at all, but without stopping to smell the roses every now and then what was the point? Ryu only trained for the sake of getting stronger, and that was it. He wouldn't even hang back in Japan for a bit to train Sakura a little. The girl treated him like a hero and aside from that she actually had the talent to warrant some kind of attention.

"You're talking about the incident that Guile got involved in as well aren't you?"

Karin turned to Eliza who had spoken with a look of fret on her face, "Yes… I was there as well, as was he." She said tentatively, "You know of Guile?" She asked while Naruto looked from her to Ken questioningly.

Eliza nodded and explained, "He's actually my brother-in-law. He's married to my sister."

And that never came up before?

Both Naruto and Karin gave Ken dual deadpan stares that got him to back up a few steps. It was as if they were asking him how in the hell that never came up before back when they were all together. Stupid kids that could synch up their ire for a situation, "Hey now you two, it never came up. And he left to return to America so quickly after it was all over you never saw us talking together."

"Excuses I see…" Karin stated, turning her nose up at the excuses. Naruto didn't quite go that far in physically exhibiting his displeasure, but then again he wasn't one for Karin's kind of drama. That kind of drama anyway, because he had his own brand.

Ken had a point though. Between Guile leaving more or less the next day after it was all over without saying a word to anyone and all of the fallout from the destroyed Shadaloo base including the dozen teenage girl assassins that had been kidnapped from their homes to be brainwashed it wasn't necessarily an empty defense. Aside from that, everyone met up in the middle of a battle. Nobody cared who was loosely related to whom, what with all of the explosions and the fighting and the killing and the dying and the amnesiatic girls.

Still, Eliza had a troubled look on her face at the topic of her sister's husband, "He's been distant and moody for months at nothing in particular. Julia says he's rarely at home even though he hasn't been given any outgoing missions in quite some time."

"I tried talking to him about it, but he blew me off." Ken said to follow up on his wife's words. He left out the part that Guile's form of blowing him off actually led to a fight that tore up an entire airplane hangar at a testing facility, "Having Charlie die really messed him up."

A frown crossed Naruto's face before he turned and looked over at Karin who had a raised eyebrow, curiously wondering what he was looking at her for until she realized it, "No. When this is finished we need to return to Aohura City quickly."

Naruto continued to frown at her, though Karin hung tough and stared him down right back as she made her own reasonable case.

"I am not going to allow my perfect grade point average to drop because of something like this."

Naruto's frown now included a pout complete with shining blue eyes and the appealing aura of his chakra extending for good measure. By this time she was subtly averting her gaze to keep from having to look at him but that was what the aura was for, to encourage her to look back. Her response was noticeably less stern and a bit desperate for him to stop this time.

"Naruto-san…"

XxX

(That Afternoon – Japan: Chigoku Region – Aohura City)

School had been very uneventful without the main source of its anarchy there to keep the faculty and students alike on their toes throughout the day out of his sheer boredom, but the aftermath of it made things quite interesting once they had walked home to retrieve Cammy due to the guest that had wound up there to check in on her.

And from that point Sakura, Ibuki, the only normal person in the group Kei, Cammy, and the person that had spent much of the day with her went to get an early meal at one of the many eating establishments in town.

"Get the hell out of my restaurant." Sasuke deadpanned upon coming from his office and seeing Naruto's normal batch of friends sitting at the table one of his employees directed him to. Apparently he had been asked for, "Wait, did you order yet? Nevermind, I don't care. Please leave. Every single time more than one of you are here something gets destroyed."

A pretty frown spread over Cammy's face as she held a cup of tea in her hands, "That seems like a gross exaggeration." She said aloud as she took a moment to think about all of the other times that she had been there with Naruto just so the blond could bother Sasuke, "Oh, you're counting that one time as my fault? You threw a plate at him like a shuriken and missed. I had to protect myself."

"Hey, you don't even know me yet." Ibuki said with a displeased look on her face. She agreed to go eat at that place because she heard the owner was Naruto's friend and he was apparently gorgeous. Then he opened his mouth. How rude. Who talked to girls like that? Nobody was good-looking enough for that to be cool, "You're trying to kick us out?"

"Yes. Leave." Sasuke said blankly as his eyes panned across all of the females at the table, "…Not you Akira. You're fine with me." The normally silent girl in question nodded with a very small smile on her face, "The rest of you though, no."

They had come across Akira on the way and she was keen on going along with the girls and their guest, thus she did, "That's why we asked her to come too. The girls said that you wouldn't try to make her leave. Find someone on your work travels that you'll actually acknowledge exists did you Sasuke?"

That voice. Damn it. He thought he had shaken her damn watchful gaze before getting himself out of Hong Kong the last time. It was probably Yun and Yang that screwed up and messed him over. Those two couldn't keep their mouths shut and they idolized/borderline crushed on the woman that was calmly sitting with Naruto's friends at the table sipping tea with a smile on her face.

Damn Chun-Li. Damn that woman. She could smile all she wanted to, it wasn't going to fool him. Freaking super cop. The only law enforcement agent that he was wary of.

"What?" Sasuke asked, holding his hand over his face as if he wished he could just will her away with his mind, "What? What? What? What do you want? What do you need? Why the hell are you here? I haven't killed anyone that wasn't on the fly list so I don't know why you'd show up in my place."

"It's Master Gen's place, not yours." Chun-Li corrected helpfully, still smiling even when Sasuke glared at her with his Sharingan on. Her eyes were closed though, so no hypnotic suggestions or devilish illusions would be coming her way, "And I know you've been a good boy, but this isn't about anything like that so don't worry your oddly hairstyled little head."

"You're lucky you're with Interpol."

"I'm not on duty right now if that helps."

The killing intent at the table rose and Kei seemed to be the only one bothered by it as she slid her chair back a little bit away from the table in case she'd need to get behind something or run. Poor thing. But she wasn't alone because the other people inside of the restaurant were feeling the strain and were handling it worse than she did.

At least Kei was somewhat used to feeling it with all of the strong fighters she knew. Nobody else was though, "C-Can you guys tone it down or something before someone passes out?"

Eventually Sasuke's lowered and people took a deep breath because his presence was far darker than Chun-Li's was, "Hn. I'm not messing up my restaurant just to kick a cop around." He turned around and walked away toward the stairs that led to his office, "Whatever you have to say come on up and say it. Then leave."

After Sasuke left, Chun-Li slowly and calmly finished the rest of her tea before getting up and sighing as she pulled out her wallet to drop a few bills on the table. She seriously hated that kid, "Thanks for showing me where this place was." Chun-Li said before walking to Sasuke's office, stopping momentarily to stare at Akira who was radiating a bit of latent killing intent her way, "I'll see you all later."

Sakura looked after her and looked around at the restaurant patrons that were getting back to normal after the clash of strong wills that occurred right in front of them, "What the heck was that all about?" She asked, looking in Cammy's direction who just shrugged in confusion herself. Cammy had spent most of the morning and afternoon with Chun-Li and didn't know why she was looking for this restaurant.

How did those two even know each other? Sure they were both based out of Hong Kong, but that was a terrible reason to assume that two people knew each other just because they were from the same general city area.

"I can't believe that guy is a friend of Naruto's." Ibuki commented with a hand on her cheek, elbow set on the table as they continued to wait for their food, "He's such a jackass. He's a good-looking jackass, but ick. That attitude of his is gross."

She then felt that she had garnered the indignation of someone at the table and looked over at Akira who was glaring lightly at her. Huh, they hadn't even been really acquainted yet. Apparently she had said or done something to offend her. It couldn't be the elbow on the table, she was all the way on the other side of it. She wasn't much of a talker either so Ibuki doubted that the biker girl was going to be spilling what her beef was anytime soon until it came back up.

Kei scooted back to the table now that it was safe again and breathed a sigh of relief before looking next to herself at Sakura who seemed a bit less spirited on this particular day, "What's wrong sweetie?"

"Nothing really I guess." Sakura said with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, "I'm just not feeling too cheerful today."

"Miss your yellow shadow?" Kei slyly remarked quietly with a smirk on her face that got Sakura to pout at her for bringing something like that up, "He's been skipping a lot though. I bet you he wouldn't have gone if you'd kick his butt about it once in a while."

Her lowered tone was utilized all for naught though, as both Ibuki and Cammy were very adept at picking up quieter sounds like another girl's whispering. Upon hearing them, Ibuki chimed in, "Nah, There's pretty much nothing Sakura-chan won't let Naruto do. If she really wanted to she could crack down on him and try to get him to be good, but she likes it. Trust me."

The kunoichi and the regular school girl moved together and started chattering amongst themselves with Sakura between them as they intentionally ignored her growing discomfort, "You might have a point. She does scold him sometimes and she's basically the only person he listens to, but that's more because of common sense stuff. She might like that he's like that."

"It's the classic case of a good girl inexplicably attracted to a bad boy. A wrong side of the tracks kind of thing. You know."

"Naruto's not a bad boy though. He's just kind of nuts. It's not really something he does on purpose."

"Mmm… I don't know about that. I think he does and I think Sakura-chan here believes she can tame him. I personally hope she can't though, because I like him the way he is."

"Of course, because you're into Naruto for some weird reason. We already knew that though from how you hang off of him all of the time and try to play around with him."

"I took some quality hot spring time with him too in my village during the summer by the way. He was so cute but I'm pretty sure that I didn't see or touch any part of him that Sakura-chan hasn't already, right?"

Sakura shrank down in her chair the entire time Ibuki and Kei were speaking over her as if she were a ghost that wasn't really there or something. Her gaze darted over to Cammy and Akira and soundlessly begged them with her eyes to do something to get her out of this.

The normally silent newest induction into this small unit Akira was clearly amused at the conversation, and on the other hand Cammy actually seemed legitimately interested in pondering the merits of what Ibuki and Kei were saying, which meant that she was taking it seriously.

'Someone please kill me…' Sakura thought to herself desperately, 'I hate my friends soooo much.'

XxX

(With Naruto – United States of America – Great Basin Desert)

The meeting came to a close by noon and after lunch a new 'mission' of sorts was set.

After being given the okay to take a few hours to do so by Karin, who simply couldn't hold out against Naruto's pleading look, Naruto grabbed a ride with Ken in the man's red convertible as he knew where to find Guile since Naruto wanted to see him. It was quite a ways out of town in the damn desert, but it wasn't some place that they couldn't drive to.

It took a bit longer though when they got into a scuffle with one another at a gas station after Naruto made a Barbie Doll crack about rich blond Ken and his shiny red sports car while walking out of the convenience store with copious amounts of snacks. Luckily by then Naruto had changed out of the suit that he had been wearing earlier because Ken threw gasoline at him.

Naruto did not like this and in response he smeared powdered doughnut hands on the hood of Ken's car and threw an open bottle of Cyclone at him, but didn't escalate the fight further than two minutes of wanton punching and kicking because he didn't want to be set on fire by a Shoryuuken while he had gas on him at a _gas station_.

It had blown over quickly enough, and back into the desert they ventured looking for the air force base that Guile was stationed at.

While taking the extremely long and spontaneous road trip they had managed to bond over several things out in the middle of nowhere over the course of. Normal guy stuff such as random challenges:

"I'm telling you I can beat you in a straight footrace for two miles."

"You're full of crap kid. I may not be a 'ninja' but I'm fast."

"Fine. If I win I get to drive this thing for the next thirty miles and I get to hack off your long-ass hair with a kunai 'Sampson'."

"You're on. If I win you have to lick the powdered sugar off of the hood of the car and I get to film it."

"…I don't know why you didn't just clean that off at the gas station."

Manly bonding over music:

A shade-wearing Ken with a brand new haircut that went down just past his neck sat in the passenger's seat grinning widely, as did Naruto in the driver's seat as they sped down the empty highway. The opening strains of a well known song opened up and they proceeded to butcher it horrifically, "An angel's smile is what you sell! You promise me heaven then put me through hell!"

Pointing over to Naruto, the shameless former Konoha ninja had no qualms with taking over off-key with a cracked voice, "Chains of love got a hold on me! When passion's a prison you can't break free!"

"OH~~~! You're a loaded gun, yeah!" Thank goodness they were driving so fast and no one else was on the road with them, "Ohhh, there's nowhere to run! No one can save me, the damage is done!"

"Shot through the heart and you're to blame, you give love a bad name! I play my part and you play your game, you give love a bad name! You give love… a bad name!"

"God kid, you are awesome!"

"No! You're the coolest adult ever, dattebayo!"

And other assorted dude stuff:

"I'm telling you Naruto…" Ken said, driving through the sunset with Naruto lazing in the reclined passenger's seat, "…Guys like you, you're going to end up with some girl that can kick your ass. Mark my words."

"Whatever." Naruto responded flippantly while staring up at the slowly darkening sky, "Why am I listening to you anyway?"

"Because I'm nine years older than you and I'm actually married so shut your lips and learn junior." Ken asserted with an air of seniority about him, "But anyway, that's just the way it's going to be. Wanna know how I know?" He took Naruto's silence as a yes, "I've got a running theory that you're a part of proving. In essence it's because you're basically surrounded by lionesses."

"Lionesses?"

"Girls that can fight." Ken explained, tapping his temple as if he thought of that tag himself, getting a look of understanding from Naruto, "Yep. Let me guess… if Sakura was your first friend it probably took a few years before any other girl that wasn't already her friend got close enough to be one too."

Hey, that was true come to think of it. The next one was Karin after she and Sakura had their little drama and in order to start messing with her 'rival' Karin originally hired Naruto to try and demean him with jobs not befitting of a true mercenary. This backfired of course as the crux of Naruto's income had been generated until that point by D-rank missions, and hers were infinitely better than the ones he had usually taken.

The look on Naruto's face told Ken that it was realistic enough for him to be thinking about it so hard, "Know why?" He asked rhetorically since he was going to give Naruto the answer anyway, "Because lionesses are territorial over what's theirs and outside females don't really get to join the pride." He said half-jokingly.

"You've been watching a ton of documentaries haven't you?" Naruto quipped dryly in response. He resented being referred to as anyone's property. And they were humans damn it, not fucking lions! The more he thought about it the more it made sense though.

Sakura was strong enough to easily beat up adults twice her size when they first met and she'd only been growing in strength and ability by leaps and bounds until she could fight on par with Naruto. She finally fought another girl that could kick her around quite a bit in Karin. Then a year later Ibuki shows up, and then Cammy. Every girl that had hung around since that span of time was able to kick his or Sakura's ass to some extent.

The contrast to lions was unnecessary and weird though.

"Yes. Animal Planet is amazing, but that's not the point." Ken said without shame as he continued, "So the only girls that feel secure hanging around you and the girls around you are ones that are dangerous enough to deal with the ones that are already there. It works like that in reverse too in theory, but I don't know if any guys your age that aren't you hang around."

"Your theory's kind of dead-on then." A disgruntled Naruto begrudgingly admitted, "Because there's Batsu and Sasuke. They're strong. A guy named Blanka's not our age but he does sometimes. Hibiki Dan does too I guess, but I don't see how he figures into this at all because he isn't really tough enough to be a threat to any of us."

"There's always one exception that proves the rule."

"Oh. Okay."

Frivolity aside, eventually the desert odyssey came to a close when they wound up driving into a small residential community in the shadow of a local base for the U.S. Air Force. It was a nice town, but with it being a base that much was obviously to be expected.

Even so that wasn't the point for them driving hours and crossing state lines. They were looking for someone on the base itself and they were provided with guest passes to do just that. Being as wealthy as Ken was had advantages that he chose not to take advantage of every so often, and this was one of them.

Being in front of the tarmac of an air base was not Naruto's idea of a comforting place. He hated regular old commercial airplanes, well now he was in a place filled with the fastest, freakiest-looking, and most destructive aircrafts in the western hemisphere. All those missiles and bombs…

After getting out of the car and walking around the base, Ken snickered at the sight of Naruto flinching due to the noise of the a jet engine blaring but just as quickly sobered up and got serious, "Alright kid, if nothing's changed since the last time I was here we're coming up on Guile."

The open doors of a hangar had country music echoing outside from within as many of the base staff were busy checking over the planes and making sure everything was optimal when it came to the important vehicles.

Even late in the day as it was there were people still working. It was close to being time to knock off until tomorrow, but it was so busy in there one wouldn't have known as much at first glance.

They both looked around for a moment before Naruto smacked Ken on the arm and pointed to where they both saw Guile wearing an open blue jacket over his normal camouflage fatigues and olive tanktop sitting on a set of portable stairs, idly observing the others at work while drinking coffee from a tumbler.

Of course it was him. That hair was totally unmistakable. He seemed as tough as ever with his stern no-nonsense expression set firmly on his mug. Naruto started walking over when he realized that Ken was lagging behind, "What's the matter? Come on, let's go." He had to get back to Karin at the airstrip by midnight so they could fly home.

"Remember how I told you that the last time I came here we wound up fighting?" Ken said, shoving his hands in his pockets as he continued to keep his distance, "I think it's best if I hang back for a bit."

Whatever. That was alright with Naruto though as he headed over to his previous comrade-in-arms, "Guile! Long time no see! It's been like six months!" His boisterous and friendly greeting and grin was met with a frosty glare that could have chilled molten rock, "Whoa…"

"What are you doing here Naruto?" Guile sounded a bit annoyed at the sight of the young blond and his bright attitude as he didn't even bother walking down from his seat on the stairs, "It's almost time for this portion of the base to be off-limits to civilians. How did you get in here?" Naruto wordlessly pointed at Ken who sheepishly waved at him, "…Of course. Look, just go back home. I'm fine."

He really wasn't excited to see him, and that was honestly a bit of a put-off. Like them or not, anyone that survived that hell with him in Thailand would always be a buddy of Naruto's, "But Ken said that your wife is pretty worried about you." Naruto responded with a concerned frown on his face, "That you've been seriously down since Charlie… well, you know. You were there." He finished in a lower tone and a mumble.

Yes he was there. And he would have been able to drag Charlie with them had Ken not knocked him out so that they could escape and leave him there. Charlie would have never felt the need for sacrificing himself to buy time had Naruto confirmed that he had killed Bison far enough away from the Psycho Drive.

That man had been his best friend; and that very same man had formally trained him in the advanced arts of fighting and taught him all of his complex skills. His senior teammate that he had been responsible and sent on a mission to find and bring home, and now he was dead.

And now he had a bunch of people that were there and thought that they could empathize with him because they had seen the explosion that claimed the life of their friend. Shadaloo hadn't even really been brought down because of it, and that was the biggest slap in the face of all.

"I don't want to hear this from you kid." Guile said in a gruff tone of voice, "Did you have to fly back to America and tell your superiors that you didn't bring your best friend back because you were willing to let him throw his life away bringing down a tyrant that no one will ever truly know about? Did you have to go to Charlie's family and tell them to their faces that he died in the jungle in Thailand and they would never hear anything officially of what he did because it was off the record?"

It took this for Naruto to realize that no matter how guilty he had felt for the end to Charlie's life, Guile felt way worse. It took his friends constantly telling him over a series of months that it wasn't his fault for him to finally get over it enough to take his swagger back, and even now it still stung at him.

But that wasn't the issue here, and even someone like Naruto knew it. It was more important and bigger than Naruto's faculties over his feelings about how he had screwed up. Much more important. He was about to sound like some kind of jerk, but it needed to be said and the fallout from it needed to occur.

"You know, if you were single I'd probably let that be." Naruto started saying as he looked up to where Guile was sitting, "But you're married. You've got a daughter. That makes this different, and that means that you need to get over it and fast."

Ken palmed his forehead and shook his head, "Oh Naruto no…"

A look of surprise was on Guile's face before he let the words soak in and he gave Naruto a hateful look, "What did you just say to me?"

Oh, that was what he was afraid of. But it still needed to happen one way or another. Someone had to throw the cold water in his face for better or for worse, "You heard me. Yes, Charlie died and that sucks. It's terrible. But you're both soldiers-, no you're pilots! You make a living doing something that'll kill you the second you screw up in practice! He was a grown man, and he knew exactly what he was doing."

If nothing else, even if he hated it, even if he blamed himself for letting it come to that point Naruto still realized that Charlie did what he did of his own volition, and that made him respect the man all the more for it. It would be an insult to him to continue living his life obsessed with what had occurred that day.

Guile had basically stopped being a functioning adult in his grieving, and that was a massive slap in the face to what Charlie had laid his life on the line for as far as he was concerned. People that sacrifice themselves don't do it so that the ones they do it for can spend the rest of their lives obsessing over how it was their fault. It's a choice to protect, "Sitting on that damn step with a thousand-yard stare is an insult to what he did for us!"

"What do you know? He was like family to me you little bastard!"

"You have a _real_ family that needs a man, not a weepy loser!"

Naruto barely had time to get his arms up to block before his body was then suddenly hurled back by a spinning wave of energy thrown his way by Guile. Naruto was knocked to the smooth ground and slid back until he wound up being stopped by the foot of Ken who was looking down at him chidingly, "I told you. He doesn't want to hear it."

With a growl, Naruto stood back up and dusted his clothes off, "Well that's too bad because he's going to today. This is ridiculous." He started stomping back over to Guile while Ken whistled the funeral march song aloud, "Shut up if you're not gonna help!"

Ken held up his hands defensively and stopped whistling after Naruto snapped at him, "Hey I agree, but it's all you. I can't get into a fight like this with my damn brother-in-law anyway even if it needs to happen."

Basically given the green light to start throwing hands, Naruto turned off the radio in the hangar and yelled over to Guile, "Is that the best you've got?" The dead silence that came from everyone stopping what they were doing was amazing. This kid that had already gotten put on his backside was calling out Guile, "Who trained you? Because you hit like puss-!"

Angrily, Guile jumped off of his seat on the portable stairs and landed on one of the jets in the hangar before jumping off of that as well and launching himself at Naruto on the ground.

This time Naruto was ready, and for once in a battle he could claim to be the calmer, clearer-headed fighter and it showed when he went to his back right when Guile was to land on him and he used his legs like a spring to hurl Guile into the air and outside.

Kipping back up to his feet, Naruto wished that he had been wearing clothes for a fight today as he walked outside to face Guile who was getting up. Guile threw off his jacket and put his hands up in what looked like a boxing stance. Well from the look of his arms he hadn't been training any less than usual, because they were ripped.

'Okay, come on let's get this over with.' Naruto thought to himself as he put his hands up into the cross hand-seal, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Three clones formed and looked at each other before nodding and proceeding towards Guile tentatively.

The hard look on the soldier's face didn't change even when they slowly started trying to get on each of his sides. Without warning he turned and threw a double-armed cross slash that fired another wave of energy at one of the clones, "Sonic Boom!" The attack was fast enough to catch a clone flat-footed, destroying it.

The remaining two clones lunged next to each other the moment Guile turned and jumped at him side-by-side. After turning from his Sonic Boom attack, Guile saw them in the air just short of being upon him and jumped in the air, throwing a lightning fast kick, "Flash Kick!"

One of Naruto's clones jumped off of the other just before the kick could extinguish the existences of both of them and got into the air before aiming itself down at Guile, "Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!" A few baseball-sized chakra projectiles flew from the clone's mouth and drilled him, knocking him straight down to the ground.

A disadvantage of fighting more than one enemy reared its head the moment Guile's back hit the ground. He didn't even have time to exhale in pain before he found one of his arms grabbed by the original Naruto who was running with him and dragging him along the pavement. He got a killer case of road rash before Naruto spun around and hurled him into the metal fence that separated the side hangars from the tarmac.

Guile had to cover up as Naruto started hammering away on him with punches and kicks as he was stuck against the fence, 'This stupid kid…' Guile thought to himself. There were holes in the berserk attack, but he just couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger and counter when he could have.

He dropped his guard to get a peek once the punching stopped, but wound up taking a pair of boots to the face via a vicious dropkick from Naruto's clone that had clearly gotten a great running start prior to hurling itself at him. It kicked Guile hard enough for them to punch a hole through the fence and the impact of such a double-edged kind of maneuver dispelled the chakra doppelganger.

"Stop being all 'woe is me' and wallowing in this crap!" Naruto shouted at Guile from his side of the fence, "You see what just happened? This should have been way harder than that!" He left those holes in his assault on purpose. The entire point of his all-out beat down he had initiated against the gate was to get Guile to fight back. He was sorely disappointed.

This couldn't have been the same person that had instilled enough confidence in Chun-Li and Charlie that they included him in their mission. It couldn't have been the same man that fought against Bison and held out against his full power long enough to get a numbers game established against the overlord.

Guile was lucky Naruto didn't have any weapons on him because of the checkpoint, because if he had any he would have riddled him with shuriken to prove a point. Beating him up as quickly as he did worked almost as well though.

The bare arms of Guile had gotten torn up and scratched deeply via being kicked through the metal fence, but he stood back up regardless, head down as he tried to clear the cobwebs, "You're ungrateful… thinking it's okay to forget the man that saved our asses!"

Any other remark he was going to make died in his throat when his entire world got turned upside down so quickly he had no idea what happened. All he knew was that one second he was standing and about to keep fighting, and the next he was laying on his back looking up at the night sky, cut up by a wooden crate that his body had just been hurled into and wondering what the hell had just happened to him.

"Don't you ever say that to me again!" Naruto shouted at the top of his lungs, pointing a finger directly at Guile, "If you ever say anything like that to me again, that I'm not grateful to Charlie every single day for what he did, I don't care how down in the dumps you're feeling, I'll put you in the goddamn hospital next time!"

This definitely wasn't the same man he met in Thailand. That Guile would have put Naruto through the damn ringer ten times over before getting put in such a precarious position as the one he was currently in. It had been like Naruto was fighting an empty husk. A mere shell of the man.

He stomped directly over to Guile and planted his foot on his chest to keep him pinned down, "You didn't plant the explosives in the base, I did that with Cam and Chun-Li! You didn't have Bison dead-to-rights and let him slide, I did! So stop feeling guilty, go home, and be a fucking family man!"

Guile just stared up at him like a deer in the headlights as Naruto stalked away through the small crowd of observers, muttering to himself as he jumped back over the fence he had kicked him through. He tried to move around in the wreckage without cutting himself even worse on the edges of the crate when he then saw Ken standing over him.

"Well that was embarrassing wasn't it?" Ken said, hands still shoved in his pockets from earlier, "Naruto beat you like a piñata. That's what we should call you from now on; Senor Piñata. We'll rent you out to Mexican birthday parties." He joked dryly.

"Shut up." Guile said, as now that the adrenaline was wearing down he was feeling just how many clean hits Naruto busted him up with while he had him trapped. He knew Naruto was strong, but he could take the kid. It made no sense that he lost like that. He still trained every chance he got.

The blonde hotel tycoon didn't extend a hand to help Guile up, he just stared down at him with his arms crossed. He doubted that Guile would let him help anyway, "I hope that proved something to you. And just so you know, I can call him anytime I want to and he'll probably show up to do this again if I asked him. Eliza said I can't beat some sense into you myself because you're more or less family, but I can get someone else to do it for me."

The man on the ground just grunted and shifted slowly as he averted his gaze away from his brother-in-law.

"I watched my master get killed you know." Ken said, remembering watching Akuma finish off Gouken right before his eyes, "And I fought his killer just like you did just now. Akuma was way stronger than Naruto, and wasn't a hundredth as nice to give me a chance to get my head straight. He put me down with one punch." Naruto kept trying to get him to clear his head with battle. That was the main point of egging him on after talking failed, to let him vent, but he fought so poorly it wasn't worth trying, "You keep this up and you're going to lose more than a random fight to some teenager."

He'd lose his family. Guile didn't need him to spell it out for him, he wasn't a fool that missed what Ken was alluding to. If he couldn't focus on what was important in a fight long enough to keep himself from being dusted off, he would never keep his wife.

"Nobody's saying to forget about Charlie, but he didn't save you so you could obsess about it for the rest of your life." Ken said as he turned to walk away and leave him with his thoughts, "Don't let it rule you. Bad things happen to people that way."

"Come on Ken! Your wife might be cool, but Karin's gonna whip my ass if I'm not back at the airstrip by midnight!"

"You came with her on the business meeting for free. Just sweet-talk her into forgiving you when you get there!"

"She's the devil's seed! You don't get to sweet-talk her, you only compromise with her and trust me you always lose!"

"Fine you stupid brat, but if we get abducted by aliens driving through the desert at night I'm blaming you!"

Guile just kept lying on the ground and stared up into the air with a sigh as the base staff started to surround him and make sure he was fine. He didn't know how he felt about getting his tail kicked by a sixteen/seventeen year old, but that was irrelevant. His mind had really been so weighed down that he couldn't even fight properly… he could only imagine how bad he had been to his family.

Did it really have to go to that point though?

Carefully he reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled up invitation form that he narrowed his eyes at once he saw the tagline for it, 'Second World Warrior Tournament…' It had been sent right to him directly and hand-delivered while he had been on base instead of dropped at his house as mail. Something about it told him that entering was the best way to get what he wanted.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Japan: Chigoku Region – Aohura City)

Chun-Li had followed Sasuke up to his office much to his displeasure and merely sat calmly while Sasuke did his day work and got in some slight training in. All the while she just sat aside and kept a watchful eye on him.

It was annoying to the very reclusive former Konoha ninja to say the very least. He liked being left alone and hated company, especially the company of people that he didn't like for no reason.

"Do you actually want something or are you just that interested in the life of a restaurant manager?" Sasuke asked, ceasing his exercises once it was time for the nighttime rush to begin. He needed to go down and check things over just in case they needed a sterner touch, "You want a job?" He taunted.

Chun-Li just kept scrutinizing him, "I've been treating it like a riddle." She said at first, confusing Sasuke immensely until she elaborated, "Why you do missions to kill people that you know are wicked for the government, but how Gen just skirted over M. Bison. I know he knew who it was."

Oh, the Shadaloo thing. Admittedly Sasuke had often wondered that too. When he proved himself to be a splendid earner and an in-demand assassin he got more in touch with the criminal underworld of Asia he learned of them. He never went near them though. Gen frowned upon his network doing that heavily.

When Sasuke finally asked why he was given a rather cryptic response, but it didn't take him long to get what the old man was casting out.

"Because the government put him on the no-fly list." Sasuke said as he put his black Chinese shirt on and buttoned it, "He was untouchable or else they'd have to put the crackdown on Gen's assassin network. I think he bribed the officials."

It didn't surprise Chun-Li honestly. It made sense since Shadaloo got off without being pursued by the officials past what she did off the record in Thailand, "I thought so too…" Well that was all over now as far as she knew. Until Sasuke spoke up again.

"Are you trying to hire me to kill him for some off the record thing? Because I can tell you right now that you don't have the money to afford it. Not even if you dip into what your father left you when he died. Taking him down by myself is work too dangerous for peanuts."

The female Interpol agent blinked in confusion before addressing what she saw as Sasuke's mistake, "Sasuke, he's dead already. Since several months ago in Thailand. I was there."

In return he raised an eyebrow at _her_ mistake and spoke on it accordingly, "No… he's not. He just disappeared for a few months, probably after whatever it is you did. Bison is back in charge. You didn't kill him."

"That's completely impossible!" Chun-Li shouted, getting up fast enough to push Sasuke's chair all the way back to the wall, "I was there! An ant couldn't have survived that explosion!" She seriously seemed to be taking that touch of information personally.

Her anger wasn't Sasuke's problem. If she didn't want to hear what he was saying he just wouldn't talk. And here he was helping her out, "If you don't believe me go ask Gen. That old bastard knows it too." That didn't seem to help any, "Before you go and PMS over this whole thing just remember who it is that has their finger firmly on the pulse of the world's seedier side before you start doubting me."

Oh she was definitely going to break his jaw for that PMS remark. Later though. Right now she needed him to talk. And right now she needed him to come with her, "We need to go back to China and talk to Gen. I'm not believing this until I hear it from him."

"Fine. Go." Sasuke said, walking past her to the door to leave his upstairs office, "Tell the old sack of shit that I said I want a raise and that I hate him while you're there." Before he could open the door a delicate yet strong hand set itself on his shoulder, "…Do you want to die?"

"Are you lying to me?" Chun-Li asked sternly. It wasn't like he couldn't have told her this sooner. They lived in the same city, they knew of each other. It would have been helpful to do so, especially since he knew enough about the entire situation to know that she wanted Shadaloo to fall. But then again taking Chinese government contracts didn't mean that they were on the same side. Not even close.

That was all she stopped him for? Sasuke shook her hand off of him and opened the door to leave, "Why would I? Now get out of my office." He said, gesturing for her to leave, "If that's all you wanted you've heard what I had to say, so beat it."

"You're such a charmer. I can see why girls like you." Chun-Li said sarcastically as she walked past him on the way out, getting a scoff for her trouble, "Note how I said _girls_ like you and not women. That whole bad guy routine wears paper-thin for most women after they turn 18."

"Wait."

Hearing Sasuke speak to her got her to stop on the way down and turn around to face him. If it led to another empty insult she was just going to keep walking. She didn't need to go back and forth in a contest of verbal abuse to sate her own ego.

Sasuke started walking down the stairs, "I've got to know since you wasted so much of my time… what brought this along to begin with? If you thought he was dead before you said something to me what did it matter what I knew about Shadaloo?"

The moment he would have gone past her, Chun-Li brandished a loud and colorful ceremonial document that Sasuke was able to see in the low light of the staircase. The most prominent words on it were the only ones that really mattered in the end. She was by name formally invited to compete in the Second World Warrior Tournament.

Big deal. She was noted as a powerful fighter in places with farther reach than just Hong Kong or even just China. Why wouldn't the second tournament comprised of the world's absolute best want her there and in person? "A tournament invite? And that set off the alarm how?"

"Use those sharp eyes of yours and look closer."

A bit more scrutiny found that underneath all of the flash and pomp of the invite he could see that in the background of the tournament logo he could see a winged skull with a lightning bolt right on its forehead as the tournament symbol. Shadaloo's insignia. Not an emblem that most of the world was aware of, "This tournament is bait to kill you?"

"More than likely not just me. All of us in the know… Bison wants us aware of the fact that we screwed up and didn't finish him. He's mocking us." Chun-Li took her invitation back and continued down the stairs, "I was suspicious before with Shadaloo seemingly promoting the event, but now at least I know what to expect when I enter with some certainty."

XxX

(With Naruto – United States of America)

After being dropped off at the airstrip by Ken he quickly bid his older blond friend goodbye, promising to get his win back the next time they met before sprinting hastily onto the Kanzuki Family private jet that had been dispatched to take them to and from Japan.

Stepping inside of the plane, Naruto found Karin in her normal clothing sitting in one of the chairs with her arms crossed and one leg over the other, looking at him seriously. He pulled out his cell phone to check the time and found that he had made it with fifteen minutes to spare before midnight. Still, he left before noon that day so it had to have been one hell of a wait on him to get back.

"Sit down with me Naruto-san." Karin said, getting him to flinch. What did he do? She didn't sound like she was in the mood to play at all. Even so, Naruto realized that being stuck on a plane for hours and hours gave him no room to avoid a tongue-lashing if it came to that. He did as requested and just waited until she spoke again, both of them buckled in and ready for takeoff.

Naruto decided to get off a preemptive strike to deter any of her possible anger and cut it off at the pass, "Look. If this is about cutting out across the desert all day I can tell you right now that it wasn't as fun as you probably think it should have been." And he meant that. It was _way_ more fun than she probably thought it was.

"I am not angry with you at all." Karin said with an empathetic look on her face, "While you were both gone, Eliza-san and I were approached by men sent to deliver messages to both you and her husband." She pulled the message from underneath her chair and handed it to him, "I believe apprehension would be a more accurate description of what I am feeling at the moment."

It didn't take Naruto long to see what she meant by that when he got to reading what was put on the message for him. Uzumaki Naruto had been invited to compete in the Second World Warrior Tournament. This wasn't the problem though, as had it been a normal scenario Karin would have encouraged him to enter. The thing that got her to fret was the sight of the Shadaloo emblem displayed prominently for all to take note of.

"I feel…" Karin began to say, looking more uneasy than before, "I feel that if you do not enter you will be marking yourself as a target for death." The fact that the messenger had managed to run them down thousands of miles away from the land they called home proved that they knew how to get to him, "But if you do choose to enter-."

"It's a trap?" Naruto ventured in an attempt to finish her sentence for her, getting a nod for his trouble, "Well if I don't enter it'll probably blow back on you and everybody else at home." If they didn't invite her on the spot the way they seemed to do for him and he hadn't gotten a call from anyone in Aohura City about it yet that meant that Shadaloo wasn't targeting people like Batsu, Cammy, and Sakura.

"You'll enter then?"

"Of course." It was better than risking his the necks of those he cared about when he could have just faced them down and gotten it over with, "I'm not scared of them. It's a tournament and it's going to be on TV. They can't do anything to me during my matches."

The problem with tacking on the name of the Second World Warrior Tournament was that it was going to come with extreme high expectations after the first one that Ryu won years back. Excessive media attention had to be expected at the event, and that would be what would keep any foul play from going on during the tournament itself; because everything would be under a microscope.

'But your problem…' Karin thought to herself before shaking it off due to the plane jerking as it started off down the runway and began ascending, "What do you need?" She asked him seriously.

"Nothing but time to train. Don't worry about it." Naruto said as he looked at the invitation and it looked like he would have it. The tournament didn't start until December. Kind of appropriate for something like this, "I've got two months, but what the hell? Man, I have to qualify for this thing first?"

What good was the invitation then? Just a tool to let him know what was going on and coax him into entering it seemed.

Well it worked, because whatever was up Naruto was going to stop it. As loathe as he was to go actively looking for trouble at a time like this it was his responsibility to finish what he had started.

Especially since it seemed like he wasn't going to get the chance to leave well enough alone.

* * *

><p><strong>Word about the second installment of the most famous tournament in the world is going up and there are qualifiers? Training and preparation time is about to commence for those getting ready for it, but who all are being targeted to enter, and what of these qualifying rounds?<strong>

**Either way, one big ass extreme bash is certain to be in store when it finally begins so be ready for that. What nasty tricks await? Let's find out.**

**Until next time I hope you enjoyed. Kenchi out.  
><strong>

**Now since I've gone and had my fun finishing this I'm going to do something obligatory when I go and try to write some Shinobi of the High Seas since I _finally_ have two days off and I didn't work graveyard shift.  
><strong>


	30. Survival of the Fittest

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. Capcom I will be initiating a hostile takeover, the most hostile of takeovers ever seen in the history of mankind… just as soon as I muster a cent to my name. Stay on your toes, because it could occur any day now!

**Chapter 30: Survival of the Fittest**

* * *

><p>"Come on teme! You want it? Work for it!" Batsu shouted at Naruto, standing up from the backseats of his jeep to shout ahead of it, "If you fall out and don't make it just know Hinata-chan is recording this on your phone and I'll put it on the internet!" He said, and indeed in the passenger seat of the very same vehicle Wakaba Hinata sat holding Naruto's phone in camera mode, "I don't care how slow we're going, you better not let this thing stop!"<p>

"I think even if he crashed out right now if you put this on the internet it would make him look cooler more than anything else." Hinata commented brightly in regards to the friend of her boyfriend's strength, "How heavy is this thing?"

"Not helping…" Batsu muttered under his breath to Hinata, "He works harder if you piss him off." In order to illustrate this fact, Batsu stood up straight again and yelled at his buddy, "Don't you let this momentum stop! Your set's not done yet you goddamn quitter!"

"Shut the hell up!" A struggling Naruto covered in sweat and scuff marks said from out in front of the vehicle. The reason for this being that he was tied to it and was pulling it forward, "You put it in neutral! This is hard!"

"That's the point, you're supposed to drag it yourself! I put it in drive to give you a bit of momentum to start. If I'd made you pull it from a dead stop you'd have never gotten it moving. All you have to do now is keep it going." Batsu said, plopping down heavily in the seat as his friend continued to drag his transportation around a scrap yard in the industrial portion of Aohura City.

It was a good place to train when you needed to work hard, and it had been Naruto, Batsu, and Sakura's heavy duty training area for years. There were plenty of sturdy things to deal devastating damage to, and lots of heavy things to work with like engine blocks, scrapped cars, all kinds of things. Even Batsu's girlfriend Hinata showed up to work on some of the more destructive techniques in their respective repertoires.

Yep. It was spacious and isolated enough so that no one would be troubled by the constant sounds of crashing and sometimes even explosions that went on there, it was in town so if someone was ever really hurt that badly they could take them to the hospital, and due to the fact that it was a scrap yard there was never a shortage of things to target.

"I hate you both." Naruto grunted as he continued to struggle forward slowly, leaning ahead for all he was worth for the leverage needed to do so. He then let out a growl when Batsu hit the horn and it blared in his ear behind him, "When I get off of this thing I'm punching you in the balls!"

Not really reacting to his threat, Batsu just kept periodically laying on the horn, "Well I don't have a whip for motivation purposes otherwise we'd be using that." He then noticed how wrong that sounded and kept Naruto from making a preemptive comment by holding his hand on the horn for the duration of what obviously would have been a scathing and insulting sentence involving some kind of fetish, perhaps involving Hinata dominating him.

This continued until the trio happened to be joined by Sakura and Ibuki dressed in their school uniforms, who then bore witness as well to Naruto audibly cursing and slowly dragging a jeep like an ox pulling a cart while Batsu kept yelling at him and smashing down the horn like a drill instructor.

Neither of them said anything, just staring at the spectacle with slightly open mouths until Ibuki slowly pulled out her cell phone and took a picture of the whole thing.

The audible shutter click of the electronic device got Hinata's attention and she turned in their direction, brightening and waving at the two girls, "Sakura-chan hi! Sorry I didn't call you after school let out but we had to come here right afterward."

Sakura stopped staring and walked over where she easily caught up and kept pace with Naruto, "This is what you've been doing for the last week and a half?" She asked, as he had sent a clone to school in his stead for the aforementioned amount of days, "You're going to cripple yourself at this rate."

"Not for that long… just today." Naruto strained to say as he kept dragging the jeep. He had long since hit a wall when it came to improving his explosive ability and strength and when in doubt do something extreme, like dragging a motor vehicle, "I should have started with an economy car first. Oh my back."

"Stop talking!" Batsu ordered, laying on the horn once more, "Talking wastes air! Now explode! Explode forward!"

Ibuki jumped into the back of the car, unknowingly adding more weight for Naruto to have to pull, but her curiosity as to what was going on won out over her sensibility, "Sakura-chan just told us that Naruto's been sending clones for the whole week at school. What is he doing exactly?"

Hinata smiled at the kunoichi and responded, "He's training, at least that's what Batsu's saying, for the Second World Warrior Tournament. Haven't you heard about it? Everybody knows what's going on."

A look of confusion sprang to Ibuki's face at the news of a big competition coming up, "He's training for a tournament? Why the hell didn't I know about any tournament going on?" She seemed a bit put out at lacking previous knowledge of such a thing, "I'm always out of the loop."

Out in front of the jeep Naruto was pulling and jumping forward to try and keep the jeep going, "No, you just don't watch TV!" He helpfully offered while continuing to work his ass off, "I'm so thirsty Sakura-chan…"

"So why isn't anyone else training?" Ibuki asked, crossing her arms over her chest at being put out in such a manner. Of course she didn't have a TV. She wasn't even supposed to have a phone at the Glade of Ninjas, how was she going to get a TV? "It's pretty weird that you two aren't doing something like this if you know about it."

"It's because we're not competing." Sakura said, following Naruto slowly and trying to keep the worry off of her face, "The second the first commercial came on TV and my mom saw it she immediately said absolutely not. I can't go."

"Same here. My mom got seriously pissed off when I came back in spring with a broken leg." Batsu said, noting that Ibuki still looked a bit confused. He pulled out his phone and went straight to his internet video site of choice before handing the device over to show Ibuki just what he was talking about, "You seriously need a smartphone. It'd solve half of your problems of not knowing what's going on."

Instead of replying, Ibuki took hold of it and watched as a big flashy display came onto the screen showing clips of the first tournament, taking liberal use of clips of Ryu's victories as an extremely militaristic voice did the voiceover, _"The most powerful and skilled fighters from the four corners of the Earth are all welcome to come and test their skills in the Second World Warrior Tournament. Only real martial artists and the absolute best of the best will be found on the main stage! Enter now and prepare for the qualification rounds happening in three locations around the world!"_

A projection of the world appeared with the Shadaloo winged skull logo in the background as there were three focal points on the map marked as Tokyo in Japan, Hong Kong, and New York City in the United States.

"_Only four spots are open per qualifying area and four spots are reserved to honor well-noted legends of combat that have been selected to compete. Be a part of crowning the best of sixteen fighters in the world for the grandest of prizes!"_

Pretty disturbing laughter then came from the speaker while more eye-catching visuals came from the commercial until Ibuki finally turned the phone off. She had seen all that she needed to see to form a point and then deadpanned to everyone listening to her, "Seriously? You're entering a tournament sponsored by Shadaloo?" She asked Naruto who was still out in front of the jeep pulling it steadily, "You do know that this is a trap, right?"

"I've got a good reason." Naruto said before mercifully hearing the shout of 'time' that let him finally drop to his knees and stop his exercise of pulling Batsu's ride around, "…Someone take this stupid harness off of me." He muttered weakly. Sakura obliged him and gasped when he fell forward directly onto his face in the dirt, "Thank you." His voice came out muffled from where he was laying.

Like an angel of mercy, Sakura flipped him over onto his back and sat him up against the jeep as she began checking him over, "Good God Naruto why do you always overtrain when I'm not around?" Pale and clammy skin, bloodshot eyes, and absurdly tense muscles even for having just finished an exercise like the one he had just done, "Just what have you been doing all week?" His heart rate was absolutely murderous.

Naruto's eyes glazed over as he thought of everything he had been doing while skipping school all of that current week with a clone in his place. He returned to the land of the living when Sakura snapped her fingers in front of his face, "Wha-! Oh, um… you know. Stuff."

Not much of an answer really. She looked up at Batsu and Hinata who had just shrugged to her. They didn't know. Naruto called Batsu just today to come up with a new way to give himself a full-body workout. They were just as confused as she was in regards to what he had been doing.

The adage 'no pain no gain' had its limits in regards to how truthful a philosophy it was.

With a concerted grunt of effort to lift Naruto's dead weight up off of the ground, Sakura placed him in the back seat of the jeep and got in, sitting him between herself and Ibuki. She rolled her eyes when Naruto slumped over in Ibuki's direction and the kunoichi started hugging his head against her chest, cooing over how Naruto was a poor baby. He did it to himself!

"Right." Batsu said as he fired up the engine of the jeep and endeavored to drive his way out of the junkyard, "Let's get the human bruise here and the rest of you girls home. We're doing this again next week Naruto, for even longer next time so you'd better be ready." Naruto let out a pained groan in response.

XxX

(Naruto's Apartment)

Sakura had to help Naruto limp his way up the stairs to get back to his apartment since his legs were like putty after the adrenaline from his training wore off. It was another telling sign that he was overtraining himself since he didn't even seem surprised that it happened. How many other times had he been left barely able to walk after he was done?

Well if Sakura was an angel of mercy Cammy was an angel of recovery, because the explanation of how he was able to get up and do it all over again the next day became clear after Sakura dropped him on a couch in the living room.

From where she was in the kitchen, Sakura had to take another glance at where Naruto was now lying facedown on the floor, head on a pillow with Cammy sitting on his back, "How does she even know how to do that?" She asked rhetorically under her breath.

With a concerted look of effort on her face, Cammy was steadily trying to locate and rub out the numerous painful knots of tension that his upper back, shoulders, neck, and arms were fraught with. Apparently this had been happening on a regular basis because she seemed to know right where to go, so she must have been getting a lot of practice.

Once again, Cammy was firmly asserting her position as the coolest roommate that didn't pay rent ever.

"Oh man Cam…" Naruto groaned out underneath the blonde girl working the tension out of his body, "I don't care what this looks like to anyone else right now, you're amazing."

"Thank you Naruto." Cammy replied, finally getting off of his back to sit cross-legged on the floor next to him, "There, that's the best I can do for now, so just rest for the night. You can kill yourself all over again tomorrow." She wasn't any physical therapist, but she had dealt enough structural damage to the joints and muscles of others to know what was going on, "You make me feel lazy. I'm not training hard enough to need a massage just to move every day."

"I wish you were. I'd definitely give you one." Naruto said before yelping when Cammy suddenly lashed out one of her leg to kick him and teach him a lesson, "Ow! Just say no thank you next time!"

"Wait, you're training?" Sakura asked Cammy, getting a nod from her, "You're entering?" It was a world tournament. Despite what they had dealt with it was still hard for Sakura to see the lot of them as world-caliber fighters.

"I don't see why not. I don't have anything else to do other than train while everyone is at school. I might as well put it to use." Besides, if these Shadaloo people that used to control her were trying to lure Naruto into something it wouldn't be very grateful of her to let him go alone. Cammy poked at Naruto with her foot one more time, getting an annoyed grunt out of him before she got up to walk around the apartment, "Are you really using that much energy?"

Let's see… making clones to train at home with Cammy all day, making clones to waste chakra shooting spitfires at him so that he could work on his idea to counter or negate chakra/ki attacks (a very painful process by the way), and he didn't even want to think about how draining his physical conditioning exercises were. Even the ones that didn't require him to act as the propulsion for a damn jeep.

He pulled a damn jeep around a junkyard for five twenty-five minute sets today. Now Batsu might have found it reasonable to chuck 500 pound motorcycles around at enemies without a second thought, but what the hell was he thinking? What was this supposed to be, some kind of strongman contest? If that kept up he'd have a deep seated hatred for motor vehicles by the time the tournament started.

"Yes." Naruto said confidently, looking as serious as possible while he was laying facedown on the floor, "Yes I am. I'm training my ass off. And now I want ramen to put some of that energy back."

"I don't think ramen is the best thing to eat to reenergize."

"Cam… I want ramen. I want ramen tonight. And I will have ramen tonight even if it has to be homemade."

Yes, because Naruto could be the most stubborn man on the planet from time to time. Cammy just shook her head and walked back to her room, beginning to take her twin braids out of her hair as she did so, "Walk to the kitchen, stand at the stove, and make it yourself then. I'm going to go take a nap."

Naruto looked down at his legs that were still pretty sore and frowned at the thought of standing at the stove long enough for the water to boil in a pot and long enough to get the noodles the way he liked them. He had eaten all of his instant ramen and hadn't gone to the store to get anymore since he started training. He turned his head back to Sakura who was still in the kitchen and gave her a pitiful look, "Sakura-chan? Please?"

"I'm not your mother, your wife, or your girlfriend Naruto." Sakura insisted with a pouty look on her face, "Why do you think I'll make an evening snack for you just like that?" Especially since he'd been skipping out on her for weeks at this point, even before his training started.

A shrug came from Naruto as he started pulling himself back onto the couch to sit down, "Because you love me, and because when we were younger I used to help you cook for yourself and Tsukushi all the time when your mom had to work late."

Sakura just gave him a bit of a stare before grabbing a pot, filling it with water, and placing it on Naruto's stove, throwing a big grin on his face, "You're lucky I like cooking."

Despite how she was feeling she couldn't keep a smile of her own off of her face as she opened his refrigerator and already found some chicken that was fully prepared and ready to be added in as well as some vegetables, 'I just can't say no to him about things like this, even if it does feel like we're a bit farther apart these days.'

It had started after the tournament they had fought in together, but it wasn't really noticeable until after Naruto woke up from his coma. Something didn't feel normal; like they weren't as close as they used to be. Thinking about things that way made her sad. If things were like this now, how would they be when they both graduated from high school the next summer? Sakura planned on going to college, and she knew without a doubt that Naruto wasn't into that scene at all.

Shutting the refrigerator with the container of chicken in hand she found Naruto at the counter rending fresh dough into noodles. Man he was good at that. He'd better be with as much of the stuff as he ate, "Hey Naruto, what are you doing next year after we graduate?"

"I don't know." Naruto said absentmindedly as he was more focused on preparing dinner at that point, "I'll probably really start looking for a way home again. There's too much to do now keeping me from it."

'Oh.' Sakura thought to herself as she steadily cut up pieces of the chicken that would go into the pot later, 'That's his plan? All he's going to do is look for a way ho-?' Wait. A way home? As in that 'other world' home? The place he came from? "Why would you do something like that? You haven't tried in this long."

"Before the whole Shadaloo thing happened my original reason for searching around Asia was to see if I could find some mystic crap to get me home." Naruto explained, seeing no reason to hide it at this point, "But then everything just spiraled out of control and we had to focus on stopping Bison before he could hurt any of us anymore. So I never got to really look like I wanted to."

So he had already tried to go home as well. He just didn't know how, "…What would you have done if you'd found a way while we were in Asia?" Would he really have left? Would he even have said goodbye first? Why would he go back now? He'd spent so much time there with her.

And he knew that even as he stopped and thought about Sakura's last question. If he had found a way out would he have taken it? Sure Konoha was his home, but that being said, he'd been close friends with the people here longer than he'd been close friends with the others there. Four years for some of them in Aohura City, like Batsu… or Sakura.

Did he really even want to leave? No, but that didn't even matter. He'd made a promise.

_"That doesn't make any sense. Why would you make your entire life goal something that you don't even want to do? You don't do anything else that you don't want to do no matter what, but you're trying to find a way to do the impossible, and your only motivation for trying it is some bullshit promise that you made to yourself when you were a runt?"_

Batsu's words from the tail end of summer.

_"You've never screwed over anyone else with a promise that you didn't keep. So cut yourself some damn slack. Do what you want, not what you feel like you have to do."_

It wasn't that simple. For a lot of his life the only thing he had to his name worth any real value to others was his word, and he would never break that for anyone. The same became true again when he wound up fresh off of a plane in Japan without a banknote to his name.

But he couldn't even keep the biggest promise lingering from his world; the promise to _that_ Sakura to bring back Sasuke. He definitely didn't feel up to that one anymore, especially since Sasuke was so mellow now. Comparatively mellow anyway. He was still a horse's ass, but it was better than the alternative that he was turning into when they were twelve.

In the end he didn't have much of an answer for her, "I don't know what I would have done." It was best to answer honestly in a case like this, "But I'm starting to think that it was a one-way trip either way."

"Oh."

At the sound of that dejected tone of voice he turned over towards where Sakura was and frowned at the sight of her; so low energy, "Hey come on. You're graduating next year. Even if I found a way home you don't need me anymore. You never needed me. I needed you."

"That's not true." Sakura said as she walked over to the counter and took the noodles that Naruto had prepared to place in the pot, "Naruto you have no idea how important you are to me. I really can't imagine how my life would be if I'd never met you." They considered each other best friends for a reason, "But nowadays it's like we're… I don't know how to say… not as close as we used to be. And I don't know why."

What was she talking about? Sure they hadn't hung out as much, as a matter of fact he couldn't remember the last time that he or her just spent time around the other for the sake of hanging out, but they weren't really drifting apart. Not by his watch. If it came down to it he'd still do anything for Sakura. Nothing had changed as far as that went.

But Sakura wasn't done yet. As she spoke she tried to preoccupy herself with adding in the chicken, vegetables, and spices so that she didn't look too pathetic while spilling her guts, "Hearing you talking about leaving and going home makes me feel like I'm right about that." As long as she didn't have to look at him she was okay, "Thinking about you leaving and never coming back breaks my heart."

And if he actually did, she'd probably be no good for a long, long time. Just leaving forever without saying goodbye like that. She got enough of that with someone that she wished would be her master and train her. She might not be able to take it if he went somewhere she couldn't reach too.

But she had said enough. As horrible as it would be if it actually came to pass, Naruto was an adult. He could make his own decisions, and she wouldn't keep him from doing what he wanted, even if it was a killer to allow.

She tried stirring the ramen in the pot, but her grip on the large spoon was far too weak. Her hand shook too much for her to tighten her grasp on it. She wished she'd never brought it up and let his comment slide now because she'd gone and upset herself. Too curious for her own damn good she was.

"Hey." From behind her, Naruto set a hand over hers and started moving the spoon around in her stead, wrapping his other arm around her stomach in something of a comforting hug, "You'd better not cry. I've never made you cry before and I don't want to start now." That didn't seem to help since making physical contact with her seemed to open the floodgates so to speak, "No… hey come on Sakura-chan please don't cry."

Sakura wasn't making any noise, biting her lip to hold it back, but tears were still rolling down her cheeks. She didn't cry around Naruto, ever. No girls ever did, so he was a little bit out of his element in trying to deal with it. People didn't go to him to emote, unless that emotion was anger.

In the end all he could really do was keep his hold on her and rock with her gently as it was the only thing he could think of. If nothing else she accepted it and leaned against him, so that was better than nothing.

"Sakura-chan, I made a promise to myself that I'd find the way home…" Naruto said, and Sakura nodded and gave a tearful noise of acknowledgment, "…I never said that I'd actually go back when I found it though." Her body stopped shaking so much when he said that, "I think I just want to know if I have the choice or not. Even if I don't go back it's a huge part of my life and I can't just pretend that it doesn't exist."

"Naruto, don't say something like that just because I'm-."

"I'm saying that because I don't want to go back damn it. I love it here."

Naruto rested his chin on top of Sakura's head and sighed quietly while she continued to calm down. He was supposed to be resting his bruise-ravaged body after a day of relentlessly abusing it, not soothing his closest friend from tears.

Sakura was so comparatively tiny when matched up with him. He was a full head taller than her and it just made him want to protect her for some reason, even though she was fully capable of knocking his head off if need be. It was a sign of just how long he had been there, because she used to be taller than him at first.

"You can't get rid of me that easily, dattebayo." He muttered into her hair before planting a kiss on the top of her head as she sniffled, "Do you feel better now after crying it out a bit?"

"I think so. Sorry about getting all girly on you Naruto."

"It's okay, anytime. Now let's get back to stirring the ramen, because I'm still hungry."

XxX

(One Week Later – Hong Kong – Genhanten)

It was so annoying to have to come back to Hong Kong again, and for something so trivial to boot. He had to interrupt his training just to drag Chun-Li to Gen so that she could get her stupid confirmation of what he had already told her out of Gen himself.

Sasuke stood glowering over by the door of Gen's office in the original Genhanten restaurant that also served as the main base of operations while Chun-Li bowed to Gen who was sitting behind his desk like a proper businessman. He had a bit of a sickly and frail look to him, but you could look past that and see the expression of a hardened killer on his face.

"Everything that Sasuke told you was true I'm afraid." Gen said as he stroked his beard for no reason other than the fact that he knew that it bothered people, as if he were condescending to them. He was such a cantankerous old man, even though he was good at disguising it by seeming wise, "Bison is alive. He's trying to rebuild his empire in Southeast Asia by way of his government connections and funding from the other parts of his business."

So all of that work earlier that year and it was all for nothing? What was all of that time and all of those resources wasted for? A good friend of hers died during that mess, "So after throwing the damn kitchen sink at him we couldn't kill him, and we can't even get his puppet companies convicted? We didn't do anything."

"I wouldn't say that either." Gen interrupted before she could go off on a tangent, "Whatever you did in the spring started bleeding them out. His affairs in Asia are on life support, and the criminal organizations that started bending to Shadaloo's will started raising a fuss against them now that they seem weakened in this region." But she didn't just want Shadaloo destroyed.

Chun-Li wanted Bison to pay directly. It was plain to see in her eyes. He had killed her father with his own hands and too many more to go along with him. It wasn't good enough to cripple their operations. Not even close.

Having obtained the information she wanted, Chun-Li spared another bow to Gen before turning to leave. She had to prepare for the qualifying matches in two weeks for the tournament.

Sasuke spared her a nod that she returned before he and Gen could hear her exiting the back area of the restaurant to leave through the front, "Well if that's it I'm going back to Japan. I can't keep flip-flopping back and forth every time someone wants something."

"Oh? But I have a mission for you."

A sigh came from Sasuke at hearing Gen's tone, as if he were surprised to hear that Sasuke wanted to leave so soon. He wanted to get out of there before Yang and Yun realized he was back in town and came to mess with him, "…What do you want from me now?"

Gen stood up from his desk with a serious look on his face, "Enter the Second World Warrior Tournament and ensure that Chun-Li does not confront Bison. That girl will ruin herself with all of these thoughts of vengeance. If it comes to it and you two are slated to fight, defeat her."

What? He had to put his neck on the line for something like this? Why did Gen even care aside from the fact that Chun-Li was the daughter of a friend? She was a grown woman, and if she wanted to walk into a trap to get a shot at some criminal overlord that was her own business.

Basically Sasuke didn't see the big deal. If she wanted to tear the guy that killed her father limb from limb more power to her. He knew that if he had the shot to do the same against Itachi he'd take it, "A little revenge never hurt anyone." Anyone other than the person that the revenge was taken on anyway, "Seems like a waste of time to me."

"In taking revenge a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over he is superior." Gen stated flatly as he walked past Sasuke, "You should have learned that by now boy. It's been how many years?"

"Don't talk to me like I'm a child."

"You are a child, no matter what you _think_ you've seen."

"You want to die Gen?"

"If you think you're finally able to make good on that threat after four years of saying it every day by all means go ahead."

The old bastard could have at least risen to the threat just a little bit. Sasuke scoffed and walked out of the office instead of indulging the old man with verbal sparring, "Tch… I won't waste the chakra. I'll let the leukemia do it." Low blow? Yes, but they had said far worse to each other in the past when Gen realized that Sasuke's family was a soft spot for him.

All Gen did was chuckle in a smug and knowing fashion as he headed back to the storefront. He knew that Sasuke was going to enter the tournament anyway for his own reasons and it wasn't like he would throw any matches or fight at less than one hundred percent, he just wanted to take a shot at the resentful little shit before parting by implying that he couldn't defeat Chun-Li without being directed to first.

Maybe one day he'd take the young man up on that battle to the death. After all, he couldn't run the assassins forever and he needed someone to take over after he was dead. Hopefully by _un_natural causes. He'd despise going out on a sick bed instead of in battle.

"Prepare hard now…" Gen commented in a patronizing fashion as Sasuke headed back to his own office/room, "You don't want to go out and lose before your friend does. There are rumors that he was invited like Chun-Li was. It certainly would be embarrassing wouldn't it?"

Sasuke didn't even bother dignifying that with a response.

XxX

(One Week Later – Tokyo, Japan – Tokyo Dome)

On the grounds usually used for baseball in the massive arena there were four platforms elevated slightly off of the ground for combat that took up space an equal distance apart. Standing on the field all around the rings were people dressed for a fight. The turnout was massive in regards to competitors. As the only qualifying grounds for the entirety of the Pacific there were people from Eastern Russia, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, not just Japan.

It was such a diverse field of competition. Did this many people actually think that they had a chance to go to the real-deal tournament in December? Well there was nothing wrong with thinking that way really.

Amongst the rest of the would-be fighters, Naruto stood limbering himself up and dressed in his new equipment. It was a loose sleeveless one-piece outfit with a hood that he currently had pulled over his head for the time being, similar to the other one he had worn prior only it was navy blue instead of orange. His supply belt was orange though. Had to have it on him somewhere. His ankles were bandaged down to his blue sandals and he had his kunai holster around his thigh.

"Are you done yet Cam?" Naruto asked, trying to let off enough killing intent so that some handsy testosterone-filled guy didn't try to put hands on Cammy before the matches began… for their own safety really, and so Cammy didn't get kicked out before the event even started for breaking someone's arm if they tried to get too friendly with her.

Cammy on the other hand was wearing a silver leotard with long sleeves that fully exposed her legs and her red gauntlets and white boots. She was on the ground killing two birds with one stone by stretching and lightly painting a white lightning bolt design on her legs, "Almost." Hey, everybody had their own thing that they liked to do before battle, "I wish the others could watch us though."

Yes, no Sakura, Karin, Batsu, or Ibuki, and Naruto hadn't seen Sasuke in well over a week, so none of them were going to be there.

The stands were jam-packed. Around 50,000 people as a more or less. Apparently a lot of people that liked fighting didn't have anything to do on an early Thursday evening. Well it was an extremely important tournament after all. No one wanted to miss it. Once again Naruto had to skip school to attend, thank Kami for the Kage Bunshin technique, because they had to leave early to get there on time and sign in.

At least the whole thing would be televised from start to finish. After the smash hit that the First World Warrior Tournament turned out to be, the moment that the second event was announced to the public the major broadcasting networks in every country around the world started fighting like cats and dogs for the licensing rights to air the qualifying rounds in the regions that they were happening and later the actual tournament itself when it took place.

Those idiots were putting money right into the pockets of Shadaloo who were clandestinely sponsoring the thing. The ratings were going to do gangbusters though.

"Hey, they'll see us when we get home later." Naruto told Cammy as he started looking around for the people that they had come to the arena with on the train that morning, "Where the hell are Dan and Blanka? They left like twenty minutes ago to get ready."

They had all walked through the door in line together and had been given different letters corresponding to a ring. Because they had all entered one after another none of them were placed in the same qualifying bracket. Dan, Blanka, Cammy, and Naruto would not have to fight each other… at the moment anyway. But then again no one there knew how the rules worked either so they theoretically could have been paired off right off the bat somehow.

"It's time to show the world a real superstar! Everyone can either lay down now, or I can put them down the hard way!"

"I found Dan." Cammy stated flatly. As she put a small white garrison cap on her head she gestured it over to where Dan was making a fool of himself amidst the throng of other fighter, following around a camera that was weaving through everyone to get a ground floor view of everyone there, "What's he doing?" She couldn't imagine parading herself around in front of the cameras like that. Too intrusive for her tastes.

Making an ass of himself for one thing, but that wasn't the answer that she was looking for, "That's just the way Dan is." Naruto tried to explain as he motioned for Blanka to make his way over to them. Blanka grinned upon seeing them and hurried his way over, parting the crowd in his way that were somewhat afraid of the feral-looking man despite his generally pleasant disposition.

He still didn't wear anything other than frayed brown shorts and his anklets, and that didn't help the green skin and extremely wild orange hair so he was pretty intimidating admittedly.

"Is it almost time to start yet?" Blanka asked excitedly, "I've never fought in a tournament before. I can't wait." Apparently he had developed a fondness for fighting against people since he started living with Dan. It was weird to see him so animated about something like this.

But then again he had been like that for the whole trip. Getting him on the train was a major chore because he thought it was some kind of titanic snake that people found in the city. When he saw Tokyo itself and the entertainment area that the Tokyo Dome was the centerpiece of they were almost late to line up before the doors opened.

Why he chose to try and qualify or how Dan tried to convince him Naruto had no idea, but it was what it was and he was there now. Still his enthusiasm was more than welcome given the circumstances.

The speaker system over the entire arena came on and the voice of the event's emcee came on to give everyone their instructions, _"Ladies and gentlemen thank you all for coming and I welcome you to the Pacific qualifiers for the Second World Warrior Tournament!"_ As it seemed that things would finally be getting underway, everyone in the stands let out cheers, _"All participants prepare for the competition to begin. Those issued A-cards report to the A ring. B-cards to the B ring. C-cards to the C ring. D-cards to the D ring."_

Naruto looked at his B card and Cammy checked hers as a C. Blanka had D, which meant that since he had been the last one out of the four of them in line Dan had A, "Well…" Naruto said with a shrug, "…Break a leg guys." He then noticed Blanka looking at him strangely, "Not literally. It means good luck bud."

"Oh." Blanka said in understanding at the friendly gesture, "Well break your leg too." He then parted to head over to the D ring. It was hard to believe that he was six years older than they were, but if they were stuck trying to survive in the jungle they'd probably see it then. If he'd said it to Blanka in Portuguese he'd probably have gotten it though.

Right, well either way it was time to get this show on the road, "Well I'll see you when this whole thing is over Cam." Naruto said as he watched Cammy jump up onto the platform that served as her qualifying ring, "You'd better win, because travelling to the real tournament by myself would suck."

"Worry about yourself first." Cammy responded, stretching her arms out above her head, "We've all got to fight our own battles tonight so fretting about me won't do you any good here. The same goes for me." She reached a hand down for Naruto to take which he gladly did with a big smile, "If you lose and I win I'll never let you live it down." She teased as she used her other hand to push his hood off of his head.

"If I lose I'll kick my own ass, you won't have to do it for me." Naruto eventually released Cammy's hand and went to get to his own platform to begin fighting. There was just a mass of humanity in each ring that was large enough to fit them all. Shadaloo didn't skimp out on some puny rings, that much was for certain.

Thirty people give or take one or two in each ring ready for action in four different sections of the open arena. And dozens of referees and doctors were standing at the ready all over.

"_The rules are as follows. These matches are to be free-for-all affairs. Every participant must remain in their designated ring. If they are knocked from the ring and touch the floor they are eliminated. If they are rendered unconscious, are killed, or are otherwise deemed unable to continue by our doctors and officials on hand they are eliminated. The last man or woman standing in each ring will be declared one of our four winners and will have qualified for a place in the Second World Warrior Tournament in December!"_

Everyone in the all of the rings started eyeing each other warily and trying to keep turning to watch their own backs and try to get the drop on someone else as well. Some people were already cutting deals on working with certain people to better their chances of lasting until the end.

It was like Naruto could feel tons of eyes trying to melt him from all around with their stares. It wasn't everyone, but it was enough people to be noticeable. Why the hell was he getting singled out? He hadn't done anything to anyone yet.

Oh. That's right. He was kind of famous in Japan in circles of criminals, fighters, and martial artists in general. He forgot about that since people in Aohura City where he lived really didn't care about that. But here he could hear people whispering things and his name would pop up in the smatterings of conversation.

"_All competitors ready! Fight!"_

Everyone had already cased a soft target for themselves and began the melee that became a rather brutal display of human force. Most fighters would land a punch before getting hit with something by someone else from another angle. And those unskilled that started out closest to the edge of the ring were forced out by the fighting expanding and spreading out from the center.

First and foremost Naruto started off by jumping into the air and running on the heads and shoulders of the taller fighters to avoid the edge of the ring, finally coming to a landing near the center, 'Okay, this was a bad idea, but it was better than the alternative.'

Now he had gotten the attention of too many people that he had walked on in order to get 'safely' to the middle of the ring. Evidently they didn't like that too much. Before anyone could bear down on him Naruto placed his fingers together in the cross seal and created five Kage Bunshin, four that went off to fight the others and one to remain next to him while he formed a Rasengan.

"Rasenbakufuu (Spiraling Shockwave)!" The clone next to Naruto moved its hands around Naruto's Rasengan and forced the chakra from it in an outward burst of energy all around him that slammed many of the enemies away forcefully, along with Naruto's clones as people were pushed out of the ring at the edges.

While people were on the ground Naruto ran around kicking them in their faces before they could get back up in order to render them unconscious. A lot of people in other areas were letting their opponents get back up when they were knocked down. Screw that.

Doctors were pulling people out and the herd was steadily thinning in Naruto's neck of the woods until he felt the footsteps of someone coming up behind him and lunged aside as a white blur passed him by. He reached out and grabbed his attacker by the back collar of their top to retaliate when he had to suddenly let go lest he find his face filled with the view of someone's kicking foot.

With a growl Naruto spaced himself away and squared off with a familiar girl. The messy-haired, karate-gi wearing Makoto, "What? What are you doing here?" She lived even farther away from Tokyo than he did in a rural area. She had to travel for well over an hour just to catch a train, "I know you're a student too! Who let you skip school?"

"My grandfather understood that some things are just more important." Makoto said with a smirk, excited at the prospect of fighting Naruto in an environment where he couldn't use the battlefield to his advantage the way he did last time. Unfortunately there were those that didn't care about her desire to rematch Naruto and tried to attack them both, "I don't feel like dealing with weaklings!" She ducked an attack from behind and turned to grab a man far larger than her by the neck, lifting him up roughly before punching him away from her viciously.

Naruto had to block a pair of kicks from two more people before launching a counter that was comprised of sweeping the standing leg of one man and while he was low punching the second man in his exposed testicles. Needless to say that was that it for him.

"That was so dirty." The man that Naruto had knocked down commented before Naruto noticed that he was still awake. While still low and on all fours, Naruto just lunged at him and headbutted him in the face to knock him out.

Naruto stood back up straight and swept the debris and possible blood of his enemy out of his hair, "There aren't any rules in this thing." Speaking of no rules he then once again had to fend off the assault from the very determined Makoto, having to weave his head out of the way of many rapid-fire strikes launched at his face.

That girl was seriously trying to knock him out. She'd already gotten him good in a previous encounter and blackened his eye badly, and he'd be damned if he'd let something like that happen again.

Makoto had to stop when once again the last few remaining dregs of their qualifying area tried to take advantage of the ongoing fight between her and Naruto when it strayed too close to the edge of the ring. Both of them just stepped away from each other when the man tried a flying kick to kill two birds with one stone. Instead of hitting anything he merely flew out of the ring and eliminated himself.

With the slight lull in Makoto's boisterous attack, she realized that she couldn't give Naruto any room to move if she was going to beat him and dashed forward in a blur to knock his head off with one shot, "Hayate (Swift Wind)!" Her attempt to crowd Naruto only resulted in him ducking her sharp power punch and moving past her.

Before he could possibly retaliate she turned back around and jumped away to face Naruto who was holding a black belt in his hand and looking confused at why he was holding it. He had tried to grab her around the waist to try a new special attack he had come up with during his training, but all he had gotten was Makoto's black belt.

Looking up from what he had in his hand, Naruto saw an embarrassed Makoto holding her gi shut with one hand. Crap. His bad, "I was trying to attack you, I swear to Kami. The only thing I was trying to do was hurt you."

Instead of answering him, Makoto just took a deep breath and cast her gi aside instead of holding it shut any further. There wasn't any room for shame when you were a fighter. Thank goodness she had on a sports bra underneath though. Naruto stood at the ready as there was still a battle going on.

Makoto started breathing faster and tensed up in her fighting stance until her skin started to turn a deep red. This wasn't her blushing at her less than presentable state though, "Since you don't have anywhere to hide here, it's the perfect time to use this against you. Tanden Renki (Chi Abdomen Training)!" At the ground her feet drove an impression into the ring that until that point hadn't been damaged aside from bloodstains.

'She's making dents in the ring just standing there in her stance.' Naruto thought to himself, sweating quite a bit at the thought of what kind of a punch she would pack with something like that driving her, "What does that do?"

Once again Makoto didn't say anything, she just vanished from Naruto's view in what he could only consider to be a hallucination because he had no idea she was that fast. Really. He had been chased by her in full-on sprints, he had fought her directly and she had never done… whatever it was that she was doing before.

His warning as to where she had gone to came when the remaining fighters in the ring were all decimated and hurled from contention by Makoto who was shouting with every hit that she landed. And then he had to use those sharp senses to avoid getting his appendix punched out.

Makoto's fist impacted off of Naruto's arms instead of his body the way she intended. He was forced to slide back across the surface of the ring until he drew to a stop but Makoto was already streaking toward him for another attack. Any normal move he made to avoid her was scouted out, even when he thought he jumped out of the way she wound up right underneath him.

Altering his trajectory in midair, Naruto landed with a kick that struck Makoto's face. Instead of being knocked down or away by the kick she merely growled and slapped Naruto's leg, flipping him all about and forcing him to crash onto the canvas. He rolled out of the way of a brick-breaking chop that again left a groove in the mat and kept rolling away as she kept punching away at the grounded Naruto rapid-fire.

Taking a risk, Naruto let a punch come close to plowing him into the ring so that he could deliver a kick from the floor to Makoto's head that stunned her. It certainly threw her off-balance from her compromising stance that she had been in while attacking him.

Naruto quickly made a clone and got up, shoving his shoulder into Makoto's stomach and grabbing a hold of her before immediately jumping high into the air and rolling upside down to kick her back at the ground where the second Naruto was waiting and started throwing absurdly fast punches, hitting Makoto again and again in the stomach. Descending from the air, Naruto stomped on her back and did so in rapid repetition, catching her in between himself and the clone, "Dengeki-Sen Rendan (Blitzkrieg Combination)!"

Eventually the red wore off of her skin and she went limp, prompting Naruto and his clone to kick/punch her away in tandem and send her rolling on the ground until she came to a stop. Quick to respond to the violent final attack, doctors quickly deemed her unconscious and waved off any attempt by her to continue the fight. Redundant since she was out cold anyway.

Naruto landed back on the ground as his clone dispelled with its assignment now accomplished. He looked around and found that he was the last person standing in the ring, "Oh man… what was that technique she used?" He asked under his breath as he walked over to see how bad off Makoto was. She was stronger than he had figured if she was able to pull something like that out, but she didn't fight very smart for what she had at her disposal. It was like she was in a blind rage or something.

The doctor checking her over checked her pulse and went wide-eyed at what he found, "Whatever she did sped up her heart rate far past that of a regular human being. It probably increased her blood flow, which was why her skin turned red until it wore off." He explained before shaking his head and muttering something about ki users.

So she supercharged herself by forcing her ki to kickstart her heart into overdrive for a temporary boost. That sounded dangerous for her too, not just him in case she actually managed to score a clean hit on him. He couldn't access Kyuubi chakra to flat-out overpower her even if he had been feeling that mean and testy today, so he had to win with misdirection and a roundabout attack the way that he did.

Well it was over now, and with that he sat down cross-legged in the middle of the ring with a big sigh as the crowd cheered, "Sorry about putting you down so hard Makoto. We can fight again when you heal up if you feel like it then."

"_The winner of Ring B and advancing to the Second World Warrior Tournament; Uzumaki Naruto!"_

XxX

Elsewhere Cammy had been a serious pest to everyone else competing in her ring. No one was fast enough to hit her and she simply kept diving through the forest of legs presented to her while everyone else fought amongst themselves, injuring any kneecap that she could reach with her fists and feet. A pretty basic strategy, but while things were crowded it thinned the herd effectively and kept her from having to fight anyone head-to-head.

"Hold still!" The last remaining adversary to her advancing had been more skilled than everyone else due to him lasting as long as he had. He was a massive man, but he simply couldn't lay a hand on Cammy due to how fast she was, "You're not even attacking! How can you think you'd win the tournament if you won here?"

Instead of responding she just kept getting her distance until suddenly flinging herself forward through the air in a rapidly spinning ball. The quick motions of the move threw off her opponent enough that he didn't know how to retaliate. He tried to punch at her in the air but with a target that small and that fast he didn't have a chance of hitting her.

Cammy wound up wrapping her legs around her enemy's head before bending her torso back suddenly and using her legs to send him head over heels, driving him into the ground by the top of his head, "Hooligan Combination!"

Flipping and cartwheeling away from her prone foe, Cammy stood ready to keep fighting until the man was waved off and deemed unable to continue, "Well then. How does it feel to be beaten by a tiny girl like me?" She said as she eased out of her fighting stance. He probably would have wished that she still hadn't attacked if he were conscious to think about anything at the moment.

"_The winner of Ring C and advancing to the Second World Warrior Tournament; Cammy White!"_

Looking a bit put off and embarrassed as the center of attention, Cammy waved to the crowd regardless, red-faced and all. God, she'd better not have to get used to that kind of thing regularly. And how did any fans get a giant-sized poster of her to hold up in the audience? She was more than certain she'd never been on TV before, let alone seen by any of those people period, so how did she already have fans?

Cammy muttered to herself at the sight of… herself, everywhere, "So strange…" Before she left she looked around the ring and took note of all of the people that hadn't been taken out yet laying on the mat clutching at their legs. Whoops, "I might have gone a tad overboard though." She commented, scratching her cheek guiltily.

"_Oh and the winner of Ring A is… E. Honda!"_

XxX

"Oh my back… my ribs… my everything…" Dan mumbled to himself, facedown on the mat as the sumo wrestler E. Honda sat on his back and laughed boisterously after being declared victorious by the announcer to the roar of the crowd, "Damn it. Just one more win."

He felt that he had it in the bag. He didn't have to fight his wild and very strong jungle friend Blanka, he didn't have to fight Uzumaki Naruto's cheating ninja ass, or that pretty little killer that Uzumaki had brought with him. But then he wound up in there with perhaps the most famous sumo that hadn't achieved yokozuna rank yet.

All he needed was to eliminate E. Honda. Dan had played it smart and kept back while everyone else had tried to use force in numbers, rushing E. Honda who had posted himself at the middle of the ring and fended off challengers from all sides in a Herculean effort that he made look easy.

Still though, Dan had endeavored to fight him and paid for it after a relatively quick battle. Unfortunately when it had come down to a one-on-one, he got smushed into the canvas.

"You did fine." Still sitting on Dan's back, E. Honda slapped him on the shoulder in a show of sportsmanship, "But you should know that in an event with ring-outs you should never ever bet against a sumo."

XxX

Crouched down in the middle of his ring, Blanka's body was still coursing with electricity from his qualifying match, dozens of quivering bodies suffering from electric burns all around him, "Aw no. Dan didn't win his match? That's no fun."

Well he certainly had though, for obvious reasons when it came to his abilities. Everything Blanka could do was tailor-made for defeating multiple enemies. From generating electricity, to using his body as a cannonball for attack, it was academic who would win when many people decided to flee the ring rather than face him.

"You guys are weak." Blanka said as he lay down in the middle of the ring to try and take a nap, "None of you would ever survive in the jungle."

_The winner of Ring D and our last winner in the Pacific qualifiers for the Second World Warrior Tournament; Blanka!"_

Well at least from their end of the world the field was set.

XxX

(Hong Kong – Eurasian Qualifiers)

"YEAAAHHH!" Standing over a series of thoroughly decimated foes, Zangief's hulking mass of muscle posed to the cheering audience, "No man is a match for the Red Cyclone!" Parts of the ring had holes punched in it from multiple uses of Zangief's spinning piledriver and flying powerbomb attacks.

"_And that's it for the qualifying round folks! The four moving on from the Eurasian qualifiers are Zangief, Dhalsim, Sasuke Uchiha, and Chun-Li!"_

Standing outside of the ring, watching the last leg of the event proceed, Sasuke rolled his eyes and scoffed at the sight of Zangief's victory, "All of those losers were too slow to even think of getting close to someone that strong. Idiots."

"Well not everyone has eyes that can see everything in slow motion." Chun-Li remarked, somewhat chiding Sasuke for his attitude and getting no response for her efforts, "Did you have to make your fights so violent? You set people on fire." Yeah with the small fireballs though, not the big ones, so it didn't count.

Fighting the urge to yell at her that he was an assassin and that they were lucky that there were doctors and referees to stop him or else he might have killed them, Sasuke instead chose to point to the last man that had already qualified as well. The contradictively muscular and emaciated frame of Dhalsim was nearby, levitating off of the ground while meditating.

He wasn't confrontational in the least, as he hadn't tried to play mind games with Sasuke after qualifying which led to the question of why someone like that would enter a fighting tournament in the first place.

And indeed as Sasuke had wordlessly alluded to, Dhalsim had set his own fair share of people on fire with his special techniques as well, but he had mostly stuck to striking foes with his very unorthodox method of hand-to-hand fighting. Sasuke was quite certain that trying to copy it would have done him absolutely no good, and Chun-Li had finished so quickly in her matches that he didn't see anything from her either. He'd also be damned if he'd be caught dead using any of Zangief's moves. They didn't suit him to say the least.

A cop, an assassin, a spiritual leader, and a pro wrestler. That was a rather diverse cast of competition that managed to earn their way into the tournament through the versatile field of fighters that had come to Hong Kong to fight.

XxX

(New York City, U.S.A. – Atlantic Qualifiers)

Still jazzed up from finishing his free-for-all match, Ken had a grin on his face as he was confronted by Guile who had also won, "So you're in this thing too?" Ken asked cheekily, "Trying to punch the demons out are we?"

"Something like that." Guile gruffly responded, "If by 'punch' you mean 'kill', and by 'demons' you mean 'Bison'. Now that I mention it you were accurate about the last thing." Because Bison certainly wasn't a man. Not a man at all.

That was enough to bring down Ken's mood, putting a frown on his face for the first time all day, "Huh, well if we get seeded together you'd better bring your A-game. None of that crap that you threw at Naruto when I watched you fight him, because I'm not going easy on you."

Guile gave a stiff nod before walking off to leave. There was still one more month to prepare for the tournament and he wasn't going to waste it just sitting at home. His family would have to endure this him for just a little while longer. After the tournament was over he'd be all theirs again.

Ken watched him leave and shook his head at the sight, 'He's too single-minded, even for entering a fighting event.' Guile wasn't even staying to see who else advanced, missing out on a chance to scout the competition. All he wanted was to punish Shadaloo, nothing more. He probably wasn't the only person entering with that sentiment since Ken shared in it to an extent, but Guile was doing so to a dangerous extent.

Oh well. There was nothing he could do about it right then. Only time would tell if Guile wound up getting his act together, but until then Ken had himself to worry about. He put his grin back on his face while watching the rest of the qualifying free-for-all matches, wondering if his best friend would find it prudent to get himself involved.

After all as the previous champion of the World Warrior Tournament, Ryu had to defend his title didn't he?

XxX

(Forest in Southeastern Asia)

"They're doing a second one?" Sitting by a waterfall during a rest in his training, Ryu took note of the invitation in his hand to enter a competition similar to the one he had emerged victorious in a few years ago. Unlike the others it said nothing about having to qualify, as he had a 'legends seeding' to bypass all of that and merely fight in the real contest.

So he was a legend? That didn't feel right, and part of him wondered who else was given a pass like him since there were apparently four, but considering that the tournament seemed to be organized by Shadaloo it seemed like a trap anyway.

Maybe the fact that they had been waiting for him in several nearby towns to give him the pass (he now had four of the exact same ticket) when he ventured there for food and supplies had been a dead giveaway that they _really_ wanted him there for some reason?

Still he would be taking part in it. Trap or not it seemed like a lot of fun to him. Ryu was excited by the challenge and wanted to test his skills fighting in an organized competition again since it had been while. Many strong fighters, a stage to see if he was closer to mastering his martial arts? Why wouldn't he enter?

Sticking the entry pass back into his nearby duffel bag he stood up and prepared to continue his training. It wouldn't do to be unprepared for such a major event. After all who knew what kinds of competition he would wind up running against?

"Maybe I'll get to spar against some friends?" Ryu said to himself as he walked back into the forest to get back to work, "I know a few people that I wouldn't mind showing up to fight against."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter complete.<strong>

**Alright people, I'm getting bored since nobody is updating anything, and I don't want to be 'that guy' begging on bended knee since if I really get bored I can just keep writing my own stuff, but I'm just making an observation here for conversational purposes.**

**Either way I'm done for now, and I'm off to grab some grub on my day off and celebrate my dad's birthday with alcohol since I can legally do that kind of thing now. Until the next time then I hope you enjoyed. It's what I try to be here for.**

**Later jerks, Kenchi out.**


	31. Come As You Are

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. Greatness is not born, it's made, and Kenchi618 is living proof of that fact. So all I need to do is make something amazing of my own. Problem solved right there.

**Chapter 31: Come As You Are**

* * *

><p>Balrog hated Southeast Asia. It was one of his least favorite places on the planet. Too many rural places for his tastes, he didn't speak the language, too many people didn't speak English, and he was always afraid he'd wind up stuck in the jungle and wind up dead. Since that was the way that Vega's life ended that fear came back, and since it happened in Thailand and that was where the tournament was to be held he wasn't a fan.<p>

He knew Bison put the tournament out in Thailand because that was the country where Shadaloo more or less had the most freedom to do as they wished, and he understood that. Even so, he'd much rather the tournament be held in a place like Las Vegas or New York City. Hell cities in Europe like Paris or London would have been preferable.

Solace could be taken for the former heavyweight boxing champion in the fact that if he really missed the glitz and glamour that much he could always drive out to Bangkok since they were close enough. That place wasn't too shabby all things considered. Booze, women, a place where a guy with money could live large. A good place to take a break in between times where he was busting skulls.

And he could look like a badass on world broadcasted television and make those idiots that banned him from boxing realize that he was still the best, and that any 'champion' they crowned after him was a paper substitute at best. He was one of the four 'legends' that received an open pass to go straight to the main show along with Ryu, Sagat, and one other man that hadn't been named.

"Sagat's entering too." Balrog reported as he entered Bison's office. The tournament would take place at a massive martial arts temple twenty minutes outside of Bangkok that was honored to be the setting for the Second World Warrior Tournament. For the most part Bison had his run of the place to set up whatever he needed to, and that included an office in one of the rooms, one that overlooked the open plaza where the fights would take place and the fans would watch after proper stands were set up, "He said he'll be here for the opening ceremony, but he's training until then."

"Expected." Bison said simply, holding his hands behind his back as he watched the construction of the arena that would host his grand games, "All I had to do was mention that Ryu would be taking part and he bought right into it. Such simple men… mere brutes, nothing more. Never looking past the surface. All that matters to them is the fight. It takes more than ability itself to be the greatest."

Balrog wasn't certain about that. It worked just fine for him his entire career and afterward, but then again the only thing he was all about was getting paid so it didn't matter to him either, "Whatever you say boss." He conceded without any care one way or the other, "What's the plan? For when everybody gets here I mean? How are we taking all of your enemies out?"

To the hulking boxer's confusion, Bison started laughing. Balrog couldn't really see what was funny. He didn't think his question was dumb in the least, "There is no real plan." Bison said, much to Balrog's confusion, "This is all to taunt our enemies and let them know that their very best didn't even come close to destroying us. Destroying me."

All of the effort and sacrifice put into trying to end the strife brought forward by Bison and his organization, and he was going to flaunt that it was all for nothing. That even after all of that Shadaloo was about to make a mint. The entire world was going to pay Shadaloo a near mint to watch these people beat each other into pulp.

"I won't do anything." Bison said with a grin. The prospect of if he would and when he would do it would drive the more obsessive competitors mad, "After the tournament is over I'll face the winner in a surprise 'bonus match' for the grand prize of the event, to let the fools know that they're on borrowed time, and that they will all die very soon."

A show that he was still an imposingly powerful figure. A victory for his ego to defeat the person perceived as the champion, making the world understand his strength.

And if it was one of his enemies all the better to embarrass them on a grand stage before he snuffed their life out. The rules of the tournament would allow such a thing right there on the spot… accidental of course. A death in the heat of battle. Either way the fans would eat it up.

Balrog chuckled nervously at the thought of facing Bison after the entire thing was over, 'Probably best to drop out after I've made a good run to the finals, maybe the semis depending on who the last guy is.' It was better than having to fight Bison who might kill him depending on his mood at the time, 'Yeah, I'll make up some kind of hokey injury, probably about how I broke my hand cracking my last opponent's skull.'

"Relax Balrog." As if sensing his underling's distress, Bison chose to assure him of his safety, "Killing you would never be my intention, especially if you were to emerge victorious. That would be a waste of your strength." He had redeemed himself after being upset by some kid in Japan, and winning the tournament would only affirm that fact, "Now Sagat on the other hand…"

The man had been nothing but trouble the entire time he had been under Bison's employ. Insubordinate to say the very least. Bison believed that Sagat's single-minded desire for a clean rematch with Ryu would make him easily to manipulate, but it only made him a fool. His usefulness was running out. The only thing that Sagat had left of use for Shadaloo was to make a statement.

If Sagat was the one that emerged victorious Bison would definitely kill him.

The intent in what Bison was trying to convey was clear to Balrog and it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, "Right. Well if that's all I'm gonna go train." He said, slowly backing out of the room, "If that's cool?"

"You're dismissed."

Bison chuckled as he wasn't certain that Balrog had ever moved as fast as he did when he left his office. That was the way it should have been, people cowering at his power. His chuckling then stopped when he looked down at his hand and then at the rest of his arm.

His scientists had his DNA to create extra bodies for his spirit to inhabit, but they weren't as powerful as his original body that he had turned into a masterpiece via his training methods. He hadn't had his new body for long enough to bring it back up to that same level, and it was noticeable. He didn't carry the same amount of muscle mass that he held before his previous body was destroyed. When he hit something now, he wasn't assured that it would be destroyed in one punch.

And it was all _their_ faults. Thinking they could 'save the world' from him with just their fists. Well the world sure did care about that didn't it? Because the world was about to hand him money to watch them kill each other. That in of itself would be a slap in all of their faces. The people would cheer him and praise him for putting the tournament together, and all his enemies would be able to do would be to stand there and deal with it.

Those fools would all pay.

XxX

(Mountains South of Aohura City)

The normally still forests that covered the mountains outside of town were quiet, with only the occasional sounds of birds chirping sounding out to illustrate the untouched nature of the area. For dozens of miles leading away from the more metropolitan areas of the Chugoku region you would be hard-pressed to find a human being anywhere in those woods.

It wasn't impossible. You just had to look past the fact that you could hardly hear them and you had to acknowledge the fact that sometimes those blurs soaring from branch to branch in the air weren't birds.

'Come on. It can't be that hard to catch her.' Naruto thought to himself out loud. Standing against a tree, Naruto lowered a sheet that he had been using to camouflage himself before getting on the move again, trying to track his target, 'I can't believe she hasn't run into any traps yet.'

In something of a break from his usual grueling training program, Naruto had taken something of a break due to it being Sunday. Of course with a little over two weeks remaining until the tournament was to take place it wasn't really a break.

Upon Ibuki's request so that she didn't have to go through the same old routine that she normally had to go through on her day off from school Naruto headed into the mountains to train with her. Apparently that was a more fun alternative to what would have happened otherwise.

So without any reason to say no since it was also a change of pace for him too and could be quite fun depending on how it went, Naruto agreed and headed out Sunday morning to do his thing.

'I've only got two minutes left to find her or it's a draw.' Ibuki had to track Naruto first in the game that they were playing to train but was unable to find him, even without his clones to deter her, within a twenty minute time limit, 'She can't even use Henge, so why is she so good at this?' He hissed stressfully, the nippy winter air causing his breath to be visible, 'I'm freezing my-.'

A snap of branches caught Naruto's attention and he immediately took off in that direction. Within a matter of seconds he came to an open tiger pit that he had set up to trap Ibuki and it appeared that she had tripped it and escaped without falling in. Damn it.

But he then smirked when he got sight of her footprints on the ground. Yeah, because he had made sure that the trap was very muddy just in case she tripped it and escaped before he got there. And just like that he was on her trail. One minute left.

Pumping extra effort to his legs he eventually caught sight of Ibuki in her brown ninja garb. Apparently she had foregone trying to hide again after tripping his trap and choosing instead to simply burn the clock out by running away. Turning around to check behind her she went wide-eyed at the sight of Naruto. It was noticeable even behind her facemask, "No! Why are you so fast now?" She thought that she could at least stay ahead of him in a full-on run until the game was over.

"Dragging a jeep'll do that for your legs!" Naruto shouted as he continued to close the distance, "You can hide but you can't run!"

"That sounded so stupid!"

"Yeah, well you're running though aren't you?"

He had a point, but then again in ten seconds it wouldn't matter what it was because time would be up, "Either way it's all over!" She said confidently hoping that everything would be called off soon.

"You're right." Naruto remarked, pulling out a kunai that he threw in Ibuki's direction, "It's over!"

It didn't hit her, but it scared the hell out of her as it passed her by, "That better have been blunted! Real weapons are against the rules!" Ibuki shouted at Naruto before she heard a snapping noise and a huge net lifted from underneath the brush of the ground and caught them both. At least it would have had Naruto not replaced himself with a log at the last second with a Kawarimi.

"Time!" Came a stern shout from somewhere else nearby in the forest.

Safely from his place on the ground, Naruto cackled up at the sight of arms and legs sticking out of a mass of sticks and leaves, "Ha, take that! I gotcha! Nice try kunoichi babe, but I'm on my game!"

"Yeah… too bad you didn't win though." Without him sensing her, Ibuki jumped onto Naruto's back and held on tightly much to his surprise. She pulled down her facemask to show her grin and pointed up at the net, "Could you cut my tanuki down please? I don't think Don-chan's very happy up there."

Looking back up at the net, instead of seeing a mass of arms and legs in it he saw one very perturbed looking raccoon-dog staring down at him. Naruto palmed his face and threw a shuriken at one of the ropes supporting the trap to break it.

As Ibuki's pet fell and landed back on its feet her sensei Sanjou made his presence felt, holding up a stopwatch that he had been using to time their game of tag, "So?" He asked expectantly in regards to the results.

"Draw." Both Naruto and Ibuki said simultaneously, with a varying level of satisfaction at this fact for the both of them; one dejected, the other one content with the outcome, "Damn you." Naruto added after the fact, "I want a rematch."

"Of course you do, but I don't." Unlike Naruto, Ibuki wasn't that competitive when it came to things like this. One round that ended dead even was more than enough for her, "I asked you to come out here and do this for a reason Naruto." She said, pulling on his cheek.

"Because you didn't want to do your normal training today?" Naruto ventured randomly as he scratched his head.

Yes, but he didn't have to say that in front of her sensei, "Kind of… but it was to help you too in a way." She said as she jumped off of Naruto's back and landed in front of him in a flourish before pointing like an instructor, "What would you do if you had to fight someone in the tournament that you couldn't overpower or beat straight up? Would you run?"

"Not a chance!"

"Well you should." Ibuki said with her hands on her hips, "I don't mean hightail it out of the arena, but you're a ninja. Don't get into a slugfest. And if this event really is a trap you're going to want to remember that an indirect victory is still a win." If Naruto started getting his ass kicked she was afraid that the ultra-competitive chip on his shoulder would kick in and he'd get into something of a pissing contest with his opponent.

Realizing that he had been set up with that question when he saw Sanjou nodding in silent agreement, Naruto blushed a bit and got slightly defensive, "I'm not dumb Ibuki. I know that."

"I don't mean anything by it." She said with a shrug, "It's just something that's easy to forget in a martial arts competition. You don't have to fight like everyone else just because of where you are. You're different for a reason, and I doubt there are going to be that many rules anyway."

Naruto nodded in understanding, not taking offense any longer. Ibuki just wanted him to win, or at the very least stay as safe as possible in case the deck wound up being stacked against him during the matches. By now it was common knowledge to his inner circle on what was wrong with him, so she just wanted to make sure he'd be okay.

Yet another reason why Naruto thought that his friends were awesome. They definitively cared about his well-being and wanted him to succeed.

"Ibuki." Sanjou said with his arms crossed, gesturing in the general direction of the Glade of Ninjas, "It's time to return home. Just a short exercise when we return and you can have the remainder of the afternoon off." The girl pumped her fist victoriously at hearing that, "Let's go. Say goodbye to Uzumaki-san and let's go."

Naruto watched Ibuki nod to her sensei before he took off swiftly, returning back to their village, "Alright. Well I'll see you tomorrow okay?" Naruto said, feeling that he should let her get on her way.

"You mean I'll see your clone right?" Ibuki tried to correct with a grin only to get a shake of Naruto's head, "No clone? Really now?"

"Me and Cam have to leave for the venue on Thursday." Naruto explained, holding his hands behind his head as he walked along the forest floor, "She thought that it would be a good idea to cut the training off after today to give ourselves a chance to rest up a bit." He didn't really have a reason to disagree, "So I'm going to school for half of the week."

Well that was good. He didn't always have to go jackhammer with his training the way he had been for two months because it showed in his body. Due to the fact that his fighting outfit exposed them his arms had some serious definition to them and Ibuki was sure that if she could finagle another hot spring kind of meeting she'd find that Naruto would have a six-pack this time around instead of his previously more streamlined physique.

When she had grabbed onto him earlier he felt like a rock. He seriously seemed to be at least five pounds heavier at first glance.

"Tomorrow it is then." Ibuki confirmed with a nod as she stepped forward a bit bashfully, "So ah, thanks for coming all the way out here just to play with me a for bit Naruto."

It wasn't a date akin to what they had been on in the past, and she didn't rightly think she could try to kiss him goodbye because she was certain that Sanjou was still somewhere watching to bust her when she did it, but damn it she wanted to. It wasn't fair that she had the absolutely no opportunity to get him alone. She just wanted a shot at being normal, but she couldn't do it.

It was sort of the reason she was usually so physically personal with Naruto, because compared to the rest of their friends she was the one there the least due to her proximity from Aohura City. Being straightforward in that regard, as much as her shame would allow anyway, was her best tool to get Naruto's notice.

The turmoil on her face was evident to Naruto even if she didn't think it was that clear to see, and it was something that he'd seen not too long ago from Karin. While he was certain that Ibuki's hang-ups weren't the same as Karin's had been it wasn't hard to see that once again it was about him. It _was_ hard however to accept that it was about him. He was aware that she had some kind of interest in him, but with her personality it was hard to tell how serious it was.

Unlike then however, if it wasn't a situation where he needed to force the issue he wouldn't. It wasn't a good idea to try and pull a ninja's secrets from them, so in this case he would leave sleeping dogs to lie as much as possible. He placed a hand on her cheek and gave her a kiss on the other one before moving past her, "Any time. Later Ibuki."

Ibuki's mouth was open in surprise that he'd done something that forward, but by the time she turned around he was already gone. Probably because he was afraid that she would clock him or something for what he did. It was actually really comforting.

'If Karin thinks that she gets to just automatically have him after one damn kiss she's got another thing coming.' Not a chance, not while nothing was certain yet. In the meantime she'd just find a way to watch the tournament and root for him from Japan, "You'd better give those jerks hell Naruto."

XxX

(Two Days Later – Just Outside Bangkok, Thailand)

Compared to winter in Japan, Naruto felt much better being in Thailand. Hi no Kuni back home always had amazing warm weather, and he thoroughly realized that after living in Japan he despised seasons with a vengeance. Winter made him lazy because it was so cold and he hated freezing to death. Milder climates were what he loved.

A yawn came from Naruto as he and Cammy sat in the backseat of a car being driven by their fellow Pacific qualifier and relatively close friend in E. Honda. They had all correlated their flights out to Thailand together as they all saw no reason not to. Cammy didn't know the sumo that well, but Naruto trusted him immensely and that was enough for the pretty soldier.

"So why'd you even join the tournament to begin with E?" Naruto asked trying to drum up some conversation on their way to the site of the fighting event, "Shouldn't you be training and competing in high-profile sumo matches to get to yokozuna?" He didn't think that street fighting would help get a sumo promoted in rank.

"I'd have to ask the same thing of you kids." E. Honda said with a smirk as he looked in the rearview mirror. He knew that Naruto was pretty competitive, but he didn't seem to be the type to care too terribly about winning things like this. Cammy was pretty mysterious to him since he hadn't met her prior to the qualifying matches, but she seemed a nice enough girl, fond of Naruto too, "I've got my reasons, trust me."

Naruto rested his head against the window as he looked out at the lush scenery available to him to see, "Well I'm here to fight just to make sure that some bad people leave my friends alone in exchange for getting to fuck with me free of charge. Of course it's not gonna be that easy." He then pointed over to Cammy, "Not with her here too."

As she was being acknowledged, Cammy held up a peace sign and a small smile for E. Honda's benefit as he chuckled at the teenage girl, "You've got a thing for coming across cute girls Uzumaki. Tell me I'm wrong."

A roll of the blond ninja's eyes came very quickly, "You're not… but then again all of these girls can kill me, Cam included. Cam especially as a matter of fact."

Uncharacteristically, Cammy pouted at Naruto's implication, cheeks puffed out, arms crossed over her chest and all, "I don't see the need to keep asserting this point to you Naruto. I won't ever, ever, ever kill you. Ever. No matter what." She hadn't even killed anyone the entire time that she had lived with him, "Did I really leave that bad of an impression when we first met? I can't imagine."

That was because she couldn't properly remember. The answer was yes. Yes she did.

"You keep telling me that." Naruto said, fishing his cell phone out of his pocket before quickly scooting across the backseat to squeeze closely to Cammy to take a picture of both of them just hanging out in the car, "And it's not like I don't believe you." Seriously, if she was going to 'black widow' him she would have done it by now, "You're a scary-brutal fighter, but you're actually sweet the rest of the time. I just like messing with you."

"I can't think of what kind of satisfaction you could possibly get out of that." Cammy straight-faced with her cheek squished against Naruto's before he quickly sat back across in his own seat once his picture was taken.

All Naruto did was laugh a bit and make sure that the picture had gotten their good sides before addressing E. Honda again, "So really, why are you here E?"

Raising an eyebrow at Naruto's persistence, he figured that it wouldn't be that big of a deal to tell them. They were all going to the same place together, "Well to put it short I'm getting tired of the rest of the world more or less lambasting my profession kid. Outside of Japan no one takes sumo seriously. I'm in this tournament to prove that we're skilled warriors too."

"You don't have to tell me." Naruto responded. His body could still feel the aches and pains he had endured from his first battle with E. Honda, "You proved it to my ribs and back just fine."

There was a joking tint to how Naruto said it, but E. Honda was well aware that he meant most of that statement, "There's another reason too." He admitted with a more serious tone this time, "I found wrestlers in rival stables taking biochemical drugs to give them advantages in the ring. A dealer was tracked down with connections to Shadaloo." Naruto let out a scoff as if to say 'Of course.'

There was no need to say anymore. Hanging out with Naruto enough would get you the knowledge of the Shadaloo story with the Psycho Drive and the Dolls and the amnesia and Charlie's sacrifice… and you'd get a crash course on what Shadaloo was all about, so E. Honda knew who the tournament was sponsored by.

After hearing the story of the driver of the vehicle, Cammy leaned back in her seat and stared up at the ceiling, "Is there anyone we know that doesn't have some sort of issue with these people?" Because thus far everyone in the car did at least.

Even she did, even if she didn't fully understand what it was herself. All she had to go on was what she had been told by her friends after suffering from amnesia and the dreams that would sometimes occur at night with her taking vague assassination orders from.

Naruto put a hand on Cammy's shoulder as a large set of stairs heading up to a temple came into view, the destination of the fighters set to participate, "Cam if there are people in the world that _don't_ have problems with Shadaloo, it's probably just because they haven't gotten around to fucking with them in particular yet."

XxX

(Martial Arts Temple)

From the room set aside as his office, Bison could hear the roar of the crowd outside. It brought a grin to his face as he stood up and grabbed his cape prior to leaving his quarters. Opening the door to walk down the stone hallway the noise grew louder, with festive music in the air as he neared a walkway that allowed those passing by on it to view the open courtyard that had been adjusted to serve as the arena for the tournament.

It would only hold ten thousand people to view from within, a small number compared to what they would get in a grand arena had that route been chosen, but with all of the cameras set up to transmit around the world it didn't matter. No one would be left out in getting the chance to see this. Tickets cost an arm and a leg, only allowing those with means from wherever they originated to come and view it in person, but the place was still packed.

For such a dark man he simply couldn't peel the grin from his face as he stood in the shadows overlooking the entire show that he had set up. It was time to enjoy the fruits of his labor, "Now fight and destroy each other just to wait for a chance to get yourselves to me… my entertainment."

Down in the actual arena the sixteen competitors stood lined up next to each other in a straight line for everyone to see in the ring. The ring was simply the stone ground of the normal temple courtyard, fraught with statues across the area. The courtyard was surrounded by high-rising walls that contained the stands for the fans with only a prominent temple staircase leading up to a building overlooking the courtyard existed for the fighters to come down from as the path in and out.

At the moment, Naruto stood glowering in between Cammy to his left and a smirking Sasuke to his right who seemed to be quite satisfied at Naruto's reaction to his presence, "So this is why you weren't in town huh?" He muttered under his breath, "You think that's funny don't you?"

"Not particularly." Sasuke lied to his face, noticing Chun-Li to his right giving them both a chiding glance as if to tell them to behave in public, "What's your problem?"

"You two both look like kids trying to one-up each other right now." What, was she trying to keep them both in line? Yeah, good luck with that since neither of them were going to listen to her at all, "Can't you handle things professionally?" Chun-Li had by now with the clues presented to her worked out that these two were either friends or they hated each other. Probably both from the looks of things.

Great. Well she'd be damned if she had to wind up playing big sister and separating those two. Naruto respected the hell out of her but wouldn't listen to anything she'd try to get him to do and Sasuke only cared what she had to say when she was acting in her capacity as an Interpol agent. It would have probably been the equivalent to having to hold two tigers back from tearing each other apart.

Sasuke gave her a look as if to ask her what she thought he was doing, and Naruto did the same only he spoke up, "Why? I'll be professional when I fight, so until then who cares." He then pointed further down the line at one of the competitors shifting in place as if he wanted to dance, "I'm not that guy so I don't want to hear it."

Chun-Li looked that way and noticed who Naruto was talking about. A black man with a braided mohawk that was quite muscular, with a huge grin on his face seemed to be ecstatic just to be there. He was barefoot and shirtless, wearing loose orange pants with the words MAXIMUM inscribed down the legs of them, "That's 'The Southern Comet' Dee Jay, from Jamaica. He's probably the top professional kickboxer in America, and he's apparently a huge recording artist to boot. He's really famous."

A huge recording artist huh? Well Naruto liked music from America, but he hadn't heard anything from that guy before. Maybe he'd try and find something later if the idea wasn't knocked out of his head during the matches.

There were a few unfamiliar faces in the crowd of sixteen, but mostly they were people that Naruto and/or Cammy had met at one point or another. As expected, all of the players in the destruction of the Psycho Drive were in attendance including Guile, Ken, and Ryu, 'Maybe since Sakura-chan and Batsu didn't fight Bison themselves he didn't feel a reason to invite them to compete?'

That was his best reasoning. Batsu had been hurt by the time of the final encounter, and while Sakura had fought she hadn't fought against Bison himself… thank goodness. His paranoia was still pretty high though, but the TV cameras and all of the play-by-play booths made him feel better. Nothing too shady was going to go down in front of those things.

And the competitors seemed to be so powerful… what in the world was Bison going to possibly try with all of them in the same place?

Guile was standing there in his camouflage pants and olive tanktop, looking as stern as ever, seeming like he just wanted to get this show on the road. Ken was standing next to Ryu, trying to pick with his best friend via poking him in the ear while Ryu was standing at attention trying to take the whole thing seriously. The look on his face told everyone that he wanted to chuck Ken into the stands though.

There was Balrog, the most destructive boxer in the entire world. Zangief, the most skilled wrestler alive and a man that Naruto had battled against in the past was in attendance as well. Blanka was hunched over and crouched, taking in the whole experience as only a jungle man could. E. Honda stood smirking at being on such a stage. Dhalsim was quietly sitting on the ground and just meditating (Naruto would have to speak to him later).

Sagat, someone deemed as the most dangerous man in the world and a legend in the Muay Thai martial art just stood staring over many heads to get sight of Ryu. That's right, Ryu beat Sagat and left that huge scar on the one-eyed bald man's chest in the first tournament. There was also another man slightly taller and thicker than Sagat that seemed to be descended from Native American Indians with painted cheeks, an open sleeveless jean jacket and jean pants and moccasin boots.

There was a man with short brown hair and a muscular frame wearing black pants and black kung fu shoes just doing breathing exercises as he waited for the festivities to start in earnest. Wait a minute, Naruto knew who that was.

With wide-eyes Naruto quickly pulled out his cell phone and called home. He was going to rack up some serious long-distance charges but he didn't care, "Holy crap Sakura-chan, Fei Long is here." He whispered in a bit of awe at what he was witnessing, "It's the real deal too!"

"_I know! The line-up ceremony of all of the fighters is on TV right now and I can see him! I mean really, Fei Long? I know he's a real fighter, but thought he was filming 'Triad Revival' so what's he doing here?"_

"I don't know, but it's awesome!" Naruto more or less gushed over the line, "Should I try to get his autograph? No, that wouldn't look cool. We're supposed to be in a contest right now. What would that look like?" The only thing cooler would have been if Chuck Norris had shown up to compete, "…Could I get one later?"

Both teenagers were huge fans of Fei Long's action movies, and one of the first things they had managed to bond over in their childhood had been the absurdly stimulating films of the kung fu variety that starred Fei Long himself back when he was their age. There weren't many people in the world that Naruto would be caught fanning out over, but this man was apparently one of them.

"_Oh, Naruto hang up, the camera's on you right now! Up and to the right."_

Heeding Sakura's direction, Naruto looked in the indicated direction to see a camera with a flashing red light on it aimed right at him. He pasted a grin on his face and waved up to it, "Hey Sakura-chan take care of Cam's cat! Batsu you ass you owe me 5500 yen! Dan… you still suuuuck!" He yelled rapidly to make sure he was heard.

"Idiot…" Sasuke muttered at Naruto's side before realizing that the camera was now on him. All he did was scoff and turn away from it, forcing it to move onto the next person in line who was Chun-Li. She merely smiled at the camera with her fists on her hips until a box was presented where everyone was to take a small ball from it with a number on it. Naruto, Sasuke, and everyone up the line from her had already received one.

"_Alright everyone!"_ The announcer of the tournament said aloud, _"All of our participants have received their lot numbers for their placement in the brackets! Sixteen fighters from all over the world, twelve qualified in hard-nosed bouts past hundreds that have fallen along the wayside, and four are legends of martial arts here to show the world who is the best, so let's begin! Whomever has number one speak up and go up from there!"_

"I've got number one." Cammy said with a shrug. She didn't really care who she got to fight this early in the game, so long as she got to analyze the field of competitors after her match was over to prepare for the next one.

Blanka's face lit up at hearing that as he was the next to speak, "Two." Getting to face a friend was a good shake for him. He couldn't ask for much more in his first big experience in a fancy, elaborate tournament like this.

"_Very well then! The first match is the beautiful and mysterious femme fatale in Cammy White against the savage warrior of the Brazilian jungles; Blanka! Next participants please!"_

Next to step up was Guile, holding up his own ball for the world to see, "Three."

It took a second but once Sagat looked at his ball his gaze narrowed on it as he crushed it in his hand and stepped forward to meet Guile, "Four." Both men stared each other down, Guile not flinching despite the fact that he was dwarfed by Sagat's sheer size.

"_Match two will be the United States Armed Forces champion Major Guile going up against the first resident legend of the competition, the God of Muay Thai himself; Thailand's own national hero, Sagat!"_

Naruto didn't waste any time stepping forward with his entry ball in hand, tossing it up and down in his hand, "Five, so who am I fighting first?" He asked, turning around to the line of remaining fighters that could be his possible opponent.

He dropped his ball when Fei Long stepped forward in return, seemingly followed by a small film crew right there with him, "I'm taking you on in round one. I've got number six." There was a calm and serious air about him, and a smooth gait in his step as he moved to meet Naruto, "I hope you're strong."

"…Yeah." A seemingly speechless Naruto managed to say in return. Instead of blustering up and trash-talking he slowly lifted up his cell phone and took a close up picture of Fei Long that he then sent to everyone he knew. A good number of them were actually at the tournament with him or watching it elsewhere so they just found it redundant.

Fei Long's film crew just looked at each other as Naruto stood star-struck, "This kid is terrible for a soundbite." The cameraman said with a shake of his head, "We're trying to film a documentary on Fei Long's street fighting here. We need a guy with better banter than this."

"…_Anyway, the next match involves the self-proclaimed 'Best Ninja in the World', the seventeen year old Naruto Uzumaki. His opponent will be the second of the four legends of our tournament. The dynamic master of the Hitenryu style of combat and world-famous movie star; Fei Long!"_

"Calm down Naruto." Chun-Li said as she put a hand on Naruto's shoulder to get him to chill out a bit, "You've still got to beat him you know. Speaking of beating people I'm number seven." Her mood soured when she heard some smug laughter and a figure then towered behind her.

Standing there was Balrog, looking down at her with a dirty grin, "Well it looks like we're going to be having a lot of fun right off the bat pretty lady." He commented, holding up his own ball in his boxing gloved hand to show the number eight, "Not the kind of fun I'd like, but…"

Chun-Li scowled up at him and walked past him to get back in line, "Trust me, it's the only 'fun' someone like you is getting out of me."

Balrog just glared at her back before walking to the line-up once more as well. Yeah, she was definitely going to pay for that little remark.

"_The 'Strongest Woman in the World' Chun-Li takes on the third legend of our tournament; the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world that never lost his title in Balrog for the fourth bout of the first round!"_

"Nine." Ken said with a smirk on his face as he looked around.

He didn't have to look far, Zangief didn't make himself very hard to find, "Ten." Instead of being intimidated by the musculature of the large Russian's frame, Ken seemed spurred on by the challenge.

"Eleven." Ryu eyed down his five possible remaining opponents waiting for someone to step up, and he got it in the form of a sumo wrestler.

E. Honda grinned over at Ryu, pleased at the prospect of fighting against a fellow countryman, "Here's to a good match brother." Ryu put a small smile on his face and nodded before the two men bowed to each other out of respect.

"_The fifth fight will be the United States Martial Arts Champion Ken Masters against the 'Russian Destroyer'; the 'Red Cyclone' Zangief! Fight number six involves the fourth legend invite and our previous champion of the World Warrior Tournament; Ryu! He takes on one of Japan's most elite sumo wrestlers here to prove his strength to the world; E. Honda!"_

Sasuke checked over the rest of his competition and straightened up the collar of his black Chinese top before making his presence known, "Thirteen."

"What's with that lack of rhythm mon? Liven up!" Before he could get too far ahead of himself, Sasuke found his way cut off by the very upbeat Dee Jay who seemed way too ecstatic to meet his opponent, "I'm hopin' to get a good beat from our fight!" He then turned and postured to the crowd who seemed to love him, "Yeah!"

'Oh Kami not this guy…' Sasuke thought to himself as he glared at his ball marked number thirteen. Unlucky indeed, 'The only beat you're getting from our fight is a beating.' He needed to get away from that dancing fool before he killed him prior to the match starting. He'd rather deal with Naruto's crap.

"_Kickboxing standout 'The Southern Comet' Dee Jay versus the rather dark youth Sasuke Uchiha in match seven! And that leaves the final fight of the first round to be the hulking Native American Thunder Hawk to face off with the mystical Yoga master Dhalsim." _

Dhalsim's blank white eyes opened and looked over to T. Hawk who nodded over to him stiffly, getting one in return from Dhalsim before he went back to meditating. No fight hyping banter? No face off? What was the fun in that?

"_Ladies and gentlemen the field is set for your Second World Warrior Tournament!"_ A massive screen projected portraits of all of the fighters matched against each other appropriately according to their lots, _"Over the next two days we will determine who is the strongest on this very stage! First round and quarterfinals today, semifinals and final round tomorrow afternoon! The winner of the tournament gets a standing prize of one million dollars or its equivalent in the currency of their choice, and a special honor from the tournament organizer!"_

XxX

A two day tournament. Apparently there weren't any rules, just the way Ibuki had stated would probably be the case back home. There was no time limit, no ring restrictions, no limitations on what one could do to win, no way to get disqualified short of outside interference.

And that 'special honor' from the tournament organizer didn't sound too desirable.

The building at the top of the stairs was meant to the hub for the fighters to stay at in between matches. It overlooked the entire courtyard and gave a prime view of the action in the courtyard for all of the competitors, also keeping them above the view of fans themselves out of the way and giving them easy access to the ring when it was their turn to fight.

"Well…" Ken said as he sat in the garden out front of the building along with Ryu, Naruto, Cammy, and Chun-Li, "If we all just walked into a trap it'll at least be one hell of a ride." He looked over at Cammy and turned to Naruto who was on a stone bench wrapping his hands in tape before putting his gloves on, "I can't believe you brought the girl with amnesia Naruto."

"Screw you, she's a smart girl, she knows what she's doing here." Naruto replied, biting off the end of one of his taped hands before testing them both out, punching into his palms, "So speaking of here… what do we do here?"

The part of Chun-Li that knew that the tournament organizer mentioned earlier was Bison wanted to find him and bust his ass, but there were too many variables working against that choice of action. He picked the temple as the setting for this entire shebang, and trying to start something here probably wouldn't end well at all. It _was_ a martial arts temple after all, and hundreds of monks trained in extreme forms of combat were here thinking that this was the greatest thing ever for their little haven. They wouldn't take too kindly to the party being crashed by people like them. So Bison basically had security without even having to hire security.

There were too many cameras to go trolling around, and that wasn't even to comment on what would happen if they actually found him. How were they going to write off an assault on the man? No one else knew what they knew and probably wouldn't care either way.

But then again the same thing went for Bison too. He couldn't just outright attack them either, which was probably why he had Balrog and Sagat entered in the tournament to do it for him, and those two were more than capable of dealing out some Shadaloo vengeance all on their own.

So what was his angle here? It didn't make any sense. There wasn't any way that he could take anyone out. Not here. Not during this tournament. No one was ever going to be left alone well enough to try anything on them.

When it came to tactical thinking Chun-Li felt that she was probably the best one there. Ryu just knew how to fight directly and break down what was going on right then and there, same for Ken. Naruto was good at gambits, but this wasn't that kind of situation, those only worked in the middle of conflict at hand and when one was in dire straits. Cammy might have been good at them, but she didn't seem to particularly know herself. The extent of her training and how good she could have been at premeditated action wasn't really known due to the amnesia.

"I don't think it matters one way or the other who's sponsoring the tournament." Ryu finally said, sitting down by a small moss-covered boulder, finally adding his input into the situation, "It can't just be called off at his whim, it needs to have a straightforward ending. We aren't the only ones that have to play by the rules this time."

And he had a point. This was a legitimate professional sporting event, an event that had eyes on it from all over the world. Every inch of this place would be scrutinized. It wasn't like some private military base that he owned in the deepest part of the remote jungles. He couldn't do what he wanted there.

That put things quite clearly in Ryu's mind as far as how to take things, "So the only thing to do is face this challenge head on and fight. It is the only path present to us."

Ken had to chuckle at that and walked over to Ryu to drag him up and give him a noogie, "Heh, I figured you'd say something like that. I can't say I hate the plan though. It's certainly got enough fighting in it for my tastes." He predictably got thrown off and away by Ryu, but flipped through it and landed on his feet, "So whatever, it's a fighting tournament… let's fight!"

There was some kind of simplistic charm to Ryu's approach from Chun-Li's point of view. It was basic; if they were strong they would endure whatever trial was present, and if they weren't they would merely have to gain the strength to do so, "Alright then. Fight it is. If we can beat out Balrog and Sagat then I guess we won't have anything to worry about until later at least."

"A headfirst charge straight in?" Naruto said aloud as if testing the notion in his head, "Normally I'm the kind of guy that's all for that because it's easier..." He admitted a bit shamelessly, because it was kind of true, "…But the last time we did something like that involving Shadaloo, do you remember what happened?"

Of course they did. A good man ended up dead and really all for nothing, because Bison still lived and Shadaloo still existed. It was probably a good thing that Guile was off brooding by himself, so that he didn't have to hear that. It managed to bring the conversation to a grinding halt.

"_And now it's the moment you've all been waiting for fight fans! It's time for the first match of the day! Round one matchup: Cammy White vs. Blanka!"_

"Well it looks like we don't have any more time to ponder the situation." Cammy said, stretching out a bit before she started walking toward the stairs to descend, "There's a show to be put on after all." The levelheaded girl vanished from sight to enter the arena to fight.

With a frown on his face Naruto just stared at her as she left, "Kick some ass Cam." Everybody else probably felt alright with the way things were currently, but Naruto had been burned enough over the last year with that line of thinking to serve others a lifetime. If not by Shadaloo again and again then by the conflict with Akuma, and even more.

Ken plopped a hand on Naruto's shoulder to get his attention as he sighed, "Hate seeing her go but you love to watch her leave don't you kid?" He asked rhetorically with a grin on his face. Chun-Li seemed to find the interaction funny as well. Damn jerks. Just because they were older than him.

Naruto didn't even bother directly addressing that with a 'shut up', as it would only let Ken pick on him more. He just got up and walked over to the ledge along with everyone else outside so that they could watch the fight, "…I'm telling Eliza that you said that about a sixteen year old girl." Seventeen in January, but that wasn't the point, "I wonder how that'd go for you once you got home. I could actually call her now if I-."

"Oh come on Naruto I was just messing with you!"

XxX

Down in the arena, Cammy was checking over her gauntlets to make sure that they were placed tightly around her hands and forearms. She was ignoring the catcalls from some of the more amorous crowd members, but she was a bit used to it by now. She noticed that her outfit seemed to have that kind of effect on others. Even boys that knew her like Naruto and Batsu did had been caught leering at her from time to time (a lot of the time actually) when she wore her leotards.

A right many cries of alarm came from the crowd and Cammy's gaze turned in that direction to catch sight of Blanka scampering down through the audience that parted like the Red Sea for him. He flipped down into the courtyard and stood directly in front of Cammy, slightly hunched over and flexing out his hands to show Cammy his very sharp fingernails.

"Hmm…" Cammy said to herself as she slowly stepped into her own stance in preparation for Blanka's pending attack, "Well then Blanka, let's get started shall we?"

"_Cammy vs. Blanka: Fight!"_

Immediately, Blanka slid almost instantaneously across the ground, hurling the length of his body at Cammy, fully outstretched with his fists set forward to try and punch Cammy low. She was faster though and cartwheeled back out away from the attack before jumping at Blanka and trying to punch him while he was still down on the ground.

Blanka quickly recovered from his own first attack and got up to avoid her falling punch. A swipe of his sharp claws came close enough to nearly knock Cammy's cap from her head, but she managed to duck low enough to avoid getting another cut on her face that had the potential to scar her. In retaliation she posted up on one arm to throw a swinging low kick, putting her entire body into it with both legs to batter Blanka's body and follow up with an extremely hard right cross that landed stiffly and smashed him in the face.

Blood flew from Blanka's mouth and he went spinning back a short distance after taking the hit from Cammy's hard gauntleted hand, but this didn't do much to deter him. In a rage he plodded forward again, hands raised over his head to smash down on Cammy who merely hopped to the side to avoid it. She stayed close to counterattack though, but this was all according to Blanka's plan. After smashing the ground he quickly spun around in a circle with an outstretched leg and swept her feet out from underneath her.

Cammy hit the ground and started pushing herself up off of the ground, but before she could quickly get back up, Blanka began pounding on her back repeatedly with both hands in a hammer-fist motion. Each hit elicited a small cry of pain from her, but instead of giving up she turtled up to ride out the abuse and hope that Blanka got tired sooner than later.

It didn't take much more for Blanka to get sick of Cammy's defensive posture and he stopped his brutal assault in exchange for kicking her away like a soccer ball. He managed to knock her out of her curled-up state, but this was an opening that Cammy was looking for.

She might have started out sprawling all over the ground, but the nimble girl quickly regained her footing and wasted not a bit of motion as she immediately attacked the charging Blanka who had been looking to follow up on her. The second one of her feet touched the ground, Cammy pushed herself forward and spun toward Blanka like a corkscrew, leading with her feet, "Spiral Arrow!"

Due to his overexcitement, Blanka wound up taking Cammy's damaging spike of a kick straight in the chest that sent him flying away from her until his body hit the stone-bricked ground with an audible thump, right on his back.

Breathing heavily at just what it took for her to land a clean blow, Cammy blocked out the resounding cheers of the crowd and tried to figure out a gameplan for taking down Blanka. She got him with a good shot, but Blanka was far more durable than that. It would take more, "Come on… get up, you're not done yet."

On cue, Blanka backflipped right up onto his feet and swiftly sent his entire body hurling up through the air at Cammy, arcing at her with the trajectory of a cannonball, "Rolo Retroceda (Backstep Roll)!"

Cammy grit her teeth and quickly dodged as Blanka's curled-up spherical form smashed into the stone ground and pulverized parts of it. She found herself caught up in a dangerous dodging game as Blanka proceeded to bounce through the air at her, trying to crush her down again and again like a deadly super ball.

This was so annoying, but if she faltered in her elusive actions for a second the fight could be lost for her.

XxX

Up on the ledge, Chun-Li looked down on the battle with a watchful eye along with the others, "Why isn't she trying to counterattack?" She got Blanka good once before with a sudden retaliatory strike that she could tell had rung his bell.

"Cam is fast and her attacks are sharp." Naruto said as he sat on the ledge as well, trying to keep from shouting down at Cammy since she wouldn't hear him over the crowd and the play-by-play announcer on the speakers, "She's the kind of person that can hit you right in the throat in the middle of a fight, but she usually doesn't have much one-hit finishing power. She doesn't want to try something and get caught underneath Blanka for an attack that won't even stop him."

"She usually doesn't?" Ryu asked, interested in the conversation at hand. He liked the cut of Cammy's style; very acrobatic and precise. Blanka fought like a wild animal trying to survive against another wild animal, and it was appropriate for who he was. Not very pretty, but it was extremely overwhelming, "What do you mean by that?"

The memory of the fight Naruto had against Cammy when they first met passed through his head, as well as the battle they shared against Bison. She caused a bit of serious destruction in those fights, with one move too, "She has a lot of power in her, but when she lost her memory she forgot how to pull it up to charge her moves. Believe it or not she's not as dangerous as she used to be."

"Really?" Ken said, scratching his temple in befuddlement, "That cute little thing is really that bad for you to call her dangerous?"

"Okay…" Naruto deadpanned up to his fellow blonde who was standing directly behind him, "Imagine Cammy as fast as she is right now, which is actually faster than she used to be by the way, only she had enough power to crush a row full of metal locker doors with one kick too."

Chun-Li raised an eyebrow and turned her attention back to the battle. It was surprising because she had never seen Cammy do anything with that kind of force behind it, but if Naruto had she was inclined to believe him. The kid wasn't really a good liar, "And you two never figured out how to use it again?"

"It wasn't a part of her brainwashing process the way teaching her fighting style was so Cam can't remember how she did it." Naruto reasoned with a shrug. It wasn't like he never tried to help her, "This isn't ki or chakra. Apparently it's leftover from whatever Bison uses, and I don't know the first thing about pulling that stuff out."

It was fundamentally different from what Naruto was used to. Accessing it was different from getting to his chakra, both normal and from his biju, so it was more difficult than trying to help Sakura reach her own ki as children.

Either way, Cammy needed to come up with something slick, because while she could run away all day long it wasn't going to win her the fight.

XxX

Blanka was still seriously trying to hit Cammy with his rampant attack since she couldn't seem to counter it. It was only a matter of time until she made a mistake and wound up getting caught, and that didn't sit well with her at all, "Until you forget mankind's rules and fight like a beast you can't beat me!"

'Cannon Spike won't knock him off of his trajectory.' Cammy thought to herself begrudgingly. At best she'd break her damn leg and only neutralize his cannonball-like attack. Well she still had her speed to rely on, and it was her bread and butter right at that moment, 'Just one little opening, that's all.'

Cammy's dodging took her nearby some of the statues that littered the courtyard. And as Blanka once again shot overhead, rolling rapidly he bounced off of one of them, strong enough to crack the sculpture she was near.

He bounced back in the air and Cammy's eyes lit up as she timed Blanka's landing, hopping towards the area as she spun in an elegant 360 and smashed him with a powerful backfist the moment he came unwound. He was too reckless with his attack, but it came with the territory of how Blanka fought.

After being on the defensive for almost two minutes, it was finally time for her to put an end to this. Cammy quickly jumped into the air and aimed a straight-legged kick down at Blanka as his eyes opened and he got a glimpse of what was coming at him, "Cannon Strike!"

Blanka saw the blur that was Cammy jump into the air, but was unable to follow how quickly she moved to pounce upon him. Like in the jungle, when he was pressed with a predator that was quicker than him and going for the kill he had one standby move always available, "Elétrico Trovão (Electric Thunder)!"

The green man's body began generating flashing electricity that Cammy fell directly into. Her kick landed, but it didn't harm him nearly enough to matter in return for being electrocuted. The crowd winced in unison when she went down from the special technique. You didn't need to know very much about fighting to realize that getting shocked by a human taser hurt like hell. No one wanted to take a few thousand volts.

Both Cammy and Blanka slowly stood up, but Cammy seemed to be worse for wear. Somewhat beaten up, her eyes seemed glazed and her posture was stunned, as if she were on Dream Street. Smelling the proverbial blood in the water, Blanka immediately lunged at the girl to finish her off, but her body abruptly tensed and seemed to move all on its own.

The moment Blanka was about to strike her, Cammy rolled forward and flipped up his shoulers, legs around his neck to deliver a brutal headbutt directly to his face to knock him back. After landing the blow she immediately rolled down his back as he stumbled backwards and tripped him up with her body. Before he even hit the ground Cammy had turned him onto his belly and had his arm in her grasp that she quickly dislocated.

Posturing up on the arm and twisting like a gymnast when Blanka clutched for his injured limb, Cammy spun him around and quickly came back down forcefully sitting on his back with her arms wrapped around his head and neck.

"Cam stop!"

Hearing Naruto's voice above all else, the dullard look in her eyes faded and her body snapped out of autopilot just before she could do something unspeakable to someone that was a relatively good friend. She froze in place with her arms still set in place to break Blanka's neck.

'I did that?' Cammy thought to herself as she continued to hold onto the injured Brazilian, 'I've never done a move like that before… I think. Is that-? Is that more of my training?' She was admittedly very brutal in the way that she dealt with opposition, but she had enough self control to keep from doing such a thing to people that she knew. She didn't even remember initiating the attack.

"_Well it looks like we've got someone in checkmate, and it's all over! The winner of the first match; Cammy!"_

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Check-Up Day<span>

(One Month Before the Second World Warrior Tournament)

"Why am I the designated lab rat?" Naruto said aloud, and he had ample reason to. While running on a treadmill that was actually going rather fast he was plugged up to a bunch of sensors attached all over his body with only a pair of boxers hiding his modesty, not that he cared too much about that part. The part he cared about was that he was more or less in a room being viewed from outside, "I feel like I'm getting set up to go through a maze."

"Extraordinary people require extraordinary medical care Naruto-san." Karin commented through an intercom from outside where there were tons of monitors keeping track of things like Naruto's vitals, his muscle response, and other things that if she talked to him about them he'd probably zone out and try to look at her chest, "You are about to enter a very high-level tournament. The highest as a matter of fact."

Naruto glared at her lightly as he continued to run to nowhere, but he just rolled his eyes and focused back onto his 'task', "What kind of test is this? All I know is that if I stay on this stupid thing for any longer I'm gonna start rapping in English, and nobody wants to hear that."

Ignoring him for the time being, there was a bevy of doctors standing with Karin observing him. Apparently there were tons of superhuman things about him that had been picked up in other tests, "This is incredible. His heart rate is 55 beats per minute."

That didn't seem like such a big deal to Karin who merely shrugged as she continued watching Naruto run, "The normal resting heart rate for a skilled and conditioned athlete is 40 beats per minute. It is far higher than what I assumed it would be for him." That was a bit disappointing.

"Comin' straight outta Compton, crazy motherfu-!"

She then muted the feed of sound from Naruto's side when he actually did start rapping out loud. There was seriously something not screwed too tightly inside of his skull somewhere. Something got knocked loose or something. One reason for the checkup was because he had never had a single one the entire time he lived in Japan.

"No, we're not talking about his resting heart rate, we're talking about his heart rate right now… running on the treadmill."

That was different. Good lord, what kind of cardiovascular fitness was that? Did his heart really not have to work that hard to pump blood to his active body?

Oh wait. Upon looking at his legs she knew what the problem was. When she looked down, Karin noticed what the speed of the treadmill was low for Naruto's standards to force him to exert the necessary effort, "You only have the treadmill on 32 kilometers per hour. He's twice as fast as that."

Naruto ran on the streets fast enough to keep up with motor vehicles doing the 55 km/h speed limit in residential neighborhoods. Hell, she was far faster than 32 kilometers per hour herself.

The doctors looked confused. That speed was usually more than enough to quickly register stress on a normal person to run this test accurately, "…Is this boy human?" Another of the doctors asked as he saw Naruto actually yawn while running at what many normal people would consider a horrifying sprinting pace that he had been keeping up for almost ten minutes.

Karin glared at him as if he were asking the same of her as well, getting the young doctor to wither a bit underneath her glance. Anyone could do what they did… with years of dedicated training and access to supernatural energy like Naruto had, "So I am assuming that Naruto-san has a clean bill of health."

"Karin I'm bored! If we're not going to do something fun together and I have to do this can you at least make it hard so I can train?"

Omake: Counting Sheep

(Two Days Before Naruto's Departure – Aohura City – Saikyou-ryuu Dojo)

"I can't believe I didn't qualify." It had been three weeks since the qualifying round when Dan had been rubbed out by E. Honda and he was still rather bitter about the defeat, especially since Naruto, Cammy, and Blanka had all made it in and they had travelled to Tokyo with him to enter, "I mean, don't they need alternates or something just in case? I should get something out of this."

Sakura just sighed in silence as she walked through the back area of the dojo with its proprietor. She and Naruto had come there afterschool to make sure that Blanka knew that Thursday was the day that Naruto and Cammy were going to leave, making sure that he had a way to get himself to Thailand where the event was supposed to take place, "Uh huh…"

Still determined to make lemonade out of the lemons that life presented to him, Dan turned to Sakura with a fire in his eyes, "Hey… do you think I could get Uzumaki to wear this?" He asked, holding up an iron-on emblem of the dojo complete with contact information and everything, including the going rates for monthly membership and a big picture of himself giving a thumbs up, "…Or several. You know, as a favor."

"I don't think so." Sakura said, trying to let him down gently, "Naruto might think it's a conflict of business interests. He's a mercenary you know, so I think if he had to use the tournament to promote something it'd be that." Not really, but it sounded sensible enough to get him to drop the issue.

It didn't however. An evil chuckle came over Dan as they walked back toward the main room of the dojo, "He keeps his fighting gear in that backpack of his right? I'll just add it onto his clothes and put it right back. A good idea right?"

All Sakura could do in return was laugh nervously, 'Even if you managed to pull that off, if Naruto found out you did that he'd kill you in your sleep.' And upon returning to the room at the front they found Naruto sleeping on the floor right in front of the window for all passersby to see, his winter jacket covering him like a blanket, "Oh Naruto…"

"What's wrong with him?" Dan asked before he started sneaking quietly over to Naruto to try and steal his fighting clothes from his pack, "It's four in the afternoon. Why's he sleeping in a strange place instead of at school where kids are supposed to?"

"He did sleep at school. I drew on his face and took a picture." Sakura informed Dan. And why wouldn't he be? He'd been driving himself up the wall ever since he decided that he was going to wind up fighting in the tournament, even on his birthday. It was crazy, "He's been mainlining concentrated caffeine almost nonstop for two straight months. He had to crash sometime."

One-third of the sugary beverages consumed in a ten mile radius of the small shop in Naruto and Sakura's neighborhood had arguably been imbibed by Naruto for quite some time now.

"Gotta love that dedication to improve. Reminds me of myself." Dan remarked as he crept closer and grabbed Naruto's bag only to find that the blond had an iron grip on it, "Come on brat, let go."

A sleeping Naruto merely wrestled the bag back from him and positioned it under his head like a pillow, "Mah, no Cam. I don't care if you hate soups, leave my ramen alone. And don't touch my damn hat. I know it's cool… Hokage." Sakura palmed her face at hearing Naruto's mutterings.

Seething at being thwarted by a snoozing teenage runt, Dan raised a fist out of anger only for Naruto to lash out with a sudden foot that kicked him in the junk and dropped him to his knees with a squeaky yelp.

Sakura dragged Dan back away by his collar as he turtle up and sobbed quietly, "Don't do aggressive stuff while Naruto's sleeping, it's like he feels the ill intent somehow. So where's Jimmy-chan? We came here to make sure he knew about the tournament."

"Jimmy's left already." Dan said weakly, "…He wanted to hang out in Thailand's jungle for a bit before he had to go fight… crazy guy." Who the hell thought sightseeing in places meant going and seeing how dangerous the wildlife was?

But then Naruto and Sakura came there for nothing. Well wasn't that annoying?

"Right then." Sakura walked back over to Naruto and shook him awake gently, "Come on Naruto, wake up, we're going home." As she put on her coat a bleary-eyed Naruto sat up abruptly and looked around at the empty dojo before getting up to leave, "Later Hibiki-san."

Still laying on the ground clutching his jewels, Dan could only listen to the pair leave and then watch them walk past the window on the way back to their neighborhood as if he wasn't in excruciating pain, "I hate those kids…" He hoped that Blanka somehow busted Naruto's ass in the tournament.

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Fei Long  
><span>Nationality:<span> China (Hong Kong)  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 22 (Birthday: April 23)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'9/168 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> O  
><span>Likes:<span> Kung Fu, self-assertiveness.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Indifference, lacking emotion, apathy, faithless people, all things evil.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Doing his own stunts.  
><span>Rivals:<span> N/A  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Hitenryu  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Rekkaken (Blazing Fist), Shienkyaku (Flame Ignition Kick), Rekkukyaku (Air Tearing Kick), Tenshin (Divine Will).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Ryuhassai (Eight Dragon Smash), Rekkashinken (Blazing Earnest Fist), Rekkashingeki (Blazing New Style), Gekirinken (Imperial Wrath Fist).  
><span>Background:<span> Hong Kong born, Fei Long began training himself in different forms of Kung Fu from the age of six years old, showing himself to be a prodigy that eventually developed his own style as a result. While testing his training out in street fights and underground tournaments around Hong Kong he caught the attention of a movie director who quickly made him a star in a series of critically acclaimed action films. Despite being world famous, Fei Long still feels the need to assess and sharpen his skills in true underground battles instead of choreographed fights on the screen, which is the reason he decided to accept his invitation to the Second World Warrior Tournament. He is very serious about his martial arts, and is calm even in the face of potentially overwhelming enemies, though he can tend to be a little cocky when everything seems well in hand. He uses a blistering fighting style that incorporates lightning fast punches and kicks, as well as an ability to cover space in a seeming blink of an eye.

Name: Dee Jay  
><span>Nationality:<span> Jamaica  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 24 (October 31)  
><span>HeightWeight: 6'0/203 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> AB  
><span>Likes:<span> Shouting, singing, dancing, watching TV (cooking shows).  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Silence, harsh people, people who lack rhythm.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Bamboo dancing.  
><span>Rivals:<span> N/A  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Full Contact Karate/American Kickboxing  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Air Slasher, Double Rolling Sobat, Jackknife Maximum, Machine Gun Upper.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Sobat Carnival, Sobat Festival, Climax Beat.  
><span>Background:<span> Dee Jay is a good-natured, spirited championship-caliber kickboxer at the top of his division due to his rather flashy and flamboyant fighting style that takes his own musical rhythm into account. A very positive person, it is extremely difficult to anger Dee Jay or otherwise wipe the smile from his face as he enjoys most things in life, especially fighting. Dee Jay's unique penchant for rhythms got him a recording deal, making him a successful musician known the world over. He enters the Second World Warrior Tournament in an attempt to find some new rhythms inspired from the opponents he faces in combat.

Name: Thunder Hawk  
><span>Nationality:<span> Mexico  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 29 (July 21)  
><span>HeightWeight: 7'7/360 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> O  
><span>Likes:<span> Collecting skins, animals, his headband, soccer.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Professional wrestling.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Carving wood sculptures, conversation, hunting.  
><span>Rivals:<span> M. Bison  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Thunderfoot Tribe's style of martial arts.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Mexican Typhoon, Tomahawk Buster, Condor Dive, Condor Spire.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Double Typhoon, Raging Typhoon, Raging Slash.  
><span>Background:<span> T. Hawk is a Native American based in a tribe out of Mexico. When he was an infant, he and the members of his tribe were forced off of their land by Shadaloo. Many of the tribesmen warriors that resisted, including T. Hawk's father, were killed in battle by M. Bison. T. Hawk wants revenge against Bison and to regain the lands that were lost by his people to Shadaloo. After the brainwashed Doll Juli (Julia), his very close childhood friend, was returned to him after the recovery of the girls from Bison's base in Thailand by Interpol agent Chun-Li, T. Hawk endeavored to actively take his tribe's vengeance out on Shadaloo due to the damage done to her psyche and memory. After finding that the tournament was sponsored by Shadaloo he entered to look for an opportunity to do so. He is a very brave and selfless man, but comes off as rather emotionless due to the hardships his people have faced throughout his life. His fighting style is surprisingly finesse-oriented despite his overwhelming size, but when he chooses to take advantage of his power he has extremely devastating potential.

* * *

><p><strong>Well that's a complete chapter in the books.<strong>

**I'm in a _very_ pissed off mood and other than that I've not got much to say on this occasion so I'll just say that I hope you enjoyed and I'll catch you next time if you decide to read it. Catch you jerks on the flip side I guess.**

**Kenchi out.**


	32. International Challenge

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. And Abel is the lamest Street Fighter character EVER. Seriously. He sucks. There's nothing cool about him. The way to do his moves are idiot proof (who combos strikes into a grapple? That's cheap), his backstory sucks, his personality is loserly… he's just awful.

El Fuerte is almost as lame which he shouldn't be because he's a luchador, but he is. The only thing that saves him is that his moves are cool.

**Chapter 32: International Challenge**

* * *

><p>For almost ten minutes, Cammy stood over Blanka as he was getting his shoulder reset by the admittedly very fast and efficient medical staff on hand provided by the martial arts monks that had been on hand to fix up competitors after matches. Other than a few bruises and a bit of cosmetic damage she wasn't in need of any medical attention.<p>

She had been apologizing profusely for nearly killing Blanka during their fight, even after they had gone back up the stairs and she had met back up with Naruto, Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li, "I'm sorry Blanka, I don't know what I was thinking. My head was hazy, and I just registered the fact that you were attacking me." Her body just moved, and it nearly took Blanka's right arm home with her… as well as his neck.

Blanka seemed to be tired of hearing it too, as he just sat down on the ledge with his arm in a sling and scratched his wild orange hair with his good arm. All he did was really grunt in annoyance. The girl had been well meaning in her desire to apologize but at this point it was like she deemed him too weak to take a good asskicking in a fight. If anyone understood acting out of their instincts for survival it was him, so it wasn't that big of a deal to him.

"Cam he gets it, you're sorry." Naruto said, pulling her away from Blanka by the hand. It wasn't as if the wild man was mad, but constantly hearing the same thing ad nauseum would raise anyone's hackles, "You didn't mean it. At least you didn't kill him."

But she almost did. One more second and if Naruto's voice hadn't gotten through to her they'd have to start making funeral preparations for a buddy.

That much was seen by Chun-Li, who didn't want to think about something like that. She of course knew that Cammy used to be a brainwashed agent of the crime syndicate that sponsored the event, but she legitimately pitied the girl after she had lost her memory helping them take Bison out of commission and she truly did like her in the run-ins that she had with her since then.

The fact remained that she was still absurdly dangerous for the wrong reason, and now Chun-Li seemed to be finding it easier to believe Naruto's claim of just how much power Cammy had stored inside of her latently. If anyone would know about someone storing power inside of themselves, that would be the kid that would know.

"What are you thinking about?" The sudden query from Ryu standing directly behind her startled Chun-Li somewhat. The man was very quiet most of the time, "You think Cammy's state of mind is risky don't you?" He asked, "I have to admit, I'm thinking the same thing."

Every single facet of that final move she used against Blanka in the first match was meant for nothing other than the end result of a kill. The first headbutt to stun and disorient after breaking the enemy's nose and concussing them thus allowing an easier time of getting them to the ground, the second move to brutally disable any method of the victim to fight back and resist, and the final attack that thankfully never came to smoothly break then neck.

It was honestly frightening how quickly Cammy pulled such a thing off. In real-time the entire process took two seconds. The kill seemed as easy as breathing to her when she had been out of it. Such a brutal assassin beneath the surface and behind the face of such a sweet girl.

"There wasn't even a hint of bloodlust or hatred in her eyes when she did it." Ryu recanted, remembering everything that went into such a unique martial arts technique, "Did you see her eyes when the cameras caught them on-screen? It was like looking into a void."

Even so, Chun-Li had been in contact with Cammy since spring, keeping in contact with her with phone calls to find out how she was and if she needed to make a trip to Japan to clock Naruto for sucking at taking care of her since some of the responsibility of her ongoing existence rested with her as well as him. She was a friend, "I don't want to assume the worst when it comes to something like that. Look at her eyes now. She's really shaken up and remorseful for nearly killing Blanka."

"Still, you're wary."

"I know what you're saying." Chun-Li admitted, shutting her eyes and crossing her arms over her bosom in deep thought, "But Naruto's lived with her night and day for nine months. If there were a reason to be suspicious of her state of mind he'd have already run across it."

"So she'll risk killing every time she finds herself stricken on the head too harshly?" Ryu asked, honestly not knowing, "Everything she did was unconsciously done. Her waking mind may be able to reason restraint, but what if something like this happens again? Next time the voice of someone close to her might not get through in time."

Even though they were a short ways away, Naruto could still hear everything that they were saying over the dulled sound of the crowd as they waited for the next fight. And he could see from the rather guilty look on Cammy's face as she looked down toward the ground that she did as well.

"Hey." Naruto said, suddenly alerting Cammy as she sat next to him on a bench. He put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile, "Don't worry about what happened, or what anyone else might think. It's okay. I trust you alright?"

He wasn't going to let Ryu cut her down like that, even if he did mean well. Even if he did have the best of intentions behind his blunt words and only cared about how serious an incident it would be if Cammy regressed to her old Doll self, that man had to have some kind of tact. He wasn't asking anyone's feelings to be spared but have the decency to actually talk about someone to their face or at least make sure the subject of the conversation couldn't hear what you were saying.

The petite blonde girl nodded and gave him a small smile in return, "And I trust that you trust me Naruto. I don't think anyone knows who I am better than you do… myself included. So I guess I'll just have to believe in the fact that you believe in me."

Naruto's smile became a bit strained at that point, "…That was a really roundabout way of saying okay Cam, but that's fine too." Seriously, did this girl try to be a damnable mystery on purpose or what?

Bootsteps came from the nearby building where most of the other fighters were on standby for their matches and Naruto got sight of Guile on his way down to take part in his own first round battle. He spared a glance at the two of them though his gaze lingered on Cammy for a bit longer than was comfortable for the young lady.

That look in his eyes was not the look of a comrade that had fought back-to-back with her. More like someone that considered her a double agent on the wrong side. During the raid on Shadaloo's base he didn't treat her that way. He didn't treat her with anymore of a semblance of mistrust than he did Naruto.

But now it looked like he only wanted to advance to the next round to hurt her.

Guile's gaze snapped away from Cammy to the blue-clad ninja sitting next to her, more specifically to the icy glare that was being returned right back to him in exchange for how he was looking at his friend, killing intent being used liberally to get his point across. That point being to lay off of Cammy and to take his stupid blind vendetta somewhere else.

Naruto considered Guile a comrade-in-arms, but if that was how he was going to treat a close friend of his he knew whose back he had. Cammy didn't do anything wrong to him and had in fact been helping them during their first trip into Thailand.

Fortunately it blew over and the air force officer simply continued on his way, descending the stairs to fight his opponent.

No one said a word that observed the interaction, but Ryu had a very disapproving look on his face at Guile's demeanor and Chun-Li just shook her head at how he was carrying himself. Was the man really that bitter?

Cammy's hands balled into fists in her lap as she looked down toward the ground. She managed to brighten up a little bit when Naruto placed a hand over one of hers in a show of support.

XxX

Bison quietly chuckled to himself from his place in the shadows observing the tournament. He wasn't expecting fireworks in the very first fight of the day, but it was a pleasant surprise nonetheless.

So his little assassin survived the psychic backlash of killing his previous body, and she was still programmed to boot. Even if she didn't seem to realize just what she had done and what it represented, he did and that was all that mattered. There was a way to make use of that, he was certain of it.

"Welcome home Killer Bee." He said to himself as the monks finished preparing the grounds for the next matchup, "I'm looking forward to greeting you myself."

XxX

Down in the courtyard, Guile couldn't help but stare at his first round enemy tensely. Bison's number one enforcer, the strongest of Shadaloo's Grandmasters, Sagat. He was the most powerful of them even when Vega was still alive, and time had shown that he hadn't grown any weaker.

But Sagat didn't seem to care about the rage in Guile's eyes. The vendetta he had with the organization didn't matter to Sagat one way or the other. His affiliation with them was quickly waning and the only reason he hadn't quit yet was due to his entry in this tournament. One more chance to try and get a fight with Ryu by these methods. If it didn't come to pass, that would be it. He would be done with Shadaloo.

"You'll never beat me if you come into battle with the mindset you're exhibiting." Sagat told Guile, simply standing across from him and towering over him by a foot and a half with his arms calmly crossed, "If you come at me like a beast instead of like a man this won't last a minute."

The outright size discrepancy meant nothing to Guile. Sagat could have been ten feet tall and made of solid iron, as long as he was still a part of Shadaloo he'd be getting the beating of a lifetime today, "I don't need to take advice from a bonafide thug like you." He said, hands already up in his stance of choice, "You call yourself the 'God of Muay Thai'. The way you are now I'm calling you Bison's bitch."

In the world of the men that spent their entire lives training to become the strongest fighters in the Muay Thai discipline respect was everything, hence the reason why the one who was considered the strongest was given the title of 'God'.

And Guile was showing Sagat none of that respect that he had sacrificed the vast majority of his life compiling for himself. All because of his loose affiliation with Shadaloo.

"I don't take orders from that man." Sagat growled out, "First and foremost I'm a fighter that wants to fight and defeat the very best, not a criminal." He raised his arms and shifted his intended front leg into the traditional Muay Thai high stance, "If you don't understand that, I'll just have to make you understand with my fists won't I?"

There was nothing left for either man to say to the other. Sagat wanted to shut Guile's mouth and prove just who he was, and Guile just wanted to inflict pain and humiliation onto Sagat for whom he chose to make his bed with in the past.

"_Guile vs. Sagat: Fight!"_

"Sonic Boom!" The crowd roared in approval when Guile's first move was to swing both of his arms inward and fire off a high-speed spinning bolt of focused energy at Sagat who merely sidestepped it, using the bare minimum of effort needed to avoid the technique.

Sagat didn't even flinch as the technique flew past him and smashed off of one of the numerous statues in the courtyard, as things exploded and sent rubble everywhere, "You lack discipline…" He said plainly, "I thought an attack like that would have more of a rip to it." Outclassing his opponent that so openly doubted him would be the best way to prove his point that he could give; that he was still the best.

To illustrate this point he walked toward the waiting Guile with a deliberately slow gait, as if he were going to make him think about what was about to happen. The massively tall and muscular figure cut a rather imposing figure complete with his bald head covered with an eyepatch and a brutal scar across his chest.

Being so openly challenged by his opponent's body movements, Guile lashed out with another Sonic Boom only for Sagat to swiftly speed up and sidestep the move while continuing to press forward. The sudden large step took advantage of his significant length, putting him in range of Guile as he suddenly lashed out with a kick that smashed the soldier in his side and knocked him to the ground.

"Get up." Sagat demanded crossly, "If you're this driven by your anger then make something of it." Angrily, Guile did indeed get back up and chose to attack once again. Another kick went his way from Sagat's long form, but Guile was able to take the sweeping arc of another kick and roll with it to deliver a spinning backfist that smacked Sagat right on the chin.

Normally a shot that heavy would have floored any of Guile's opponents, but in his haste to cause harm to anyone having anything to do with Shadaloo at any time Guile neglected to realize that attacking in such a manner required a more patient touch due to the danger involved. Even though his punch landed solidly, he had to punch up a significant distance to hit Sagat which took something off of the power, especially since he remained grounded while throwing them.

While a painful blow, it wasn't enough to stun Sagat out of defending the following barrage of punches from Guile, which he did despite the stinging bruise on his face. Every step Guile took to move out of Sagat's ability to defend was aptly accounted for by the grizzled veteran.

Still, this was what Guile wanted. How could Sagat generate any kind of real intensity in his attacks with those long limbs if those same limbs didn't have the necessary space to swing and generate force. So even though Sagat was defending, he couldn't counter attack and blast him with those devastating kicks or crushing punches.

"I know that you think that rangy opponents have trouble when things get in this close." Sagat said as he seemed to be turtling his arms over his vitals to prevent Guile from hitting any sweet spots and injuring him, "But when it comes to Muay Thai-."

Abruptly and without any wasted motion, with the practiced ease of a move made tens of thousands of times before, Sagat instead of throwing a punch simply jutted out his elbow from his guarding position and hit Guile in the face right as he was in the middle of throwing another punch.

The sharp and bony appendage came just short of making Guile like him and putting out his eye, instead hitting him directly on the brow and splitting it open like a seam burst on a pair of pants. Blood spilled from the wound and quickly spilled down into his gaze, obscuring his vision enough so that when Sagat moved into his blind spot he was unable to defend when a pair of powerful taped fists wrapped themselves around the back of his head and pulled him into a vicious knee strike that smashed his nose into putty.

"When it comes to Muay Thai, even at short range against a tall fighter you can still be torn apart!"

Flashing stars of pain filled Guile's eyes after the knee. The only thing that kept his head from snapping back was the fact that it was being held in place by Sagat's Thai clinch. In groggy desperation he started unloading with hooks and uppercuts to Sagat's stomach and kidneys.

Even dazed and battered, Guile was still a powerful man and his punches were devastating when aimed correctly. With his arms being used to grab Guile's head, he couldn't use them to block any longer which left him somewhat open for them.

Growling irately at the attempt to fight back, Sagat kneed him in the face one more time and crouched down before exploding upward underneath Guile's chin in a leaping uppercut that took them both twelve feet into the air, "S̄eụ̄x Sxydāw (Tiger Uppercut)!"

Twisting out of his jump with a flip, Sagat landed on the ground as Guile crashed directly on his back in a heap. He walked over and stepped his bare and taped foot directly on the man's chest, taking note of his glassy eyes reflecting his unconscious state.

After a few moments where Guile's body didn't move an inch, the announcer called the fight, _"What a violent flurry from the former champion! If anyone can get up from something like that they deserve a medal for toughness folks! But it looks like that's it, so the winner by knockout: Sagat!"_

Sagat just kept staring down at his bloodily beaten foe underneath his heel with his one eye and a stern glowering expression on his face, "You fought like a fool, letting your anger guide you. I fight by driving forward with my anger, not letting my anger drive me forward the way you do. When used correctly anger can be a strength, but not the way you blindly use it." With a shake of his head he left well enough alone and walked away, "Who is whose 'bitch' again as you put it?"

Shaking hands with the people of Thailand in the crowd surrounding the stairs that reached out to try and touch the God of Muay Thai, eventually Sagat reached the top of the stairs and the garden leading to the fighter's building where Naruto, Chun-Li, Ken, Cammy, and Ryu had been waiting and watching.

As he walked past them he stopped and fixed his one-eyed gaze to scan over the lot of them, seemingly sizing them all up. His view stopped on Cammy as he seemed to look the petite girl over. He remembered being introduced to her back when she was one of Bison's dolls though he had never worked with her.

Her blue eyes didn't have the same dead, lifeless expression they had once held as she looked right back up at him with a curious and comparably vibrant tint to them. She had others around her to thank for that clearly.

But despite her status as a former 'employee' of Shadaloo, Sagat's concern wasn't with her. He simply moved his view to the object of his real attention, clad in a white gi and red headband and with a stern and serious look. Both men simply stared at each other without saying a word for seemingly the longest time. Good lord, why wasn't there a damn camera on this? You couldn't artificially manufacture tension like that.

Well apparently there was a camera on this because it appeared on the big screens and the crowd seemed to buzz over it. And after realizing that they were being watched by more than just the four people there with them, Ryu nodded to Sagat who returned it and walked off. The message was clear.

_See you in the finals_.

Wow.

That was the general consensus from Naruto, Chun-Li, and Ken. The latter exhaled deeply and clapped Ryu over the shoulder, "Well… that's all well and good bud, you can make your little dates with Sagat all you want to, but you've still got to win three matches first before the courtyard is reserved for your little rendezvous. So don't save the last dance for him just yet."

"I know that." Ryu replied with a raised eyebrow at Ken's use of verbiage, "I'm certain that he realizes it too. But it's something to look forward to isn't it?"

He wanted to see if he could truly defeat Sagat this time, without being forced to resort to the Satsui no Hadou by his will to win. It was still clear in his mind to that day even all of those years later. Sagat had indeed overcome him. He had beaten him nearly senseless and had pinned him to prevent him from moving entirely. He had been checkmated.

It was supposed to be a sporting tournament but the result of the match hadn't been called yet because as with most tournaments of that level it was too dangerous to have a standing referee down that close, and Sagat had even tried to help him up, but his own anger at being bested after training for his entire life to prove he was the strongest overcame him and he used a cheap shot of a Shoryuuken at the behest of the dark influence inside of him.

That was how he won. His head had been in a rage-filled haze at the time and he had no idea how it came across on TV until he watched it back with Ken much later. When Sagat went to help him up it merely looked like he had reversed the pinning situation to stand back up and instantly retaliate with the most powerful Shoryuuken he had ever used, charged by the horrible ki driving him, and ripped Sagat's chest wide open.

It looked like a masterful counter due to the camera shots, but it was no such thing. It went against everything he stood for.

By the time he was done reminiscing he realized that their little group was one fighter short and realized that it was time for the third match; Naruto's match. That was why he was gone. And Ryu moved to the edge to watch just what the young man had to offer.

There was still an entire tournament going on after all.

XxX

On the roof of the building that housed the fighters waiting on their matches, Sasuke had a bird's eye view of the entire bowlish setup of the courtyard. His Sharingan activated as a smirk played at his lips while watching his fellow former Konoha ninja descend the stairs into the arena.

'Let's see what you've really got dobe. Now that there's not some raving lunatic wanting to snatch our hearts out I want to see what you're really made of nowadays.' According to Yun when he tried to hold Naruto back in Tokyo, Naruto beat him in a grand total of under ten seconds with one move. As annoying as he thought the Lee twins were, they were good fighters.

Damn it Gen, he was not about to actually thank that old bastard for making him come out to that tournament even if he was admittedly having a decent time.

XxX

As he descended the stairs to the ring, Naruto had a confused look on his face as an entire camera crew was shoved in his face, and not the one working with the tournament. This was the small crew from earlier. It actually made him feel a bit self-conscious unbelievably due to how they were zooming in and out on his face. He had to throw the hood over his head just to keep his own face from turning red at the strong focus on him.

"What's your name kid?" A boom mic was being held over Naruto's head as the cameraman, soundman, and director were all walking backwards down the steps as Naruto walked forward, "Come on, tell us something about yourself so we can get some background."

"What is this supposed to be again?" Naruto asked them in return.

"It's a documentary on Fei Long's street fighting. If he's going to take time off from filming his movie to take part in this whole thing we could probably make more than a few bucks off of filming this too."

Well Naruto didn't see anything wrong with that. And there was a chance that if they actually put this out there he'd be on film in theaters for the world to see with Fei Long! That would be awesome, "The name's Naruto Uzumaki. I'm a ninja for hire, and for reference's sake I'll do stunt work too if you movie guys to hire me and fly me out to shoot some stuff."

"Why do you think you can beat Fei Long here today?"

"Because I'm awesome." Naruto said, crossing his arms over his chest and nodding sagely, "I'm not saying Fei Long's not awesome because he is, but when it comes to a battle of awesomes as close in comparison as ours are I'm always gonna squeak past."

The sound guy and the cameraman looked at each other as Naruto stepped down into the courtyard and walked past them, "…I didn't understand what the hell that last part even meant."

"Who cares? All of this was just to give Fei Long's opponent some background in the movie before he kicks his ass."

"I heard that you fuckers!"

Upon hearing Naruto's displeased shout, everyone of the filming crew immediately retreated behind Fei Long who had already been down on the field making sure he was all limbered out for the fight.

As Naruto's eyes set on Fei Long he quickly quashed the notion to begin asking the man a million questions. He wasn't there for a Q&A fan session, he was there to fight him. He wasn't going to thank Naruto for going to watch his movies and buying the DVDs, he was going to try and stove his damn brains in with his fists.

And that was exactly what Naruto was going to do to him as well.

Pulling his hood down with a serious look on his face, Naruto made sure his gloves were tight on his fists before shaking his body out and limbering up. He lowered his standing and readied himself in his stance of choice.

Fei Long observed this with an interested eyebrow, "What kind of style do you use?"

"No style." Naruto said, surprised that someone like Fei Long found the way he fought worth talking about, "Why does it matter? I'm here so that means something doesn't it?" If he had to deal with Fei Long talking crap to him about the way he fought he was going to lose it.

Instead of what Naruto predicted would happen, Fei Long smiled at him, "That's good. You favor formlessness, and that allows you to assume whatever form you need. You have no style, thus you can fit in with any style. You utilize all ways thus you are bound by none, and this lets you use any technique to serve your end."

Wait, did he just get complimented by a damn legend before they even started fighting? Just because of his own philosophy and way of thinking in regards to how he fought? The look on Naruto's face after hearing that; absolutely priceless.

With nothing left to say, Fei Long smoothly moved into his loose sideways fighting stance, bouncing readily on his toes in anticipation for the fight to begin.

"_Naruto vs. Fei Long: fight!"_

"Rekkukyaku (Air Tearing Kick)!" With a loud, shrill martial arts cry, Fei Long flung himself at Naruto like he was fired from a cannon with a flying kick. Naruto jumped back out of range of where he felt Fei Long was going to land, but Fei Long suddenly extended his jumping length by suddenly flipping forward in the air.

A surprised Naruto put his hands up to block, but Fei Long's kick smashed him over the top of his head. Immediately after his landing, Fei Long kicked Naruto in the face, snapping his head to the side before spinning around and delivering a back kick to his body.

'He's not this fast in the movies!' Naruto thought to himself, not willing to get blazed through before he could even begin to fight, but Fei Long was already at his side instead of in front of him. Naruto blocked a series of rapid-fire punches to his right side before lashing out with a side kick that Fei Long dodged by the narrowest of margins.

While stepping out of the way of the kick, Fei Long rattled off a backfist strike that Naruto caught at the wrist before rolling along the arm once and delivering an elbow to the back of Fei Long's head that sent him stumbling forward.

Fei Long turned around to face Naruto and shook his head out one time to make sure he wasn't out on his feet. That was a slick little counter. Fast too. He never expected anything like that to come from Naruto. It brought a smirk to his face despite the stinging in the back of his cranium, "Your movements flow very well, but they don't seem to make sense. Is that by design?"

Naruto just shrugged and quickly went to the hip pouch connected to his belt to hurl shuriken at Fei Long. Using the metal disks as a diversion for now, Naruto placed his fingers together and quickly formed some clones. It was a strange power that Fei Long had never seen, but whether it was a trick of the mind or real it didn't matter. If they were fake he'd find the real one. If they were real he'd just beat them all one by one.

As the movie star flew at Naruto again with another brazen kick attempt, the clones surrounded the original in a ring while he placed his hands on the ground and started to pump his chakra into the ground with the power and spin motion of the Rasengan.

"Rasenshinsen (Spiraling Tremor)!"

The ground began to shake somewhat due to the action. In a circle around his body, Naruto twisted and gnarled up the brick on the ground before it mangled enough to fracture upward and rocket his clones into the air. Fei Long's kick hit the torn up rocks that Naruto forced upward, making him have to flip off and back. Upon doing so he looked up in time to eat an onslaught of physical attacks from the clones.

One after another they fell from the sky, each one landing a punch or a kick as they fell and dispelling right afterward to get out of the way for the next one. Once they were all gone, Naruto smashed through his own rock barrier with an orb of spinning blue energy in his hand.

Even after taking several punches and kicks to the head, it was impossible to miss what was in Naruto's right hand. But there wasn't enough time to dodge, thus he threw a high crane kick the moment Naruto's arm outstretched to drive it into him. The foot pegged him right on the underside of his arm and swung it up into the air. The look of shock on Naruto's face wasn't that he countered the Rasengan attempt, because it had happened before.

It was that he had been countered in a way that left him so wide open.

Shuffling forward, Fei Long nailed Naruto in the face with three rolling punches in rapid succession with the third one actually flattening Naruto and knocking him to the ground, "Rekkaken (Blazing Fist)!" He backed off and shook himself out after landing such a clean combination, "Whoo! Ha!"

"Ah…" Naruto said as he started sitting up and backing up on the ground, taking a knee as he held his face, that was leaking from cuts on his cheek and between the eyes, "How did you do that?" He knew women that weren't that flexible. If Karin or Sakura had tried to do that to him while wearing their skirts they probably would have knocked him out from the bloodloss through his nose alone.

"Don't just work on your arms and legs like normal." Fei Long advised, wagging a chiding finger, "When you're talking about what we do; talking about fighting as it is, with no rules… well then baby, you'd better train every part of your body!"

Naruto stood back up with an extra shine in his eyes after hearing that, "You are awesome!"

XxX

Up above the courtyard in the waiting area, Chun-Li palmed her face while Ken let out a few barks of laugher while running a hand through his hair. Ryu just looked at it all oddly before addressing Cammy, "So I'm guessing that Naruto-san is a big fan of Fei Long."

That was putting it a bit mildly.

Cammy just shook her head and explained, "He can reenact the entire 'Cage of Death' movie word-for-word and action-for-action from start to finish." She knew, because she'd seen him try it before. He actually got pretty far too, "He used clones as stand-ins for the parts, but they eventually all started fighting over who had to play what part."

"That's fairly odd." Ryu said in return.

Ken shook his head as he understood. If he could make copies of himself that could transform like Naruto could he'd reenact some action movies too, "Says the man that walks barefoot from country to country all over the world."

Even someone like Chun-Li who thought that the vast majority of things that Ryu did were worth emulating and looking up to thought that was really, really messed up, "That's very gross. And you walk everywhere like that? That's seriously dangerous. I understand Blanka, but you too?" She tried to avert her gaze from his feet, but like a magnet was attracting them her eyes kept being dragged down.

"…I don't like shoes." Ryu muttered, now wishing that his gi pants were longer due to somewhat feeling self-conscious.

XxX

Back in the courtyard Naruto and Fei Long faced off again, this time a bit more expectant on what they would get from the other.

Once again, Naruto served to buffer and cover his own movements with the creation of three clones that made a quick set of hand-seals before acting in unison, "Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!" The lot of them fired the energy projectiles from their mouths directly at Fei Long.

Dragging his foot across the ground, Fei Long turned and threw a spin kick with his foot ignited in flame. The kick connected with the spitfires and exploded, and Naruto's clones pounced, storming the smoke cloud that had been created by this.

"Shienkyaku (Flame Ignition Kick)!" From the smoke cloud once the clones began to storm it a spinning Fei-Long rose into the air, feet engulfed in flames as he kicked and dispelled the copies in fire.

The sudden attack elicited gasps and impressed cheers from the crowd as the fiery display. And it was quite the sight to see. A masterful technique and his body control to pull it off was front and center for all to see.

So focused on how Fei Long dispatched the clones everyone was, they didn't notice the blue streak flying through the air until his knees were pressed on Fei Long's shoulders, holding tightly around the man's neck and holding him in place as they both fell to the ground, "Chiruochiba Osu (Falling Leaf Press)!" From the air they crashed with Naruto's knees directing full pressure for the fall at Fei Long's neck, upper back, and shoulders.

The stunning move got Fei Long to cough heavily until he found that Naruto had him pinned with a kunai to his neck and a Rasengan aimed at his head in the other. He stared up into Naruto's eyes and found that the youngster was not scared of the situation that he was in, that he was perfectly willing to go through with what their current predicament dictated he would have to if it came to it.

While Naruto's last move could have broken his neck, it didn't. He softened up on it in order to give him the opportunity to surrender. In all honesty he'd seen that blue ball blow straight through rock. He didn't want to find out what it would do to his head.

Fei Long merely smirked as Naruto's knife pressed against his neck. At first Naruto thought that the man figured he was bluffing until he spoke up, "It looks like I'm too rusty. That's it. I lose. You've beaten me kid."

A look of astonishment appeared on Naruto's face, "You're giving up?"

"You've got me. I can't try to counter either of your arms without getting hit by what's in the other." Fei Long explained, still having to deal with the strange look on his opponent's visage, "It's not some great crime to fail and admit defeat. Sometimes in great attempts failure can be glorious."

"_And in a major first round upset it seems that Naruto Uzumaki has subdued one of our four tournament legends in Fei Long! Naruto advances to the quarterfinals!"_

As Naruto got off of him and helped him up from the ground, Fei Long actually started laughing, "Ah, I can't believe I lost, especially this early. But I have to admit, I'm looking forward to seeing what you're capable of next time." He put a hand on Naruto's shoulder and gave it a few pats as he walked past him, "Don't ever let anyone tell you the right way to fight. Doing your own thing and being happy with it is what's most important."

The stunned film crew that had been viewing the entire thing noticed that Fei Long was leaving the courtyard and preparing to leave the temple. They spared Naruto a glare for ruining their documentary side project before hurrying after him. That snapped Naruto out of the trance that being complimented by a damn world famous movie star had put him under, "Wait, you're leaving? Aren't you going to watch the rest of the tournament?"

"I took time off from filming my next movie for this." Fei Long admitted, pointing over his shoulder at the trailing film crew as he continued to walk away, "As much as I want to stay here and see the rest of it I've really got to get back to production. But I'll still be watching, so I want to see something impressive out of you."

With a grin, Naruto nodded and lifted his fist toward Fei Long in response, "You've got it. Watch me win this whole thing. Count on it." Despite the applause that the crowd was giving Fei Long for showing up and fighting for real in front of them, he still heard Naruto's words as he left the temple grounds.

Naruto just continued to look after him until he was startled by Chun-Li's hand being placed on his shoulder, "That last move you used to beat Fei Long, I've never seen you do it before." Her eyes seemed to shine at the excitement of having to prospectively deal with new things from him, "It looks like I wasn't alone in trying to improve since the last time we've met."

Her fight was next, and if she won she would find herself facing off against Naruto in the next round per the way that the brackets were arranged. He had seemingly overlooked that fact until that point when it had been brought to his attention.

"Heh, if you're really that impressed with that scrawny brat you're really gonna be blown away by me sweetheart. But then again like I said we don't have to fight, we can just go have some fun."

Their attention was directed to the hulking black form of Balrog who was already on the field as well, punching his red boxing gloves together with a smug grin on his face. The way his eyes scanned Chun-Li's body made the woman's skin crawl.

Naruto just stared at Balrog blankly while Chun-Li quietly fumed at the pig of a man. Naruto's next words would erase her bad mood thoroughly though, "Hey yeah, I remember you now. Didn't Batsu knock you out in Tokyo last year?"

Balrog's grin immediately turned to an almost sick look on his face as he was reminded that he had been beaten by a then sixteen year old kid that he'd been dominating until the very end. That loss had been the low point of his entire career, but at least no one outside of Japan had actually seen it.

But now he had to deal with the sight and sound of Chun-Li laughing at him into her own fist. She knew Naruto's friend Batsu, and while he was tough for a kid to defeat a former world champion it had to be a blow to Balrog's ego.

"That stupid kid punched me in the balls!"

"So what? There weren't any rules. Protect your junk or wear a cup."

"I was wearing a cup! He broke it!"

The laughing went silent as both Naruto and Chun-Li looked at each other before the humor came back two-fold, as both of them chose to laugh at that point. Getting it from both the pretty little lady and the stupid kid with the fruity whisker tattoos further angered Balrog as it seemed like they needed to balance against one another just to keep standing up.

"This is…" Chun-Li tried to say amid her giggles before failing to do so, "This isn't good for me before a fight. I need to focus and you're making me laugh. Go up to the garden and wait Naruto, I need to get my head on straight." She said, doubled over and holding her knees as Naruto consented and walked away, still cackling.

"Yeah, get out of here kid." Balrog echoed, eyes fixed on Naruto's retreating form, "I'll be dealing with you next anyway, so get your laughs in while you can." His attention then went back to Chun-Li after hearing a sharp notice-grabbing whistle, "What?"

Gone was the good-natured giggly young woman from before. Now stood a completely serious and grave martial artist, and her sights were set firmly on Balrog.

Adjusting the spiked bracelets on her wrists, she walked out into the open and didn't seem bothered by how much bigger than her Balrog seemed to be. At least twice her size in both height and weight, "So where's Bison?" She asked coolly, "He obviously wanted all of us here to get payback on us somehow, but I'm not seeing it yet."

"You want to know why the bossman wanted you here?" Balrog said, smirking down at Chun-Li who he figured was acting tough, "Well step one of what he wants is for me and Sagat to waste the lot of you and beat you to a pulp." That already happened with Guile, as Sagat had readjusted his entire nose on his face in that fight, "Step two isn't my problem. All I get paid for is to beat people up!"

To illustrate this he didn't even wait for the announcer to introduce the fight before he launched a lightning quick jab at Chun-Li that she swayed her head out of the way of. The surprised look on her face at the sudden attack had to switch to one of focus as she then had to lean her head out of the way of an uppercut from Balrog's attempted combo. She could feel the wind rip from that attack.

This really was a dangerous boxer. If she had been hit with that last move she probably still would have been up in the air from it.

Suddenly she found herself in a situation of having to dodge a series of punches that made Balrog's arms look like red tipped blurs. Head and body shots alike flew at her, forcing her to utilize her high body dexterity to keep from any of them landing.

"You're flexible." Balrog remarked as he watched Chun-Li constantly bend out of the way of his hits, "We could find some use for that that doesn't involve me beating your brains in you know."

"I'll pass!" Seeing a window to act, Chun-Li stepped forward with her right leg and moved it behind Balrog's while using her arms to throw him back violently in a sudden trip. Had he not heard her speak prior to it happening, Balrog wouldn't have even known that she was the reason that he was on his back staring up at the sky, "Sorry. You're really not my type. Hazanshu (Supreme Mountain Kick)!"

Balrog saw her flying above him, flipping and twisting in the air as she prepared to smash one of her powerful legs into the ground and against him in an ax kick. He instantly jumped back up to his feet and jumped directly into the air, scoring a hit on Chun-Li by slamming the top of his head into her body, "Buffalo Head!" After knocking her up into the air with a strong headbutt he tracked her landing area before she could right herself and rushed toward it like a tank before unloading with a powerful right handed punch, "Dash Straight!"

Chun-Li hadn't even gotten time to flip through the attack. She could see now how Balrog had managed to kill a boxer in the ring with nothing more than a headbutt if that was what he had going for it. But only falling into perhaps the hardest punch she had taken from any human being in her entire life didn't help things much either as she was shot across much of the field.

Her body smashed clear through a statue, breaking it and forcing it to crumble on top of her where she landed. She couldn't stay down though. That luxury wasn't present for her or else she'd have lost. Her dress had a few rips and tears in it and was absolutely filthy, and after only one fight too.

As she got up she could hear Balrog's annoying chuckles and dusted herself off as best she could before turning to face him, hands held out in a more open Tai Chi stance instead of her usual posture, 'Blocking him isn't going to do any good unless I want to get ragdolled. I don't have nearly enough strength for that.'

"So you're still up?" Balrog said before rumbling directly in her direction again with his fist cocked to fire another ultra-destructive punch, "Let's change that shall we?" Another attempt at a devastating Dash Straight only ended with Chun-Li leaning out of the way of the punch. She even ducked underneath the cheap little elbow shot he tried when he found her head at the outside of his punching arm, "You're lucky you're a chick!"

He then ate those words when he took an air draining double palm strike directly to the stomach that doubled him over, and that wasn't even accounting for the small, wispy energy ball that flew out from her hands and punched him back even further, "Kikoken (Spirit Energy Strike)! And what about me being a woman?"

It was a projectile, but that didn't mean she couldn't dredge it up in close to add some much needed pop to her palm strike. While her legs were uber-powerful, her upper body strength left much to be desired.

Balrog took a few steps back but kept his arms up in a boxer-reminiscent guard as the young Interpol agent started repeatedly kicking at him with one leg that was uncountable to the naked eye. He needed to put an end to it because the left arm that she seemed to keep kicking was going numb from the repeated strikes. While focusing his guard efforts with his aforementioned left arm, he crouched and swung his right arm low to try and sweep her leg.

It worked, but Chun-Li merely used a back handspring to remain upright before retaliating with a kick to the still lowered Balrog's face. Was that a tooth she knocked out on contact? Nice. What wasn't so nice was that now she had blood on her white boots.

Balrog's head snapped around before he turned back to her with a hateful glare, "Girl, it's not even about the money anymore! The next punch I land is snapping your neck like a twig!" And attempting to make good on his threat he rushed at her again.

Chun-Li simply jumped over him and trotted off his head before landing behind him and flipping forward to avoid a turning punch that Balrog moved to throw the moment the bottom of her foot touched his head, "That's big talk, but landing another punch just isn't going to happen."

Balrog let out a yell and turned his body halfway around before dashing at Chun-Li faster than she'd seen him move until that point, "Die! Gigaton Blow!"

She had moved herself close to a wall and Balrog had figured that she was nearly cornered. His strongest attack would be the only suitable thing for a bitch like this, and he threw it with reckless abandon. The power of the punch was so much that it destroyed the high wall sitting underneath one of the stands for the audience and causing a mass panic as it was turned into a wrecked mass of pebbles and stone.

Smoke and dust concealed the entire scene, making many worry and wonder about what happened until they heard Chun-Li's voice cry out, "Senretsukyaku (Thousand Rending Kicks)!" The sound of a solid thud landed that sent Balrog stumbling out of the debris, staggering aimlessly. He was quickly followed by Chun-Li who began kicking at him rapidly in the same manner she had done so earlier, only it was on her opposite leg and at a far faster rate.

Just the sound of her leg moving was evocative of a buzzsaw whirring, and the resulting damage that the kicks dealt backed that right up. Her leg wasn't even visible any longer as Balrog's head was ping-ponged back and forth between each kick, looking like a vibrating molecule as he kept being driven back by Chun-Li who was slowly moving forward due to her kick's own momentum.

With a sudden stomp of her foot on the ground to end her attack she turned to walk away before Balrog even fell to the ground. He dropped to his knees, face bloody and swollen as if he had been stung by a hundred bees and had an allergic reaction. A quiet moan came from him before he fell facedown and didn't get back up.

The moment she heard him fall out a smirk plastered itself on her face and she stopped walking for long enough to raise her index and middle fingers into the air and shout, "All men bow before me! I'm the strongest woman in the world!"

XxX

While the crowd cheered, Naruto stood watching with fresh bandages on his face and a dry expression as well, "Someone's humble aren't they?" He commented offhandedly, "You know, that whole 'Strongest Woman in the World' thing is really subjective."

"You mean like being the 'Best Ninja in the World' the way you say?" Ken commented with a grin, flicking Naruto on the ear.

"Okay, fine. Name every other ninja that you know." Naruto stated flatly, fixing Ken with a look of expectancy and only getting one of stumped alarm in return, "Don't worry I'll wait." Even Ryu and Cammy seemed to be interested in hearing what the red-clad fighter would come up with in return.

He thought that he had several examples ready and on the tip of his tongue, but each time backed off after realizing that he had nothing, "Yeah, I don't have anything here."

"I met a ninja named Guy once in the past." Ryu said, trying to add something to the conversation only to get a shake of the head from Naruto, "No? What does that mean?"

"I already beat him." The most shit-eating grin humanly possible was emblazoned on Naruto's face as he just kept proving his own point, "So if you can't bring up a ninja that can beat me that means that I'm still the best until it actually happens! Boom! Hey!" Naruto cried out when Chun-Li pulled his headband down over his eyes, "Could you have gotten beaten up anymore in that round without losing?"

"Yes, I could have. Now shut up Naruto." Tiredly walking past everyone else, Chun-Li sat down on the bench next to Cammy and looked up at the sky with a dull look on her face, "I'll be fine by the next round for sure but for now I just want to sit down." Her leg was tired from kicking so hard for her final attack. It was actually numb. Damn Balrog and his cast iron head.

Ryu looked from his friends to his right hand and formed a tight fist with a look of intent on his face, "I can't wait until it's finally my turn to fight." He was definitely looking forward to the challenge. He wouldn't like anything more than to prove his skills against an opponent that would push him to his limits, "I hope my opponent doesn't hold anything back. What about you Ken?" He got no answer from his best friend and turned around to see what he was doing, "Ken?"

Both Ken and Naruto were both staring like a pair of deer in the headlights as Cammy kneeled between Chun-Li's legs, massaging her very shapely thighs and focusing on the one that was knotted up and tight, "Huh? What do you want man?" He asked, not really paying attention.

"…Nothing." Ryu said, eye twitching at his best friend outright ogling their female compatriots, "Nothing at all." He was telling Eliza when he got the chance.

Chun-Li seemed to be infinitely more relaxed with Cammy's delicate hands rooting out the forced tension in her legs, "Mm, this was a good idea Naruto, thanks. I didn't know Cammy could do things like this."

"Yeah neither did I Naruto." Ken's eyes didn't turn away from, elbowing Naruto lightly in the side as if to congratulate or thank the boy, "Good idea." God there was something wrong with them. And they just didn't care.

"Cam's talented." Naruto remarked before pointing and angling his body as if he were trying to see something before he got hit in the head with a white boot thrown by Chun-Li, "Ow! What? You said it was helping!" Both he and Ken turned and ran away in different directions when her other boot went flying at them as well.

"You're both deviants!" Chun-Li shouted after them as Naruto ran into the garden house and Ken ran down the stairs to avoid any potential angry female retaliation. His fight was next anyway so he'd have to go down there eventually. He might as well do it now and keep Chun-Li from breaking his arms.

Of course from how she was continuing to compliment Cammy on a massage well done it didn't seem like she was too keen on getting up to pursue either of them anyway.

XxX

(Elsewhere at the Martial Arts Temple)

"You wanted to see me?" Sagat said, standing by the door in Bison's personal office while the man in question was sitting in the dark. His solid white eyes were clearly visible even though the rest of him was in shadow. The grin on his face was clear to see as well, "I want to watch the rest of the fights for the first round."

He wanted to see how much Ryu had grown since their last meeting. This was an interesting crowd of fighters this time around. He was intrigued to say the least.

"This will only take a second of your time." Bison assured him, hands interlacing fingers and elbows sitting on the armrest of his chair, "My lovely Killer Bee has returned to me. She's wandered back to the hive as it were. And it comes to my attention that she's clear to the next round to face you."

"I'll be careful." Sagat said with a roll of his eye, "I know better than to underestimate the strongest of your Dolls, I'll win and punish either the Naruto child or the Chun-Li woman in the semifinals." He didn't care about any of this. The only reason he was even involved in all of this was for one reason that he'd spoken on loud and long. Were it not for that sole reason for being there he'd never have gotten involved.

But his desire for a rematch overrode everything else without fail.

All Bison did was chuckle, much to Sagat's confusion, "No, no I don't have any concerns with your ability to handle Killer Bee even at her strongest. No, I want you to do me a favor in your fight with her. Either determine that she still has use to me, or kill her."

Kill her? Sagat raised his only visible eyebrow in response, "I don't think she even knows who you are. I highly doubt that she'll take orders now, so are you just telling me that I'm to kill her outright?" Slaughter a young girl that would have no idea why it was happening? That was far too much, "She doesn't remember you. She has no idea about what she used to do or used to be. There's no need to kill her."

Any pretense of good humor dropped from Bison's tone and the room filled with a crushing killing intent. There was no grin on his face any longer, and his body was fully visible in the sick purple outline of his Psycho Power, "Oh but there is. Killer Bee is my property. I made her everything that she was and everything that she is. All of her skills, all of her power… that was **me.** And I will not allow my own commodity to aimlessly exist."

Sagat's face didn't show it as he had barely flinched at all much to his credit, but the instinct inside of him told him that directly in front of him was a devilish power that he couldn't comprehend, "Why don't you just ask me to kill her then and be done with it?"

"Because I don't want you to kill her." Bison said as the pressure in the room dropped back down to serviceable levels, "Killing her is merely a last resort. In her first bout against the beast-man, it became clear to me that she has retained all of her skills from her time amongst my Dolls, even if she isn't consciously aware of some of them. That means that my conditioning is still present inside of her. I want you to trigger a failsafe to her programming to reactivate her. All it will take is a simple command."

"A command." Sagat repeated with a frown on his face, "That's all? I just have to say one thing to her?"

"One thing and she'll be as obedient as she was before the unfortunate incident that broke her from my control."

"Why didn't you use it during the attack on your base back in the spring?"

"I found the Dolls obsolete and wished to dispose of them for their vulnerability. Killing them and indulging in the pain of their newfound emotions in a struggle would have only served to boost my Psycho Power, thus I fought to harm her instead of simply resetting her. But now I believe that having Killer Bee back with us would be beneficial. I am looking for a third Grandmaster due to Vega's death during the spring incident and her fighting prowess can be utilized in that manner once more."

"How fickle."

"Usefulness to those around you is fickle Sagat." Bison said in a frigidly cold tone, "You had best remember that. All you have to say to her is _Shadow Law Zero: Killer Bee_, and that will be that. If it works we will leave it at that."

Sagat nodded hesitantly, still mulling everything over in his mind. So he was either to take a young girl's freedom away from her or end her life on the spot. All for a chance to battle against Ryu once more? Was it really worth it to do so?

Years ago, and even months ago he wouldn't have hesitated to say yes. But he had seen what Bison was willing to do in order to acquiesce with his request, brainwashing Ryu himself and 'improving' his powers just to give Sagat the challenge that he so desperately desired.

He had seen the light in Cammy's eyes. It was… beautiful. He didn't realize what a beautiful thing it was until he thought back to the way all of the Dolls used to look. Nothing in their eyes. You wouldn't know if they were alive or dead unless you felt their hearts beat.

And now he was being told to take that light away from her one way or another, either by taking her freedom once more or taking her life.

All he could do was turn and try to exit underneath the doorway only for Bison's voice to stop him again, "Sagat…" He turned around only to see Bison's serious look once more, "I'll give you this warning only once because you're a smart man. But don't fuck me. Don't you ever fuck me. Do the mission. The final round is a long way away and Ryu hasn't even fought his first match yet. There are any number of things that I can do to prevent you from meeting him in your intended duel."

Sagat tensed up with his fists shaking at his side. The scar on his chest began to glow red as he gnashed his teeth, "Who do you think you are?"

"I know exactly who I am, and so do you." Bison said darkly, "You knew what this was when you agreed to join me. You swore that you would never defy my will as long as I gave you what you wanted. I've done this for you twice, given you _exactly_ what you asked for. I am only asking you for one thing. Return my property to me, or if it cannot be retrieved as desired destroy it. You may not care about your life, so killing you will do no good."

"But what will you do when the name of Sagat becomes synonymous with drug cartels all over Thailand? National hero no longer. And all it would take is my word. Do you know how many of these groups I have under my command?"

"You can't!"

"I can."

"I'll kill you!"

Before Sagat could even turn around, Bison began to cackle loudly as he levitated from his seat, seemingly relishing the challenge, "You say you get your power from anger? You know nothing of anger and hatred! Compared to me, you're just a newborn babe, just discovering what anger and hatred is all about!"

Sagat stood firmly in the face of the force in front of him, even as the walls began to quake and the door behind him began to crack from the force within.

"Without the Psycho Drive you may believe that my powers have diminished when compared to yours but do I seem weaker to you? I would find it amusing for you to try and test that theory against me! Fight me and I will take the source of your power and turn it against you! I'll leave you alive and ruin you!"

The glow of Sagat's scar faded and he felt as if his soul was being drained through his mouth. After the feeling faded, Bison slowly lowered himself back into his seat, grinning once more underneath his cap, fingers interlaced once again in a casual manner.

"…However this can all be avoided and all of this could be for nothing. All it takes is one girl. Is that really asking for so much? You, who have killed challengers in the ring for less important matters, beaten them to death in your rage?"

Sagat continued to walk out of the room, touching at the scar on his chest as he left. And Bison's words rang out in his head like a bell in a chuchtower.

"_All it takes is one girl."_

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Fighter Interviews (Cammy)<span>

(Taped Before the Opening Introduction Ceremony)

_You seem a bit… frazzled I guess. There's no need for that. We just want to ask you a few questions so that the viewers at home can get to know you a bit. Is that okay?_

"I guess so. Let's get this over with then. I don't think I like this very much."

_Alright, well could you tell us your name and where you're from?_

"My name is Cammy White. And where I'm from? I have no idea to be quite honest with you. It could be anyone's guess, and people stopped trying to figure it out a long time ago, myself included."

_Your accent would indicate that you're British if anyone cared to point that out._

"I've heard that before, but I have no way of proving or disproving it. I have no memory of things that occurred before eight months ago you see."

_*clears throat* Ahem… well okay. Tell us how you feel about the tournament. Any thoughts on the experience, or what you hope to get out of fighting here?_

"There are far too many people around. I don't like how they're all watching me, and when I think about even more people seeing me I feel a bit… naked I should say. I understand that this entire tournament is supposed to be on television all over the world. Does that include this part as well?"

_Yes. It's supposed to air in the downtime between the first round fights before your own particular one is supposed to go on._

"…I see."

_Well you probably shouldn't think about that right now then. So what do you like? I'm sure a lot of the men out there would like to know the way to the heart of Miss Cammy._

"I like cats. They really put me at ease. I have a kitten at home named Agent Jack Bauer, and no I didn't name him. My friend did and it just stuck. I'm not very excited when I fight others. I do so as a means to an end, but I do like watching other people fight, especially skilled fighters. I have a knack for analyzing it. I can usually determine what kind of person you are from how you fight. Naruto says it's weird."

_Naruto? Isn't he another competitor in this tournament?_

"Yes! He's actually very strong, and he's my closest friend. I lost my memory not too long ago, and he was the first person that I saw when I awoke, and he's always been very supportive of me. He went through a lot of trouble to help me even though we apparently weren't too friendly before I suffered my amnesia. Apparently I tried to kill him before. I couldn't imagine though."

_Okay? Moving on from there… now is there anything you want to get in particular out of your participation in this tournament?_

"Nothing really. It's just that a very close friend of mine, Naruto, is competing in it, and he tends to get into a lot of trouble, so I decided to try and put all of my training to some use and accompany him. I don't want much from this tournament honestly. Winning wouldn't mean anything to me, but I certainly don't plan on going out there to lose."

_What if you fight your friend?_

"Guess I'll punch."

_Heh, that's cute. You're such a tiny girl though. What makes you believe you can win against some of the best fighters in the world. Several competitors are well over three times your size."_

"All the size and muscle in the world doesn't mean a thing if you can't hit what you're aiming at. I can almost assure you I'm the most difficult target any of these other fighters will ever find themselves facing. And I don't need much to win. Just a single opening. I think I can create that much of an opportunity for myself, don't you?"

_Anything you want to say to the world or anyone in particular?_

"Ah, no that's okay. I'm fine thank you."

Fighter Interviews (Blanka)

_Would you please move back from the camera sir? You don't have to sit down, but you're fogging up the lens, these are very expensive. Thank you, now could you introduce yourself to the audience? Your name and where you're from._

"Blanka, and I'm from Brazil! The jungle! But I live with Dan right now in Japan… it's not as great as the jungle, but it's still a pretty nice place!"

_That sounds hard._

"Oh, the jungle's not that bad if you survive long enough to get used to it. I was there ever since I was little. I got separated from my mama when our plane crashed, and I ended up living in the jungle by myself ever since. It's hard, but it made me strong."

_What are your thoughts on the tournament? Are you excited to be here?_

"Yeah, definitely! Thailand's jungle is nice! I don't like the tigers though. They're way bigger than the cats I had to deal with in Brazil. Don't tell Cammy I had to beat up tigers… she'd probably get really mad at me. She likes cats."

_I think she'd understand. So I'm sure you probably get this a lot, and sorry if it's personal, but what's with the green skin?_

"Oh. It's the green stuff in plants that makes them green. When I was little I needed to learn how to hide better so that less things tried to hunt me, so I started mashing up plants into mush and smearing it on my body to blend in. I went a lot of times without taking baths since all the rivers aren't really safe, so it started turning my skin greener and greener until I looked like this."

_That's weird._

"Really? I thought it was a good idea, and it worked."

_So what makes you think you can win in this tournament?_

"I've fought some people since I left the jungle, some really good people too, but they all just don't have any instinct. Even when you say that there aren't any rules in a street fight they always go by the little rules that they keep in their heads. It's a weakness. As long as my opponents keep fighting and adhering to the rules of humans I'll always have the advantage!"

_Anything you want to say to the world or anyone in particular?_

"Hey, whoever's in charge of cutting down the jungle could you stop it? It's really annoying."

Fighter Interviews (Guile)

_Introduce yourself to the audience. Give everyone at home some insight on who you are. Your name and where you're from please._

"Guile. A major in the United States Air Force. And my hometown? A little place called None-of-your-goddamn-business… next question."

_Alright, whatever you say. How do you like the tournament so far?_

"It's getting in my way. I might feel better about it later after I beat someone's ass that I'm looking for, but until then I have to say that the whole thing absolutely sucks. It's just one big ego trip for someone, and I hope that the someone I'm talking about is watching and gets offended. I want him to do something about it. This time it won't be two blonde brats that beat him and leave him for dead. Apparently that's a man's job."

_You're a really angry man Guile._

"We can't all be sunshine and lollipops. This ain't no ice cream social."

_Ice cream social? What the f-? Ugh, nevermind, you already said you wanted to beat someone, so I'm assuming that's why you're here. What makes you think you can get the job done?_

"Because he's a coward hiding in the shadows behind his henchmen and money. He's a criminal, a shyster, an arch-bastard of the highest order, and a murderer. If he chooses to fight me like a real man we'll see just how strong he is, but until then I stand by what I say and I will until my death."

_A little extreme don't you think?_

"The only way this person is going to prove me wrong is in battle. And on the battlefield you don't get second chances. If I can't beat him I'm fully expecting him to kill me… the way I should have died back then."

_Well is there anything you want to say to anyone watching?_

"Yeah, Bison if you're watching somewhere close by and I know you are, I hope you're smirking and laughing at all of this. I can promise you that by the time this is all over you won't find anything very funny ever again."

Fighter Interviews (Sagat)

…_Wow. I'm interviewing Sagat. He never does interviews._

"Aren't you going to ask me any questions? Like my name? That's why I'm here. Or am I just supposed to sit here and stare at your cameras?"

_But everybody knows who you are Sagat... err, sir. You're the hero of the entire country. The most powerful Muay Thai fighter that has ever lived._

"Humor me then would you? I could be preparing for today's matches instead of wasting my time here. If I'm supposed to be introducing myself I could at least actually introduce myself."

_You're the boss sir. What do you think of the tournament?_

"I think there's too much spectacle behind it. Fighting tournaments of this magnitude are supposed to be purely about the combat, not about the pomp and advertisement, but it can't be helped I guess. I promoted the first one myself and kept it as small as I could given the circumstances. I only wanted the very best in the world, and I painstakingly scoured the globe for the best fighters that this planet had to offer."

_You don't think the fighters here are equal to the ones that fought in the First World Warrior Tournament?_

"I think they're better. Far better. I've been impressed with more than a few of them that I've seen or heard of in person in the past. It's exciting."

_Then what's the problem sir?_

"Do you have any idea how much chaff we had to cut aside to get to the wheat? We have sixteen fighters here. Take a wild guess at just how many hopefuls there were that needed to be weeded out before we managed to thin the number down this far? It was pathetic to watch. There was a reason I selected the fighters in the first tournament myself, to avoid that entire farce of a situation. You could say I have an eye for talent."

_Good one sir._

"Shut up."

_Yes sir. So why do you think you can win this tournament? Stupid question I know, but-._

"No, it's okay. I _want_ people to know why I'm going to win. I'm going to win this tournament because every day for the last four years I've been thinking about my defeat in the previous one. I swore to myself that I would defeat the only man that I've found worthy and capable of defeating me in a true live-or-die battle. I won't lose until I face Ryu in this tournament. I live for fighting and proving that I am the best, and I can't rest until I've proved that I can beat him."

_Is there anything you want to say to anyone that may be watching this?_

"Yes, to Ryu you had better bring all of your power when it comes time for us to do battle. And to everyone in this tournament not named Ryu, you would be better off surrendering if you wind up facing me. I won't suffer weaklings lightly."

Fighter Interviews (Fei Long)

_I'm pretty sure everyone and their grandmother knows who you are, but for the sake of the segment could you introduce yourself?_

"Fei Long. I hail from city of Hong Kong where I was born and formed developed my skills as a fighter as a young man. I'm more than an actor. Before I ever became an actor I fought the best martial artists that China had to offer. Powerful men and women of many different styles. Those were the best of times. Very difficult, but very fun and every victory and defeat made me the man I am today."

_What do you think of the tournament?_

"I find the entire prospect very exciting. Five years ago I had just started focusing on my movie career more than my fighting career so I can understand why I wasn't invited to the First World Warrior Tournament. To be considered a legend by the promoter of this tournament, enough so to be specially invited here, it's a great honor. I'm looking forward to the challenge."

_Why does a famous actor like yourself want to take part in something like this? Isn't it a bit dangerous?_

"While many of the stuntmen in my movies are rather skilled martial artists they aren't much for sparring against me. They would rather save their bodies for the fight scenes and don't want to risk getting hurt. It's very boring. I've had to visit underground fighting clubs periodically just to keep my skills sharp. I find street fights inspiring. Making movies is my art, but fighting is my muse. There's nothing in the world like a good fight to get your heart pumping faster. It's pure adrenaline."

_So if you've been keeping your eye on the fighting scene, who in particular do you wish to fight?_

"Sagat, Ryu, Ken Masters, I've had some meetings with Chun-Li as she's a prominent Interpol officer from Hong Kong as well and she's an extraordinary woman, absolutely incredible. There are former champions of their respective arts like Balrog here… I can't pick just one there are so many people that I can test myself against."

_What makes you think you can win this tournament?_

"Because I am completely determined. The worst opponent you can come across is one whose aim has become an obsession. For instance, if a man has decided that he is going to bite off your nose no matter what happens to him in the process, the chances are he will succeed in doing it. He may be severely beaten up, too, but that will not stop him from carrying out his objective. That is the real fighter."

_Anything you want to say to the people watching?_

"There's nothing more I can say that my Hitenryu style won't say for me when it comes time for me to fight. Don't blink everyone, you might miss something!"

Fighter Interviews (Naruto)

_Well you look like a lively one. So for the benefit of those at home right now could you tell us your name and hometown? Just some basic background stuff._

"Sure thing. My name's Naruto Uzumaki, seventeen years old. I'm from Aohura City in Chugoku region of Japan. And I'm the best ninja on the face of the damn planet! What?"

_What kind of ninja tells people where he lives?_

"The kind of ninja that wants people to hire him. I'm a one-man operation here. I don't have a clan to set this kind of crap up for me, I've got to do it myself. I don't have the luxury of not letting people know where I live. How else would I ever get anyone to hire me?"

_People actually hire you?_

"All the time. I get business from all over Japan. I'm kind of a big deal."

_But you're so young. They hire you for what exactly?_

"You know… ninja-ey stuff. In actuality I'll hear out anything that anyone wants me to do, and if it's reasonable enough I'll send them an estimate of how much it should be. I can guarantee you I've got the most competitive ninja prices you'll find anywhere. If you can find lower prices for the same kind of work I'll either match them or call bullshit and hang up on you."

_Nice. So what are your thoughts on the tournament? What do you think of the whole thing?_

"I think that whoever let them host it here at this temple is gonna find out that it was a really bad idea, because this place is pretty and it's going to get crazy around here really quick. I don't know about the whole temple, but that courtyard definitely ain't making it through fifteen fights, I promise."

_Why do you say that?_

"I've met a lot of the people that are here before one way or another, and I don't think anyone here is fully sane. Everyone here needs psychological evaluation. Every. Single. Person."

_Even you?_

"_Especially_ me, dattebayo."

_So if you've met some of the people here, who in particular are you looking forward to meeting up with again?_

"Well I came here from Japan with Cammy and E. Honda since we all qualified together. I know them, they're really good friends of mine. Cammy actually stays in my town. Guile is a friend too, but he's being a moody jerk right now. So are Chun-Li and Ken Masters. I owe Ken an asswhooping for back when he set me on fire, and I kind of want to fight Chun-Li again just so I can get a good look at her legs again. Have you seen those things? Sweet Kami."

_Yes… yes I have. And I agree. Hey why'd your face change all of a sudden? What's wrong?_

"…This is going to be seen by other people isn't it?"

_Yes again._

"…Goddamn it. Eh, I'll apologize later."

_To who?_

"To Chun-Li… and other people. Long story."

_Is there anyone in the tournament that you don't like? Someone you'd rather not have to deal with or see at all?_

"Sasuke-teme. Fuck that guy. We've known each other since we were kids and I owe him a beatdown ten years in the making. Have you ever tried to one-up someone for ten years and never done it once? Do you have any idea how frustrating that is, to come up short every single day? It's absolutely terrible. If I died and went to hell I think my eternal punishment would be to give me the power of a God and have me fight Sasuke for my freedom, just to never find a way to get it done."

_Wow… that's pretty intense. Well is there anyone else?_

"*sigh* Well since we're being honest and I've dug myself enough of a grave already I might as well go for broke and just spit it out since we're here and you asked. I've fought alongside him and fought against him… but I just don't like Ryu. I'm sorry. He's not a bad guy at all, and he's never done anything to me. I couldn't even tell you why I don't."

_The champion of the last tournament? The man that beat Sagat and took his place as the best fighter in the world? That Ryu? You don't like him?_

"Like I said he's a good person. I should like him, but I don't. My best friend idolizes him and I've never seen a reason why. I've got friends that swear by the guy and think he's incredible like Sakura-chan. Chun-Li does it too… and I don't see why. And it's not even anything he's done, it's everyone else. I know he's strong. Really strong, but-. I mean I don't hate him or anything at all… ah, I just don't know."

_No, no, you've said enough. So what makes you think you can win this tournament?_

"I can win because I'm awesome. Because I won't get tired like the rest of these jerks. I'm sorry man, but I've got magic-, no I've got poetry in my fingertips. Most of the time, and this includes naps, I'm an F-18 bro. And I will destroy you in the air. I will deploy my ordinance to the ground."

_Is there anything you want to say to anyone that might be watching right now?_

"Um, yeah. Don't bitch me out because I have an opinion. The people that I'm talking to know right now who I'm talking to, and I'm probably still gonna hear it from them once this airs. The only people that are close to me that I'm not going to hear it from are the people I was actually talking about. Ryu and Sasuke never care about what I say."

Fighter Interviews (Chun-Li)

_I don't mean to be presumptuous, but could I ask you to introduce yourself to the people watching that don't know you. I'm sure they'd like to know a little something about such a beautiful lady._

"Oh, well thank you, that's sweet. Let's see. My name is Chun-Li, twenty years old from Hong Kong, and I'm an agent of Interpol."

_Wow. A law enforcement officer. That sounds tough._

"It can be, but I can take care of myself. Trust me, pulling a gun on me doesn't even bother me anymore. I don't even carry a firearm when I'm working. No need for it. It's not that I'm a bad shot because I actually compete in competitions in my spare time for fun, I just don't like using them on people. I'd rather arrest perps than kill them, and I can do that easier with my fighting skills instead of just shooting first."

_Do you… carry handcuffs?_

"…I can break your arms right now. That'll pretty much do the same thing smart guy."

_Ehehe, that's not necessary. You really are a strong one aren't you? Is that what makes you think you can win this tournament?_

"Heh, well I certainly didn't come all the way here just to lose. That's not what I'm about. I'm the 'Strongest Woman in the World' and if you don't believe me I'll prove it today to anyone I wind up facing! If anyone has a problem with a woman being in this competition they can feel free to say it to my fist."

_Or to your legs I'd surmise._

"Or to my legs especially. And damn fine legs they are."

_Indeed… *damn it that Naruto kid was right*_

"Huh? What about Naruto?"

_Nothing. So why are you in this tournament to begin with?_

"Oh I received an invitation to try and qualify… and when I found out who the sponsor of the event was I just couldn't refuse. You couldn't have kept me away from this thing."

_You know the promoter?_

"Yeah, we're old acquaintances, we go way back. You could say that we have a rather _explosive _relationship haha. But it's not my place to talk about such a thing really. Any other questions?"

_Just a few. First off, do you have a boyfriend?_

"Nope."

_Do you want one?_

"Not really."

_Are you sure?_

"…"

_Okay, moving on to the last question. Is there anything you want to say to anyone that might be watching right now?_

"I don't have any time for amateurs, so if you're not sure you're up to fighting with me you should just sit down and quit. It'll save you an asskicking."

Fighter Intervies (Balrog)

"Did you just say I'm not getting paid for filming this crap? What the fuck, where's the boss? I've got to talk about this!"

_Uh, ah could you introduce yourself to the viewers that might not know you sir?_

"What idiot watching this doesn't know who I am? But fine. To chumps and sexy ladies all over the planet, this is Balrog: the undefeated world heavyweight champion! You got that pencil-neck? I never lost that goddamn strap! I was stripped of the belt for killing that wimp in the ring. If he couldn't take the heat he needed to get out of the uh… the place that was hot!"

_What about the several other fighters that you crippled during your reign as well?_

"Hehehe… what about them?"

_Moving on then. What do you hope to get out of being involved in this tournament?_

"I ain't here for any other reason than to make some cash. I'm here to get paid you see, and cracking a few skulls while I'm here just puts the icing on that cake. I don't give a damn about the prestige of being the best, leave that for the broke losers doing katas at some dusty monastery somewhere trying to unlock the 'truth of the fight' or some lame bullshit like that. The only reason to fight is for your own benefit. Balrog is here to break some necks and cash some checks. That's all."

_So you don't care about winning the whole thing?_

"Pssht. The only three things that I'm about are knocking chumps out, getting laid, and getting paid. And not in that order either."

_Is there anyone here you're looking forward to fighting?_

"I want to fight whoever gets me the most money from beating the crap out of them."

_Okay, anything you want to tell anyone listening and watching right now?_

"Yeah, anyone I end up fighting in this tournament should listen up. If you pay me enough money I might tone down the beating I give you just a touch. I'm a kind man like that. A month in intensive care is better than a lifetime in a wheelchair isn't it? Hahahaha!"

* * *

><p><strong>Hey everybody. Kenchi here, and I hope you enjoyed. That's half of the first round in the books, and the next chapter should finish them and begin the quarterfinals. Why can't anyone ever host a tournament that doesn't result in schemes and tragedies abound? <strong>

**Whatever happened to a good, clean sporting contest? Where's the sportsmanship?**

**Anyway, that's all I've got for you this time around. Until the next installment, Kenchi out.**


	33. The Devil You Know

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. Damn you Capcom! Do you have any idea how much raw time off of my life I've wasted between playing Street Fighter, Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, Mega Man games of multiple titles, the Onimusha series (I'm almost done, don't worry), hell you even got me with the first Viewtiful Joe you bastards.

**Chapter 33: The Devil You Know**

* * *

><p>Running from Chun-Li aside, Naruto had other reasons to go into the building set aside for the fighters to wait for their matches. He exchanged nods with E. Honda who was busy preparing himself and got shoulder bumped by Zangief walking past him to go and fight his own match.<p>

Let that one slide… you already beat him once and clearly he was still sore from it.

Either way, the reason he went inside was to find someone that had already fought. Fought and lost. In the place set aside as a medic bay, Naruto found Guile sitting on a bed watching the tournament play out on a TV screen. His eyes were swollen and his face was bandaged in many places, especially over his nose.

Somehow his hair managed to stay in place perfectly though. What the hell? You could drop a boulder on top of it and it'd probably snap right back to the same position. It looked so cool too. Maybe if he asked Guile he'd show him how to-.

No, not the time. Maybe later.

Guile noticed Naruto when he came walking toward him and spared him a look before turning his attention back to the TV, "Kid." He greeted sharply, "You need something?"

"No." Naruto said, taking a seat on another bed right next to Guile's, "You're not that beaten up. Why don't you come outside and watch the matches with me, Ryu, Chun-Li, Ken, and Cammy?" He flinched when he saw Guile's eyes harden at the mention of Cammy, "She's not bad Guile, but we're your friends. Come on man, it's just a tournament." A tournament that was a trap, but that wasn't the trap portion of it.

"I didn't come here for any other reason than to break some Shadaloo necks, and I got bounced out before I even started!" Guile punched the wall next to his bed and broke it, "What kind of man am I?"

"Enough!" Naruto finally said, almost snarling at Guile's attitude, "This isn't you! You were one of the coolest guys I've ever met in my life! You flew all the way around the world to the absolute middle of nowhere to help your friend take down a whole empire when we first met! You were all about family and friends! What happened to that guy? Does that son of a bitch still breathe?"

Guile's hand lashed out and grabbed Naruto by the collar, pulling them close together, "I made a promise! I gave my word to so many people that I wouldn't let any harm come to Charlie and I couldn't back that up! Do you know how seriously I take that?" He gave Naruto a strong shake, "Do you?"

And Naruto didn't respond, because he finally realized it. He understood what Guile's deal was. It was similar to the way that Naruto felt about returning Sasuke to Konoha all those years ago. He felt so strongly about it back then that he was fully willing to destroy himself to get it done. The only thing that kept him from obsessing over it the same way that Guile was now with his own situation was due to the fact that Naruto had an even bigger situation to deal with after failing to keep his own promise.

He had something new and more important to take his mind off of it. Namely figuring out where he was and what happened to him. Guile had no such thing, and he had to deal with something worse, such as dealing with his friend's death. And once again, Batsu's own words from the recent past came to mind over Naruto's own seeming obsession with keeping every single promise he made, even if things outside of his control kept him from doing so.

What would he have ended up like if he hadn't been forced out of keeping his promise to Konoha's Sakura? If he indeed found a way back and saw her again, would he still be willing to drag Sasuke back now, now when he seemed to be… almost happy? What if Sasuke had gotten to Orochimaru and been used as his new body? What if their battle had resulted in Sasuke's actual death? It was certainly intense enough.

Any number of things could have resulted in the avenue of that guarantee to be closed off forever, and would have resulted in the death of his closest comrade at the time. Even if it was out of his control, something like that probably would have torn his life apart and for more than one reason.

"I'm sorry." Naruto said, not taking the slightest bit of offense to Guile's hold on him, "I understand where you're coming from, and I know that I have no idea how you feel. How you've felt." He slowly reached his hands up and removed Guile's grip carefully, "I can't tell you what you need to do when I don't know what I'd do in your shoes."

Naruto didn't know that Guile had made a promise, had given his word. He had figured that it had all just been an unfortunate circumstance.

If he had made a promise to keep someone safe, and then had to watch and be carried away as that person sacrificed themselves to save him instead, there's a very good chance he'd have been worse off than Guile was. Imagining _his _best friend in the position of Charlie made him feel rage in his heart, and that was just hypothetical thinking.

Getting up and leaving the room, Naruto stopped at the door and spared Guile one last glance before leaving, "I'm not going to tell you to get over it anymore. I can't do that when I've never had to deal with what you have. Just know that we're only telling you this stuff because we care about you. That's all I'm gonna say."

The hard eyes of Guile followed Naruto until he disappeared from the room, at which point he turned his attention back to the screen where Ken was currently in battle with Zangief, _"Your foolish attacks are too weak to hurt me!"_ He heard Zangief shout despite the distance from the active camera. There wasn't a mike around to pick up the on-field banter either so it was extra impressive.

Despite the battle on the screen involving his brother-in-law, he couldn't find himself very absorbed in what was going on. He was more occupied by the conversation he had just had.

"I don't know how kid." He said to no one in particular before getting sick of just sitting there. He needed to take a walk and get some fresh air, "Maybe when I come up with the answer I can get everything back to normal? I expected to get some closure here, but I lost so quickly…"

His mindset was holding him back in more ways than one. And he didn't know what to do about it. How could he even think of taking revenge to satiate his anger when the anger itself didn't even allow him to fight at his best the way that he needed to?

XxX

(On the Battlefield)

"_Ken seems to be handling the mammoth Russian wrestler despite his strength and durability! This is incredible! What a match!"_

"I am _not_ letting you grab me!" Ken shouted, slipping underneath Zangief's grasp through his legs, "Let's g-!" His shout and his attempted counterattack wound up being cut off by a spinning dropkick from Zangief that floored him.

Zangief instantly followed up by jumping in the air and landing on Ken in a full body splash, "Your muscles are too puny to contend with me!" Zangief said as he picked Ken up, arms wrapped around him as he squeezed a bearhug tightly, "Surrender or I'll crush you!"

"Not a chance… comrade." Ken strained to say, legs kicking aimlessly as he was robbed of air and his ribs were steadily being crushed, 'Come on, break free! There's always a way out!' He cocked his head back and smashed his forehead against Zangief's face two times, only getting a smirk out of the colossal Russian as he squeezed tighter.

Ken's mouth was twisted open as his body continued to lose air, and Zangief buried his head into the man's chest in order to crush him even worse. Ken's head lowered as his face turned blue and he latched his teeth around Zangief's ear, biting like a Rottweiler.

Zangief started screaming out in pain, eventually letting Ken go. The rush of air into his lungs forced Ken to let out a gasp and let go of his dogged method of escape. Zangief stumbled around holding onto his bloody, mangled appendage, cursing Ken before turning back toward him with murder in his eyes, "You!"

He charged Ken down and prepared to grab onto him one last time to put the blonde martial artist down for good, until he got a very unwelcome gift, "Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" A surprise ki blast from Ken hit him right in the torso and burned his chest hair clean off, "This is gonna hurt!"

Ken started unleashing a vicious barrage of spinning hurricane kicks so intense that fire trailed from his legs due to his ki usage. The kicks rattled off of Zangief's frame, pushing the large man back across the courtyard with ease before he was sent directly up into the air. Ken landed in a small spin and started to time the flaming Zangief's descent, "One more for good measure! Guren Senpukyaku (Crimson Lotus Whirlwind Kick)!"

The final kick sent Zangief and the fire that consumed him flying into the steps where he smashed a hole into them with his body. Buckets of water from the temple attendants were hurled onto the man and the flames were put out in a hurry as the crowd tried to move away from the blaze as quickly as they could.

"_I don't know how to make any victory any more complete than setting your opponent on fire! It's over, and the winner that advances to the quarterfinals is Ken Masters!"_

As the people started to chant 'Masters' for the victor, Ken smugly raised one hand above his head to soak in the cheers and walked past Zangief up the stairs as he was being treated on the spot. While he walked away he heard the semi-lucid and badly burned Zangief mumble about how fireballs sucked.

Walking up to the waiting area he passed Ryu and raised a hand, getting a high five from his best friend as if they were tagging out, "You'd better not lose after I went through all of that trouble to make sure we'd meet in the next round bud." Ken said.

"I don't intend to lose. Not to E. Honda and not to you." Ryu replied turning around and actually having a rather challenging smirk on his face, "But you do remember which one of us won the last time we fought don't you?"

"Bah, that was a different day." Ken dismissed Ryu's point, throwing both of his hands up behind his head lazily, "Just make sure you don't have Sagat on the brain or that sumo'll smush you like a grape."

"You don't have to worry about me." Smirk now gone, Ryu pulled his red headband tight around his forehead and continued down onto the battlefield to meet his first challenge of the day.

Stepping into the courtyard, the entire crowd began to come alive and applaud raucously, many of them bowing in a fanning motion to Ryu as people began banging on the stands as if they were drum kits in a rhythmic manner.

"_Alright everyone, make some noise! Our last of the four legendary invites of the tournament is certainly not the least! Here to defend his title as the best fighter in the world, as the champion of the World Warrior Tournament, let me introduce the man that won the first event four years ago! Ryu!"_

The fanfare was much appreciated, but it wasn't necessary. The humble warrior simply nodded and momentarily raised a hand to acknowledge the crowd and show respect for their high opinion of him.

"Well ain't we popular?" E. Honda said with a chuckle as he entered next, throwing salt all about in his path as he walked closer to Ryu to speak to his fellow countryman, "These people love you brother. You sure you don't own a summer home here or something?"

Not getting the joke, Ryu just tilted his head in confusion, "…I don't have a home anywhere. I wander the world and train. I have no need for a home." The deadpan look on E. Honda's face tipped him off as to the intent since he had seen the same look on Ken, Chun-Li, and Naruto's faces several times in the last four hours alone, "Oh, you were kidding. Sorry."

Ever the good-natured sport, E. Honda just laughed and gave Ryu a pat on the shoulder, "Don't worry about it. After this fight is over with, I'll have these people chanting my name as if I were the hometown hero."

Knowing a challenge when he heard one, even if he wasn't much for jokes, Ryu's face turned into one of an accepting challenger, "Of course. But first you must defeat my Shoryuuken to have a chance." He jumped back slightly and started shuffling his legs out to illustrate that he was ready, "Let's begin." Both men bowed to each other and the crowd roared.

E. Honda set himself in the ceremonial stance of the sumo and clapped his hands together before squatting down and placing his fists onto the ground, eyes locked right on target dead ahead. All on Ryu.

"_Champion Ryu vs. E. Honda: fight!"_

Ryu set himself in his special fighting stance and neither man moved, both of them seemingly trying to check the other over and wait for the first move, 'I don't believe I've ever fought a sumo before.' He wondered to himself what exactly a sumo would do in a street fight that would hurt him.

He didn't have to wait for long to find out, because E. Honda figured that if Ryu wasn't going to come to him he was going to go to him. Pushing himself forward off of his fists he pulled up bricks with the strength of his push and rocketed forward like a missile, "Sumo Gyorai (Sumo Headbutt)!"

A wide eyed Ryu had to jump to the side to avoid taking 300 plus pounds of sumo straight to the ribs as that was where E. Honda had been aiming. The large sumo showed incredible agility for his size, rolling on the ground out of his attack and taking his stance back again, glaring Ryu down once more.

That was a dangerous technique. Ryu had to admit that he had not been expecting that in the least. A small smile came to his face at the thought. He was really going to enjoy fighting this man.

XxX

On the beautifully tiled roof of the garden house, Sasuke had to hide the twitch of his eye when he felt someone land up there and sit next to him, "Who's winning Sasuke-teme?" Damn you Naruto. He thought that he'd be left alone if he went out of his way to stay away from people.

In all honesty Naruto had been busy looking for Dhalsim after visiting Guile in the medic bay. Since he had a free moment after advancing in the tournament and he had already seen everyone in his half of the tournament advance there was no reason not to search for him, especially since he needed something from him. But the problem in that lay that no one knew where Dhalsim even was.

It was maddening to think about. Seriously, how could anyone miss a guy that looked like Dhalsim? What kind of a sick joke was that? Thus when he noticed Sasuke's position he decided to stop off and see him instead.

"It just started." Sasuke told him, keeping his red eyes on the battlefield in case he missed something useful, "Now could you quiet down? I may have to fight the winner of this match down the line and I'd like to get their patterns and habits down so that I don't get surprised." He noticed that Naruto had gone silent and spared a momentary glance to the side to pick up Naruto glowering at him, "What's your problem?"

"You memorized everyone's attack pattern?" Is that what he had been doing up there the entire time? It figured, "Alright… how many moves did you copy? Probably like a thousand of them right?"

Sasuke scoffed and flipped his bangs out of his face, "It doesn't work like that idiot. I can't just copy everyone's special moves and do them on the spot. No one uses hand-seals but you, and if they use ki I can't do those techniques. The best taijutsu takes actual training and practice to learn how to use. I can't just do Chun-Li's kicks, I'm not conditioned to fight like that."

That wasn't to say that it was like that for everything, or that he couldn't take someone else's move and flip it into a little something original though. But hopefully Naruto would either overlook or forget that fact.

"If you stole my jutsu that I spent years coming up with…"

"Don't flatter yourself. I wouldn't be caught dead using your jutsu. I can do the same thing with actual fire you blockhead." With that thought Sasuke blinked and turned Naruto's way only to see the formerly accusative blond looking away from him. As a matter of fact, Naruto's spitfire move looked just like one of Sasuke's fire attacks without the fire, replacing it with pure chakra, "Wait a minute, you stole _my_ jutsu? You motherf-."

"I didn't steal your jutsu." Naruto defended in an affronted manner, "I just used the idea of the shape manipulation of it for inspiration. I still had to break it down from scratch and make it work all on my own. Do you know how long it took me to find the right combination of original hand-seals for my own jutsu that actually worked?" He still had three completely full composition notebooks full of bunk combinations at home.

Still, Sasuke was now pouting in his own way, which meant he was going silent and ignoring Naruto's existence again.

Wow, how long had it been since they'd done that?

"So how does it feel when the shoe's basically on the other foot for once?"

"Shut up and spend another few years trying to come up with a jutsu you loser."

"…I hate you."

"I hate you more dobe."

Yep, just like the old days.

XxX

E. Honda watched Ryu place his hands together in position to fire a Hadoken and his eyes shifted. He dodged the attack by ducking behind a statue, and while Ryu waited for him to come out, the sound of hands pounding away on rock filled his ears. Moments later the large statue that E. Honda had hidden behind fell over in his direction like a tree.

Ryu jumped and rolled to the side to avoid the move only to find E. Honda charging right at him until he got back up from the ground. E. Honda stopped himself short and quickly started throwing one both arms in a furious series of palm strikes, faster than the eye could rightly keep up with and count, "Hyaku no te Binta (Hundred Hand Slap)!"

Much to the approving cheers of the crowd at the fast paced action, Ryu was able to force his head and upper body to move out of the way of the attacks just as quickly as his large enemy was throwing them. All of a sudden the strikes stopped and Ryu was hit when E. Honda spun around backside and struck out in a single palm thrust that hit him right in the chest.

Letting out a cry of pain, Ryu leaned up while holding the area where he was struck. There was a large red handprint on his muscular chest underneath his gi as if he had been sunburned in that one spot alone. There wasn't any time to fret over that, as E. Honda lifted one large leg in the air in a combat-adjusted sumo stomp that he rolled out of the way of.

It was a good thing too, because the brick underneath his leg shattered into dust. That just as easily could have been him. To show this fact off, a slightly chuckling E. Honda held up one hand with the index finger and thumb held slightly apart as if to indicate that it was that close to being finished.

Ryu nodded and harshly patted himself on the cheeks before setting himself to fight once more, "Again." He said, ready to continue. And E. Honda did not disappoint. Rocketing himself at Ryu with another sumo headbutt, he was smart enough to stop and roll out of it knowing that Ryu had already seen it and would dodge with less room for error this time. After rolling out of his attack, E. Honda quickly started shooting angled open-handed slaps at Ryu, trying to hit him flush in the face with one.

The wandering warrior used his arms to parry each attempt from E. Honda to clean his skull out with his open hands before quickly dropping down to sweep his legs out from beneath him. The large sumo found himself off of his feet all of a sudden when Ryu suddenly popped back up from his spin and slammed a downward elbow into his torso, dropping him hard to the ground flat on his back.

With such a crushing strike E. Honda still got back up from the ground, but he had one arm pasted to his side, cringing at a thick purple bruise on the right side of his bare chest. His ribs. He wanted to believe that they were just bruised, but in his head he knew better. If that were really the case it wouldn't feel like he was being stabbed every time he tried to move his right arm away from holding his chest.

He looked down at the ground with a grim smile on his face. If he was going to go out he was going to go out on his shield. Even in defeat he could make his fighting art look strong. One more attack. He set himself down in a sumo starting stance one more time, using one fist planted on the ground instead of two.

"This train's about to run you down brother." E. Honda said, readying himself for launch, "You might want to get yourself off of the tracks because this one's a shinkansen. Kyuukyoku no Satsujin Zutsuki (Ultimate Killer Headbutt)!" This time he threw himself forward with the force of a cannonball, digging foot deep trench into the ground as he jumped ahead.

Ryu was prepared for the motion this time, and realized that E. Honda wanted one honorable clash to save face as a fighter. With the injury that Ryu had inflicted on him he'd have been at a severe disadvantage and his performance would have suffered for it. He was willing to grant him what he wanted.

Because he knew what to do to stop it.

'Find your spot and don't miss.' Ryu said to himself with a breath right before E. Honda came flying at him. His timing needed to be absolutely flawless or his show of sportsmanship would be his downfall in the very first round. Tightening his fists he amazingly landed a showstopping uppercut underneath E. Honda's chin that stopped his finishing attempt. But that wasn't all, lifting his head up with his fist, Ryu switched it up and delivered a powerful leaping uppercut, arm charged with blue ki and being boosted beneath his feet by the same, "Shin Shoryuuken (True Rising Dragon Fist)!"

One hit to disorient and the other one to finish. It was a simple enough principle for combination techniques, the basis of many of them, but putting such a thing into practice while countering a dangerous attack where one mistake could mean the end was something else altogether.

This was the champion, and he didn't make mistakes.

The rising fist of Ryu planted under E. Honda's chin carried them both over fifteen feet into the air before Ryu's jump topped out and his opponent drifted off of his knuckles and floated slightly before both of them came back down to earth… one more gracefully than the other to say the least.

With a pair of thumps, E. Honda hit the ground and came to a stop unconscious on the brick.

"You've just experienced the Shin Shoryuuken." Ryu said as he shook out the fist he had used for the finishing blow of his powerful technique, "When you wake up I want to know if you've ever felt any greater force." This time victory was his.

"_Advancing to the next round to meet Ken Masters next, it's the defending champion: Ryu!"_

Sparing a moment to bow to E. Honda's unconscious body as the medical staff of the temple rushed to him to make sure that he was alright, Ryu made to return back to the waiting area and reflect on his performance and what he could do better next time, "One step closer…" He said to himself quietly, "One step closer to proving to myself that I'm a true fighter."

Something that he needed to prove to himself after the way that the first tournament ended.

XxX

"So that's Ryu." Sasuke said, still placed up on the roof with Naruto and now Cammy who had eventually gone looking for her friend and had found him. All three of them had watched the conclusion of the battle together, "Doesn't he have similar techniques to that Sakura girl?"

From his cross-legged seat next to Cammy who was swinging her legs over the edge of the roof, Naruto nodded, "Yeah, he's the person that she admires most. She's based her fighting style off of his, but she does a lot of the techniques differently since he won't train her himself. So what do you think?"

Sasuke didn't answer at first, just standing up with a bit of a smirk on his face, "Oh, I was just thinking about possibly beating the hell out of him should he advance in his next match." After all, he was in Sasuke's particular bracket of matches, "Nothing big."

Never one to let obvious things slide when faced with them, Cammy turned inquisitively to the dark and confident teen, "But you yourself still have to win your first fight and another one before you even get to start thinking about that."

"Exactly." Was the simple answer from Sasuke who said nothing more to elaborate.

That lack of elaboration got the twin braided former assassin to raise an eyebrow at his lack of elucidation, "'Exactly' what?"

"All I have to do is win twice. You say it as if I could possibly lose."

Cammy just stared up at the standing Sasuke who was looking down at her with an unblinking gaze, even though it clearly wasn't a stareoff due to Cammy blinking at appropriate intervals.

With a shake of his head, Naruto just sighed, getting Cammy to turn away before that dragged on for too much longer. With the two of them it could have potentially lasted all day, "Cam, meet Sasuke-teme. Sasuke-teme, meet Cammy." He said as if they had never been formally introduced before, "He's just like that all the time."

"You mean like how you're always abundantly confident that you can do anything that you endeavor to attempt?"

"Well yeah it's _kind of _similar, but at least I'm charming about it."

"Charm is all a matter of perspective Naruto."

"You don't think I'm charming?"

"I didn't say that."

"…Wait, you think he's charming? Damn it not you too."

"Definitely not. I almost tried to kill him when I heard he had hurt you before, remember?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes and dropped down from the roof, landing on the ground and brushing his clothes off. He wasn't about to get stuck listening to those two debate each other. He had his own things to do, such as kick his opponent's ass.

"Hey mon!"

Oh, Kami no. Damn it he set himself up for running into that one.

The ever-grinning Dee Jay came walking out of the garden building that Sasuke had just jumped off of and gave him a few pats on the shoulder, "What's with that look mon? You're not excited about our fight? I can't wait to see what you've got!"

Sasuke caught his hand in his grasp and tightened it to an uncomfortable level as he glared at Dee Jay, shifting his black eyes to his red Sharingan ones for added intimidation effect, "Then maybe you should get down there and leave me alone."

Dee Jay just stared at Sasuke, grin never dropping as Sasuke let his hand go. Dee Jay pointed at Sasuke with the index fingers on both hands as if he had imaginary pistols and he was shooting them at the irritable Uchiha, "Right, right! Gotta get the crowd all pumped up and ready to go right? Yeah, I catch your drift, good idea mon! I like you!"

As the musical kickboxer whistled a jaunty tune and basically danced away and down the stairs, Sasuke let out a groan that he had been holding in as he smoothed his hair up off of his forehead. Oh, he might have just found the next most annoying person on the planet to him.

Maybe even more annoying than…

Suddenly turning his head toward the roof where Naruto was still sitting with Cammy, deeply engrossed on a conversation about personal charm and the merits of each person's traits with Cammy actually listening to him and adding her own input. Dumbass.

Sasuke idly wondered if he'd have rather grown up with someone like Dee Jay constantly assuming they were on good terms or someone like Naruto who was constantly a thorn in his side.

Talk about picking your poison. Jeez.

In the end, of the two evils Sasuke selected to go towards the one that he could actually beat the living daylights out of then and there and headed down the stairs to enter the arena. He had no one's attention, just the way he liked it, and it was due to Dee Jay apparently giving an impromptu musical performance for the crowd that had them fired up just like he said he was going to do.

Maracas shaking to his own beat, Dee Jay's body danced while lyrics to one of his songs came from his mouth, at least until he turned around and saw Sasuke standing there stoically, seemingly waiting for the noise to stop so that they could fight.

Dee Jay tossed his maracas aside and thumbed at his nose before the Caribbean superstar put his hands up in his Americanized stance. Realizing that ha-ha time was over, Sasuke slowly removed his hands from the sleeves of his long Chinese-styled shirt and stepped into a Crane-style Kung Fu stance, "Are the show tunes over? Can we finally skip the song and dance and get to the fighting?"

"_The seventh match is Dee Jay vs. Sasuke: fight!"_

"Come on now, don't be that way!" Dee Jay said, still grinning even though the fight had officially begun, "It's alright if you've got no rhythm. I'll make sure I teach you a little something before this match is over!"

Sasuke watched as the first thing to move happened to be Dee Jay's feet. The man's legs began to shift as if he were taking choreographed dance steps in his mere. What a unique way to move. Had it not been for the Sharingan, Sasuke wouldn't have noticed that he was beginning to move his way.

Faking a step forward, Dee Jay then hopped in Sasuke's direction and switched feet for a strong forward kick that Sasuke dodged and immediately retaliated to with a strong punch to the head. Sasuke's fist made contact with nothing but the braids going down the back of Dee Jay's mohawk as he made it out of the way of the punch, letting out an audible 'whoo' at dodging the hit.

Dee Jay tried a sliding tackle with his legs at Sasuke's feet, but Sasuke used a front handspring to flip over the kick and Dee Jay altogether. The little over-under exchange ended with Dee Jay back up onto his feet and rapidly lashing out with many furious slashing jumping spin kicks with yellow ki wisps flying off of his legs, "Jackknife Maximum!"

'These movements are strange.' Sasuke thought as he dodged the kicks and kept himself moving out of the way of Dee Jay's furious attack. It was so flaky. It would stop and start in a way that made absolutely no sense for fighting. He'd throw punches, step out of the way as if Sasuke was about to counter even if he didn't and then he'd throw a large lunging kick before suddenly breaking into a flurry of quicker, less damaging kicks, 'What is it?'

"Come on mon, you can't keep up?" Dee Jay said, trying to coax Sasuke into action, but trying to goad him into something wasn't exactly a formula for success. Sasuke had been goaded into attacking in bad situations and had it beaten out of him enough times when he was younger by Gen to have gotten over such a thing ten times over by now.

Sasuke's head swayed out of the way of one of Dee Jay's punches only for the man to clasp his punching hand down on his shoulder. Planting himself up over Sasuke, Dee Jay flipped over, balancing himself on the young man before using his feet to push off of Sasuke's posterior while falling to throw Sasuke head over heels in reverse.

His body flipped through the air and he grit his teeth as he braced for the landing. What was with Dee Jay? Either way, by now Sasuke had seen more than enough than he wanted to from this opponent. He didn't want to say that he had been taking Dee Jay lightly, but he definitely hadn't been taking him seriously as a threat.

Underestimation? Yes perhaps, but that wasn't important now. It was time to analyze just what the hell was going on. Dee Jay wasn't looking into his eyes, but he didn't even know anything about the Sharingan, so how would he know how to anticipate the hypnosis? Unless that was merely how he treated all of his opponents, but that was highly unconventional.

Then again Dee Jay didn't exactly scream conventionality.

"Katon: Housenka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Phoenix Flower Jutsu)!" Sasuke's hand-seals were quick and he finished them before he even ended his flip from Dee Jay's throw. The miniature fireballs were flying through the air from his mouth before his feet touched the ground.

"Whoo! Hot!" Dee Jay shouted as he streaked his way through the open paths that the multiple fireballs had open between them, "That's not bad! I'm starting to like you even more, but you're still lacking rhythm!"

Rhythm? He'd give him a rhythm when he was bouncing his head off of the pavement.

Sasuke wasn't just sitting idly as his fireballs flew at Dee Jay. He rolled through them using them as a screen. Dee Jay's impressive feat of simply weaving and wafting through them only placed him closer to Sasuke's two rolls and wound up with him getting stricken directly in the chest with a momentum-added thrust that he hadn't anticipated when Sasuke suddenly wound up back on his feet in a grounded state, "Jyasen (Serpent Puncture)!"

The sudden surprise strike allowed Sasuke to almost uncoil and strike Dee Jay directly in the chest with a strike that used his fingers instead of his fist. Dee Jay let out a sharp grunt and was knocked back to the ground as Sasuke's stance shifted. Instead of the Crane-style he had been using it was now Snake-style Kung Fu. Another of the styles that he gleamed from his seemingly endless beatdowns from Gen.

"I don't know what your nuances are for how you're managing to do so well, but I'm through trying to figure it out." Sasuke said with an impatient look on his face, "It's time I keep _you_ guessing instead of the other way around. Do you have any idea how many different forms of Kung Fu I've picked up over the last few years?" Dee Jay started getting up and got back into his same strange kickboxing stance, "I've been all over China… and I've seen pretty much every style there is."

Dee Jay touched at his chest where Sasuke had stricken him, and there was a mark that was on his left pectoral but seemed to be slightly off, "It looks like you missed." Dee Jay said, still grinning.

And much to his surprise Sasuke got as close to a grin as anyone would ever see from him, which was just a smug smirk, "I did miss… on purpose. Believe me, you don't want me to do that the right way. Let's just say I don't think your heart could take it." For once Dee Jay's grin dropped, because he knew full well what Sasuke was implying.

If Sasuke had chosen to do so he could have killed Dee Jay with his last move. The use of the Sharingan allowed him to alter his aim enough that he didn't do so. And that thought took Dee Jay's frown and turned it right back upside down, "You missed me on purpose mon? I was right after all! You are one of the good ones aren't you?"

A well-timed facepalm would have made Sasuke feel so much relief at that moment, but he knew something that would make him feel even better. Winning.

But that would have to wait since Dee Jay was back on the attack again. He danced and shook a pair of maracas that he grabbed from his pants, seemingly shaking uncontrollably before throwing them up into the air, "I'm feelin' the beat now! Are you ready! Max Out!" From both arms, Dee Jay threw uppercuts, one after another rapidly with yellow and orange shockwaves flying from them, spinning at random intervals.

Sasuke saw this all coming and had already clocked an avenue of approach through every single ki blade that was sent his way, 'I can see it now!' He thought to himself.

Dee Jay's fighting motions weren't all improvised, never looping or repeating. This was how Sasuke assumed he was fooling him at first and he was originally wrong. They did repeat. They repeated a lot. In fact, Dee Jay only really ever used three patterns of movement. It wasn't this that kept throwing Sasuke off even with his Sharingan. It was the rhythm that Dee Jay attacked and moved in, something just as important as the moves themselves. He seemed to create new timing ratios on the fly. Incredible.

But now that he knew his trick…

"Hah!" Sasuke said, delivering a high kick that sent Dee Jay hovering into the air before he vanished in a whirlwind of leaves. The next thing Dee Jay knew, Sasuke was at his back, floating through the air at the same trajectory as him. Sasuke grabbed onto the back of Dee Jay's pants and spun him around in a circle before drifting above him where he began to devastate him with punches and kicks until they started falling.

Three more heavy combined strikes led into an ax kick to the body that slammed Dee Jay into the brick forcefully, smashing him between the ground and his leg. His entire frame rattled and recoiled from the finished combination as Sasuke flipped away from him and turned his back, "Shishi Rendan (Lion's Barrage)." He said simply as he shoved his hands into his pockets and started to walk away, "Yeah, I am one of the good ones. In fact, I'm the best there is."

Yeah, he wished Dee Jay was awake to hear that. And for some reason he was still grinning even though he had just been beaten into unconsciousness. Oh well, at least he didn't have to deal with him now.

"_The winner and advancing to the next round: Sasuke Uchiha!"_

XxX

Upon getting back to the top of the stairs and walking through the garden to the competitor's building, Sasuke left Naruto hanging as he seemed to be wordlessly requesting a high five. He inwardly smirked at the downcast look that flickered across his face for a split second after he walked past him, "You looked to be having a bit of trouble there." Naruto commented.

"I didn't get hit as much as you did, so what's your point?" Sasuke asked, stopping and turning with a raised eyebrow only for the two of them to be jerked apart by their collars with Chun-Li inserting herself between them, "Can I help you?"

"You can help me by saving the fighting for the ring." Chun-Li replied, massaging her forehead with an exasperated expression on her face, "What's the deal with you two anyway? You both act like there's some old world blood curse clan feud going on between you." Both Sasuke and looked at each other and then back to her with expressions saying that they didn't know, "I didn't even know you two knew each other until a few months ago."

Seeing as how this conversation wasn't going to lead to anything productive, Sasuke just continued to walk away and ignored Chun-Li's cries to stop. He had one more match to watch before the next round where he'd start forming his strategies to beat everyone left in the competition, including her and Naruto. He really didn't want to talk with them while he was doing such a thing.

An exasperated groan came from the young female Interpol officer who turned to the last remaining Konoha-borne ninja, "I've known that kid for two years and I can't figure him out. He's more than just some jerk of a punk, otherwise grouchy old Gen would have kicked him out on the spot." Or killed him by now. Either or.

"I don't know." Naruto said, walking with his law enforcement friend while they headed back to the edge of the bowl ledge of the courtyard to see if the next fights had gotten underway yet, "He's been that way since he was a kid. It started back around the time-." Naruto then quickly shut his mouth before he spoke on one of Sasuke's family secrets. It wasn't his place to talk about anything like that.

After all, how would he feel if someone had come along and blurted out how he had the Kyuubi in him back before he felt comfortable with telling people about it? It wasn't right.

But the inspector in Chun-Li noticed this and turned to fix him with an interrogative look, "Around what time? Come on Naruto, cough it up. I'm going to find out anyway so you might as well tell me." No she wouldn't. Only two people in the world (this world) knew, and if Sasuke wanted it that way Naruto planned on keeping it as such, "Do I have to blackmail you?"

"You don't have a damn thing on me." Naruto said with quite a bit of certainty, "Nobody does."

"Oh I don't? Because Aohura City P.D. sure does. You really think I can't get their cooperation on investigating you? I'm sure you were a pain in their collective asses the entire time you've lived there." And she knew that because she had 'looked in' on him while she had been in Japan. It was harder than she thought. There weren't even any records of him until just over four years ago.

And from Naruto's side, damn it she had a point. He never did anything _really_ illegal outside of a bunch of moving violations, but they stopped calling those in years ago because he was always on foot. Still, he was suspected for a lot of stuff that they couldn't prove.

"If you're not afraid of that then maybe embarrassment is your weakness. I can call Sakura, and Cammy lives with you so I'm sure she's seen some things."

Uh-oh, not good. And from the satisfied look on Chun-Li's face she figured she had a decent amount of leverage here. But no. Despite this he would not flip on a friend. Even a friend as crappy as Sasuke was. And then he got a distraction that he never saw coming. Not then at least.

"_Oh my goodness! What a close to round one! Dhalsim defeats T. Hawk and in surprisingly dominant fashion! I don't think he ever even got close!"_

What? The next fight actually happened? When? It couldn't have possibly started and ended that fast. Naruto and Chun-Li actually saw T. Hawk leave the competitor's building during Sasuke's fight to prepare to go down, but no one ever saw Dhalsim, and they were close to the stairs until they started walking around getting farther away from the field of competition.

Rushing to the bowl edge of the high-tiered garden, both looked over past the stands containing the crowd and saw Dhalsim levitating in his meditating position over the body of the hulking Native American T. Hawk who was conscious and looking rather sore at his defeat.

Wow. It really did end that fast.

"He won already?" Naruto said, a bit disbelieving at Dhalsim's apparent skill, "What did he even do? I wish we'd have seen it!"

If he hadn't heard from Cammy pre-amnesia that she had fought him and he'd survived it and managed to overcome her he'd never believe it. Doll Cammy was an absolute emotionless destroyer. If he was able to stand up to her and actually mess with her mind to give her free will without hurting her extensively or killing her in the process he was probably pretty strong.

Chun-Li on the other hand had seen the tail-end of a Dhalsim battle, during his qualification matches in Hong Kong, "I've seen him fight and I believe what the announcer said." There was probably a completely realistic chance that T. Hawk was defeated without ever even getting within punching distance of the man, "He's a weird man, but he's more than strong enough to be here."

Naruto frowned and looked down into the ring. Okay, well when Dhalsim came back up the stairs he'd meet him and then they'd have the conversation that he needed to have about his help with fixing his connection to the Kyuubi. Easy.

Turning around, Naruto started his way to the steps but was in for a bit of a surprise when the Indian Yoga master didn't take the stairs. Instead he just teleported and vanished from sight right in front of everyone's eyes.

Needless to say Naruto's jaw needed to be picked up off of the ground. That solved the mystery of how he got to the ring past a slew of highly trained fighters.

Chun-Li walked up to Naruto and gave him a pat on the shoulder as she walked past him and stood next to him looking down into the courtyard that served as their battlefield, "Yep. He can do that." She sure wouldn't want to fight him. An ability like that was annoying enough when Bison did it. There was an entirely different caveat of danger the way Dhalsim used his ability to short-range teleport, "So that makes two people in the tournament that can teleport."

"Who's the second one?"

"Sasuke. Didn't you see him do it?"

"That? That wasn't him teleporting. That was just short-range speed and leaves as cover. It's a ninja trick. A jutsu."

"Interesting." Narrowing her eyes at him suspiciously, Chun-Li figured that this was a trick. After all, they were about to be opponents after the very next match, "And if it's a ninja trick and you're a ninja why are you telling me about it? We fight next round."

"Because it's not that useful to me." Naruto said dismissively. He didn't use it and after he beat her she wasn't going to ever have a chance of winding up fighting Sasuke anyway, "So I don't care if you know about it or not."

Whatever. Since Naruto had effectively distracted her from asking questions about Sasuke that he was not going to answer so he'd be killed in his sleep, they both decided that it was time to oversee the next round that was starting soon. After going through one another they'd be fighting the winner of the very next match, and that very next match involved someone close to them regardless.

But it was really going to be one tall order ahead of one of the participants to win. The next match was going to be Cammy vs. Sagat. Strong as she was, she would have to dig down deep in order to find a way to win that one.

Naruto knew she was capable of it though. No one else had ever seen Cammy fight at her maximum potential other than him, and it was hard for a lot of them to believe. Everyone else had merely seen the watered down amnesia afflicted version. He'd seen the real deal that had almost killed him. He'd felt it and he'd seen her give the business to Bison as well, and no one knew but him.

Speaking of the angelic devil herself, she walked down the path leading to the courtyard only to stop once she saw Chun-Li and Naruto walking together, "Ah, are you two about to watch my next fight?" She asked with a small and pleasant smile on her face. She was still a bit shaken over how she had defeated Blanka, but Sagat wasn't a friend of hers so she didn't worry about what she might do to him at all.

Chun-Li walked forward first and gave Cammy a quick hug that she returned. After the events of the Shadaloo base she felt a bit protective over not just Cammy, but all of the kids younger than her that were there.

"Be careful alright." She said, making sure Cammy was focused up and ready to go, "You've got the most dangerous opponent in the tournament. You saw what he did against Guile. He made it look easy." Cammy nodded sharply, having taken the advice to heart after she had watched Sagat beat Guile earlier.

She took every fight seriously and never took anyone that raised their hand against her lightly, but her A-game was needed today and she knew it without a doubt.

A grand towering shadow covered them all as Sagat came from another area of the temple grounds. Standing in front of them he looked them all over and his eyes once again stopped on Cammy this time. The subtle difference in his expression made him look as if he had aged five years since the end of his first round fight.

Cammy didn't seem shaken by him though, she merely extended her red gauntleted hand his way, "Good luck."

Sagat just stared down at her and her gesture of good faith for several seconds before finally reaching forward to give it a loose shake. With that he turned and headed on his way to the courtyard.

As he left, Naruto threw an arm around her shoulder and walked with her, "Okay Cam, Sagat's a bruiser. I haven't seen him fight in person, but Sakura-chan has. I don't care how long this fight lasts, from what she told me you can't let him hit you at all. Just one hit'll hurt you enough to slow you down and then what'll you do?"

He had an uneasy feeling in his gut, but what could he do?

"Okay Naruto. I'll just have to make sure I break him up before he lands anything solid won't I? I don't plan on getting hit." She said as she went to walk away, only to find that Naruto was holding onto her hand. She turned to face him again only to see a worried look on his face, "What's the matter?"

Naruto had heard some things… about Sagat, and that was before they had discovered that he had been a part of Shadaloo. He was notorious for killing opponents in the ring that were too weak to stand up to his attacks, and for beating some people to a pulp even after it was clear he had won just because they had driven him too far.

None of that sat well with him whatsoever.

"Cam promise me something." Naruto asked her in a solemn tone, "If it starts looking bad in there…" He trailed off and quickly shook his head. What kind of way to think was that? He was basically signing Cammy's own requiem for a brutal defeat by thinking that way, "Nevermind. Go kick his ass. I'll see you in the next round."

Sparing another little smile, Cammy nodded and continued on her way, making sure her gauntlets were tight and her hat was in place as she descended the stairs.

Once again, the sole ninja of Aohura City watched his live-in assassin leave, and this time his eyes weren't stuck on her retreating backside.

"Why didn't you tell her what you wanted to say?"

The question came from Chun-Li, who had stood aside and watched the entire interface with her hands on her hips. The two young adults were closer to each other than she was to either of them, thus their interactions were their own. But she didn't expect Naruto to back off from giving his intended message. He never did that. This was someone that always said what he wanted to say.

All Naruto did was shake his head and go somewhere to find a good seat, "How could I tell her to do something like that?"

"Like what?" She already knew, she just wanted to hear him say it for himself, "Tell her to do what?"

Gritting his teeth, Naruto was aware of what she was doing. Damn her. Why'd she have to play sexy big sister all the time? She treated all of them like that; him, Sakura, Cammy, Karin. It wasn't fair, she didn't even live near them and it was like she was their den mother, "How could I tell her that if things got bad I wanted her to quit?"

She knew he was going to ask Cammy to quit if things looked to be too tight, but the reason she brought it up was that she didn't know why he held himself back from saying it, "What's so bad about asking her to give up?"

The same thing that was wrong with asking Guile to quit trying to repent for breaking a promise he had made to others even though it wasn't his fault that it happened. It was a really simple reason as far as Naruto was concerned.

"How could I ask someone else to do something I wouldn't do myself?" He wouldn't even begin to insult Cammy's capabilities like that. She was smart and capable. She had pride and emotions just like any other person even if she sometimes didn't know what exactly they were or how to convey her own feelings on things.

Such negative thoughts were shoved to the back of his mind as he continued to look for Ryu and Ken. They would obviously be watching this match. No way Ryu would ever miss a fight involving his first true rival. He left Chun-Li behind as she stood and thought to herself.

What was he talking about? He couldn't ask her to do something that he wouldn't do himself?

XxX

Cammy wasn't even going to try and get close to Sagat before the fight even started. Make him chase after her. Force him to try and press her, and retaliate violently in return. No room for mistakes. His legs and arms had to be twice as long as hers.

Either way she stood there in her stance, a good length of field away from her imposing enemy, just waiting for the sign to go.

Likewise for Sagat, but his mind was currently elsewhere. All it took to get the chance that he wanted was one girl. Take her freedom or her life. Those were the only avenues of success for the mission given to him. But could he do it? Was he really willing to do so?

"_It's time for the first quarterfinal bout! Cammy vs. Sagat: fight!"_

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he hardly noticed that Cammy was fast to make the first move, dashing at him so quickly that he mistimed when she would get close enough that he could land a sure-fire attack on her, "K̄hèā Seụ̄x (Tiger Knee)!"

With great explosive force that chipped away at the brick beneath him, Sagat launched himself forward swiftly, jumping at Cammy and leading with his knee. He launched it from too far out and she utilized a swift corkscrew kick that allowed her to glide just over the ground underneath him to avoid being hit, "Spiral Arrow!" Her feet back beneath her quickly, Cammy had Sagat's back after his miss.

Knowing that she would try a sudden move from behind, the moment Sagat's feet touched the ground from his Tiger Knee attempt, he turned around and lashed out with a long leg in a low sweep, but Cammy just flipped over him, flying like a cannonball to speed up her arc before landing and swinging both of her legs out in a sweep of her own.

Sagat drew a leg up to keep Cammy from taking it and was then forced to block a stiff, hard punch that came immediately after her attempt to take his base out. He lashed out with a leg in a front kick, but growled in annoyance when Cammy merely cartwheeled out of the way. What was she, a fighter or a gymnast?

Her evasive actions put Cammy far back out of his range when she stopped in a crouch, facing in Sagat's direction as she blankly stared him down like a predatory cat. If she had a tail it probably would have been waving behind her in anticipation. While her face were blank, the brightness in her blue eyes danced excitedly.

Yes, this was a 'Doll' but she wasn't a doll. That title couldn't apply to her anymore. A doll wouldn't feel excitement or trepidation of suffering injury.

And once again Sagat was against himself. Could he really do this? If he really could put her back under Bison's control with a phrase, would he do so? No one would know what he had done. The cameras couldn't pick up anything he said that closely. The only person in the world that would know would be him, he would lose no honor because of it.

But still, he would know what he had done.

Then again, what would it matter if he wound up placing Cammy back in Shadaloo's clutches? He wouldn't even be around long enough to face what he had done. The moment the tournament ended and he finished his rematch with Ryu he would quit and never look back at that portion of his past.

Shoving it to the back of his mind once again he pushed both fists out in a sudden punch that fired a yellow crescent of burning energy at Cammy, "Ying Seụ̄x (Tiger Shot)!" He wasn't expecting it to hit her, and it didn't. She was quick, that much was certain as she shot forward and slid underneath his ki blast as if it were a death limbo.

Planting her hands forward out of her slide, Cammy tried to flip forward into an attempt to wrap her legs around Sagat's head to drag him down skull-first into the ground. She wasn't long enough to pull this off however, and only wound up wrapping her legs around his waist. When she flipped up to gain momentum to drag him back down she merely came face-to-face with the unamused, bald, and eyepatch-clad visage of Sagat.

Sagat plucked her up by the back of her leotard and pulled her off of him before slamming his knee into her torso twice and kicking her away intensely. The crowd 'oohed' at how brutal the simple motions were. There was nothing grandiose or complex. His moves were simple and vicious.

The scar-cheeked blonde girl hit the ground in a heap and whimpered a bit while holding just beneath her breasts where Sagat aimed and hit her with his knee attacks. It hurt, and it made it harder for her to breathe at least for the meantime. It wasn't like Sagat would let her take a rest until she got her breath back either.

He walked toward her, not rushing but merely moving at a deliberate and thoughtful pace. He wasn't going to outquick Cammy if he chose to try and play that game with her. He could keep up with what she did, but trying to match her pace would not work for him. It wasn't his style.

When she tried another avenue of attack, faking to two sides before coming back with a sudden hopping spin behind a back elbow/backfist combination-, "Axle Spin Knuckle!" -Sagat merely timed her coming in and delivered what looked like a very mean-spirited rabbit punch right to her neck and the base of her spine.

Such a dangerous move could have killed her, and it sent her tumbling forward in a violent roll that deposited her on the brick ground in a heap once more.

'Death is a better fate than not having your freedom at all little one.' He thought to himself as he turned away to leave. People didn't stand up from such vital punches to important areas. It was why such things were forbidden in most martial arts tournaments. But this wasn't a regular tourney, it was regulated street fighting, and the only rules were that it had to be one-on-one, nothing else.

The hushed silence of the crowd soon turned into excited chattering and relived applause, and Sagat turned back around to see Cammy picking herself up again and holding her neck as she did so. Her hat was gone from her head due to the impact of the punch and her hit against the ground.

Ugh, of course. This was a Doll. These little ladies were extremely hard to kill. But there really was something wrong with Cammy, because she was clearly registering everything that had been done to her. She could feel the pain and she was showing it.

"I won't ever give up." Cammy said, standing back in her stance as she prepared to continue, "You can do as you like to me, but if you really aren't prepared to do what you must to win you won't succeed. All I need is one opening and I'll never let up again. I swear it."

Tough talk despite what he had just done to her. She hadn't been able to touch him despite several occasions where she had a good opening. What made her think she could do it now?

He watched her carefully when she started to move again. She took five steps forward to get a feel for her adjusted body mechanics after taking a heavy blow before tearing into her deceptive movements again. Lunges and side to side fake-outs were all designed to get her close to Sagat, but all he had to do was keep one eye on her and he'd be ready for anything that she tried.

Though he didn't expect her to launch a ninja throwing knife directly at his face.

During her moves to try and fool him into wrongly guessing where she was going, Cammy subtly drew the weapon from within her gauntlet that she had pilfered from Naruto's supply pouch while he had been talking to her before the match began. Anyone that tried to run at Sagat hoping to beat him into submission with just their hands and feet could label themselves the retarded idealist. It would be nice to do, but simply wasn't going to happen.

Thus she threw a kunai right at his face.

Barely leaning out of the way of the attack that he never saw coming, Sagat's lack of dual vision almost cost him dearly when he caught Cammy flying through the air at him with one leg enhanced with weak yellow ki fully extended like a javelin for a driving kick, "Cannon Strike!"

Sagat caught her kick using both of her large hands and slid back along the ground twenty feet before his heels dug into the brick and he stopped himself. With a concerted yell of effort he hurled Cammy back and away from him, looking at both of his taped hands that were slightly singed, bruised, and beaten up from catching her.

She tried to take advantage of the massive blindspot that turning his head created due to his missing right eye. Had he not been used to opponents trying to do the same thing to him ever since that eye had been gouged out, he wouldn't have been prepared to guard at his right side where he was open.

His one visible eye was bloodshot and angry that she would have the audacity to try and do such a thing to him, and his veins were visible all throughout his heavily muscled frame. She had so brazenly attempted to use a handicap of such magnitude against him with outright trickery. How was that for an even playing field? Well he could do the exact same kind of thing to her _if_ he wanted to.

Anger. Humiliation. Impatience.

The same emotions that drove him to Shadaloo's clutches after his resounding defeat to Ryu's Shoryuuken in the past stirred within him again at the thought of being defeated by this little girl. Another embarrassing defeat on the grandest stage of them all. It simply made him boil over in frustration.

He opened his mouth and blindly blurted out his next words angrily before he even realized what he had said, "_Shadow Law Zero: Killer Bee_!"

Sagat instantly wished that he hadn't said what he had just done, but in his anger to get even with his female opponent's actions against him he had not only uttered but had yelled out her sleeper command.

Cammy only stared at him the same as before. She didn't stand at attention nor defer to him as a superior. She remained looking ready to fight. It didn't work on her. Maybe she was just waiting on an order to act? He'd seen the Dolls in the past stand as still as statues for hours until they were given a running command to do something, even when it came to eating or sleeping.

"Killer Bee?" She didn't seem to react to the name when Sagat said it, but when he opened his mouth again he found that Cammy had moved in a blur toward him again. Did she get even faster?

"Spiral Arrow!"

Yes she got faster. Significantly faster. Because Sagat hadn't even had enough time to get his arms fully into place to block her corkscrew kick, allowing her to kick straight through his half-complete guard and spike him with her boots straight in the stomach.

Blood flew from his mouth as he felt himself be hurled backwards by the sudden surprise attack. It felt like he had been hit with a wrecking ball.

XxX

From where he had been watching with his friends, Naruto's jaw went slack after seeing Cammy's attack land on Sagat. One minute he had been indistinguishably yelling something at her and the next she had kicked him with the same amount of force that he hadn't seen out of her since early that year. He thought that he had seen purple energy around her legs and a discharge of it upon contact as well, "She… did it?"

That was it. It wasn't the Spiral Arrow she had been using since she started living with him. That was the one he had deemed the original. The one that put the fear of Kami in him that it would crush his ribs and punch through his chest back when he had faced her the first time

"Did what kinderstuff?" Ken asked, actually letting out a whistle at how far Cammy managed to kick Sagat, "That's _far_. I only thought Chun-Li had that kind of power in her legs." Chun-Li heard him and let out a challenging 'humph' while giving one audible slap to a thigh.

"No, that's what I was telling you about." Naruto said, pointing down to the courtyard, "That's Cam's power! That's what she could do back when she was a Doll, the way I kept telling everybody!" On cue Cammy didn't let Sagat get to his feet free of charge and went right back in to go to work, "Don't you see that? She's faster, she's stronger, and-."

"And her tactics are going to be a lot more violent now." Ryu finished in Naruto's place, picking up what the youngster was putting down, "She can beat Sagat." He said, fully confident of her chances, "Right here, right now. She can win if he isn't aware of just how dangerous she is. That is, if Naruto has been right this entire time about her talent." All of them turned to him as if waiting on him to talk again, "How good was she before her amnesia?"

How good was she? Their first fight ended in a draw and the only reason he didn't get a chance to go for the kill more than he did was because he withdrew from the fight to protect Ibuki and Karin. The second time they met and worked together this time she for all intents and purposes blitzed Bison down and broke his neck. That should have been one of the countless times that someone killed Bison that day, but just like all of the other times it didn't stop the show for good.

After recanting that fact to everyone there, their interest in the battle skyrocketed and everyone had eyes on. But Naruto didn't care about anything like that. He was just excited that she had managed to turn things around. She had the former number one consensus fighter in the world on the damn ropes and didn't seem to be letting up a bit, "Get him Cam! You've got this!"

XxX

From where Sasuke was sitting, this girl was incredible. _This _was what Naruto had lying around in his apartment all day every day? She was a sawn-off little murderer of a fighter. Was he sparring with that every day too? If so it was potentially reminiscent to how violent his encounters with Gen were getting these days.

But Sagat was what intrigued him. From where he was sitting no one had eyes sharper than an Uchiha, and right before the relentless onslaught of the petite blonde beauty he saw Sagat's mouth move. The ability to read lips was a byproduct of what the Sharingan could do for you and he could swear that he saw that man say _'Shadow Law Zero: Killer Bee'_.

What the hell was that about and what did it mean? Well as long as it didn't involve him he didn't give two craps about it. Why would he care? Cammy wasn't his friend or comrade except for the one time, and this only meant stronger possible competition for him later. Right then he had a fight to watch and it was a good one.

XxX

'She fights like a demon!' Sagat thought, as he was back up, blood trailing from his lip, and Cammy was in full assault mode. Punches were coming faster than any normal human being could keep up with. With Guile, his attempt to get close to Sagat failed in the end because he lacked the speed for an action so brazen, but Cammy had nothing to worry about in that regard.

She made Guile look like a turtle in comparison, and her reflexes were razor sharp. She was also significantly smaller than Guile, allowing her to tie up Sagat's arms and legs with their proximity better than the air force major ever could have with his own size.

Tiny fists seemed to be hitting far more than just his arms. Sagat felt her strike at his sides, trying to damage his kidneys because she couldn't gain access to his actual vitals. Those knuckled gauntlets of hers were absolutely nasty in how they would dig into the flesh of what they hit. He couldn't even extend his limbs to hit back he was being pressured so heavily. There was no let up in this girl.

Well it looked like he would have to take a few to land a few in this instance. A sacrifice he was willing to make if she was going to keep crowding him, and he'd take whatever he had to in order to avoid being hit with another Spiral Arrow. The next one hitting him as well as the first might have punched a hole straight through him like a drill. Moving his arms away from protecting him he surmised that she must have punched him with both arms twelve times in all before he grabbed her by the arm and turned before hurling her overhead.

She was more or less slammed on the ground but she studiously spaced the damage out and immediately bounced back up from her back to be on her feet again.

"Ying Seụ̄x (Tiger Shot)!" He fired a low burning crescent of energy at her that ripped away part of the ground as it flew because it was so close to floor-level. But after hitting the brick too much it seemed to break apart and snake away in four different smaller crescents all aimed her way to convene on Cammy's position. There would be no nimble dodges to the side for this one, 'Jump. Jump! Jump damn you!'

Ask and ye shall receive.

Cammy knew the score, she knew what situation she was in, and she had to take a calculated risk that no matter what Sagat was suckering her into she'd have a better chance of surviving it than being hit with four consecutive Tiger Shots.

Thus she took to the air in a quick leap that had her above Sagat and on the way down before anyone in the audience was aware of it, eyes attracted to the flashy death blast of the Tiger Shots that exploded together in fire as if a series of grenades had gone off.

Another Cannon Strike from Cammy, he could see it. Sagat's scar burned red in anger at this girl's hidden potential, and covered in a strong aura of yellow he flung himself into the air to meet her. He smashed a knee against her kick. The resulting clash propelled him back at the ground but kept her in the air, spiraling out of control of her own body. Sagat's feet touched the ground and he rocketed up leading with his large taped fist that smashed into Cammy's back.

He knocked her into the air again, but his anger and desire to not lose wouldn't be sated with just landing one uppercut, "Thảlāy Seụ̄x (Tiger Destruction)!" Like a rocket he shot himself back into the air, leading with his fist again, only it was yellow hot, eventually catching fire before it punched Cammy again. The move topped out and he flipped through his final shot before kicking Cammy away.

There was no thud, not for a while at least. She flew through the air until her body impacted off of the high temporary walls that had been set up to keep the action from reaching the viewing public. Her body deeply dented the metal that comprised the structure.

From how hard she hit, her body seemed pressed against the vertical surface for a few seconds before she finally fell from it. But miraculously she landed on her feet, eliciting sounds of shock and awe from the populace bearing witness to this.

Even Sagat was completely amazed. Her body was a complete mess. She was bloody and bruised, and that was just what he could see. From the other side of her, her leotard was torn from the entirety of her back to her waist with a deep burn on the skin underneath from his last move.

Her head was hanging and her twin braids had been loosened to free her hair all over her face, covering up the sight of taking in ragged breaths. And those breaths quickly became choked gasps when one of Sagat's hands clasped around her neck and lifted her off of the ground, "…Won't… quit…" Her voice was almost nonexistent, but as close as they were he heard it.

There was still rage in his eyes and an intent to cause harm, but he didn't even get to choke Cammy for very long after grabbing her.

"_The winner of the match: Sagat!"_

That didn't sound right. He looked around wondering where exactly the event emcee was located. Bison ran this thing, and he said that if he couldn't trigger her brainwashing he would have to kill her. As far as he was concerned, if her mental conditioning turned back on she wouldn't have kept fighting. So he was supposed to kill her wasn't he?

Whatever. It didn't matter. At least in the end he didn't have to do either. With that in mind he merely let go of her neck and set her back on her feet. Somehow she could still stand on her own two feet.

Sagat looked at his hands that still showed the effects of the extremely physical battle and turned to walk away from the completely nonresponsive girl who simply swayed unstably in place.

As he reached the landing of the stairs he looked up as a quickly running Naruto wound up jumping clear over him to keep from bumping into him. Chun-Li moved past him and even Ken walked past him at a slower pace, making sure that the medical staff was with him.

Ryu stood on the stairs and once again the two locked eyes, staring holes into each other, "I'll see you tomorrow, in the final round." Sagat said, only getting a stoic nod from the humble warrior.

Having said his peace, Sagat moved up the stairs past the man he so desperately desired a rematch with. He was going to his lodgings for the night now that his day of bouts had ended. He was going to go prepare. Until he had to come out for the semifinals he would keep himself in isolation. It was the only way he could have the time to come to grips with what he had almost done. But why hadn't he been forced to finish things?

"Cam stop, it's over!"

Turning around at Naruto's sudden cry, Sagat saw Naruto seemingly having to hold the girl back from trying to attack him again. Even with everything she had already been through she was still intent on fighting him? All he did was shake his head before continuing on his way.

Holding onto her around the waist, Naruto dug his feet into the ground and kept her from trying to pursue and go after her previous enemy. Her blue eyes were clearly glazed over and her face was entirely unresponsive, "Come on, it's okay, you did great okay? Just cut it out, you don't have to fight him anymore!"

"She's unconscious again." Chun-Li commented as she noticed that Naruto had a good grip on her that kept her from making a big mistake that she would be unaware of, "I can see it in her eyes." She closed her eyes and sighed in a bit of relief. Things could have gone a lot worse in that fight. At least it was stopped before it went too far. Cammy was fine.

And then she heard a rather nasty crack noise come from nearby, a sudden curse of surprised pain, and a bit of shuffling. Opening her eyes she found Cammy facedown on the ground being pinned by Ken with her hands stuck behind her back. Naruto was gritting his teeth and seething, rapidly pacing back and forth while holding onto his left wrist.

"How did she even get that loose?" Ken asked aloud, hitting a pressure point on her neck to shut the girl down. He just didn't understand it. Naruto had a damnably good grip on her, and she wasn't that squirmy, nor was she strong enough to shrug off Naruto when he had a full hold on her, "Hey someone take her already and get her fixed up, she's still pretty bad here."

"What happened?" Chun-Li asked as the medical attendants sprang into action and pulled Cammy onto a stretcher before carrying her up to handle tending to her heavy wounds, "What's wrong with Naruto?" The smattering of vehement curses under his breath simply could not be ignored.

The brat seemed to be just a touch below freaking out on the attitude meter. He seemed angry, annoyed, and a bit concerned with something, as evidenced when he jumped up and kicked the head clean off of a moss covered stone statue just because he didn't seem to like its face.

Ken stood up from where he had been pinning Cammy for her own safety and ran a hand through his blond locks as they looked over at Naruto who seemed to be trying to hold back some pain while a remaining medical staffer that had seen the whole thing tried to tend to him and find out what the situation was. Ken was sure he already knew though, "I think Cammy broke his wrist."

"Crap…" A definite frown crossed Chun-Li's face at the thought of an injury that wasn't suffered in an actual fight handicapping her next opponent. An opponent that was a friend, "I don't want him to quit. What's the point of winning like that?"

"That little fucker's not going to quit." Ken assured her, waving off the concern as if it were obvious, "Even if Cammy had broken his whole damn arm he wouldn't quit." He stopped talking when the doctor seemed to have touched the ultimate sore spot on his hand and wrist and he turned to punch the statue he had just kicked the head off of with his good hand, cracking it somewhat, "Yeah… you deal with that. I'm gonna go make sure our favorite Doll is okay."

As Ken walked off, Chun-Li just massaged her temple and walked over to Naruto to try and run some damage control on the situation at hand, "Come on Naruto, let the doctor do his job here."

"This sucks." Naruto muttered miserably, face twisting every so often as the medic on hand tried to gauge the damage done to a very important part of Naruto's abilities in combat. Apparently that's what you get when you try to help your friend that subconsciously doubles as a killer of men, "Why'd she do that? Didn't she know it was me? She seemed like she was chilling out, and she snapped my arm."

"Wrist." Doctor corrected, getting a glare out of Naruto, "Just saying, see?" He poked and prodded one of the problem areas to get Naruto to bite down on his opposite knuckles, "Your arm itself works just fine, but your hand is basically as useful as your appendix right now." Naruto covered his mouth with his free hand and just started yelling muffled obscenities once again at his current case of misfortune.

XxX

(Twenty Minutes Later – Fighter Standby Building – Medic Bay)

The room was empty with the exception of Cammy lying unconscious on one of the beds. They had cleaned her up quickly and had bandaged her wounds after what injuries she had, including the burn on her back. Those monks worked fast, that much had to be admitted. None of the fighters that had gone down in the tournament were still laying around somewhere.

Ken had seen most of them all up and around just hours after their matches that resulted in their defeats. Zangief and T. Hawk had left after their defeats and treatment, more or less fuming, while Blanka decided to hang around in the woods nearby, even with his arm the way it was. Guile was off at a nearby reflection pond just staring at himself silently. Balrog was off calling his dentist in America about possibly replacing the teeth that Chun-Li knocked out. Dee Jay was walking around the temple, raving about the rhythms he had gotten from his loss to Sasuke and writing lyrics.

Basically the place that was supposed to be the hub for all of the fighters was turning into a ghost town fairly quickly since no one wanted to be there while there was a fighting festival going on. That was some impressive work with how fast they assisted all of the injured people, but for a martial arts temple they probably knew how to best patch up damaged fighters quickly so that they could get back to training and sparring or whatever they did at this monastery to hone their skills.

"Yeah, you're gonna be alright in no time." Ken said, giving Cammy a rub on the shoulder even though she wasn't awake to respond or even know he was there. He wasn't trying to wake her up or get his own hand broken the way Naruto's had been, maybe worse, "By the time the round is over you'll probably be up and about again just like everybody else."

In the meantime, after the Naruto and Chun-Li situation got sorted out, he would have to take on Ryu. He couldn't spend all of his time in the medic bay, he had to go get ready for action. By his estimation he probably only had fifteen to thirty minutes to warm up and prep himself. Even less if for some reason Naruto vs. Chun-Li didn't happen.

Naruto and/or Chun-Li would be back to pop in on her to make sure she was okay in just a few. The doctors were in the other room as well waiting to treat the loser of the next matches while watching the event on the TV provided to them, even though she wasn't badly injured enough to the degree that she would need to be observed at all times.

Carefully moving a few stray strands of hair out of her face, Ken nodded to himself at his good deed for the day having been accomplished and left to go back outside. Ryu was probably already getting his mind straight for the next battle.

Cammy was allowed to sleep in peace for a long stretch of minutes until eventually a shadow stood over her and a startling presence woke her up. It was unlike that of Ken's or her other friends that calmed her, it was darker and with more rage festering within it. At first she figured that she was still dreaming due to the fact that the man in the red uniform and military cap was the one there, but she realized that it wasn't one and made to move until his voice stopped her.

"Stand down and be silent Killer Bee, that's an order."

And just like that her body became still and restful. She just looked up at him, unable to take her eyes away from his own solid white ones. The grin on his face didn't make her feel too safe, but for some reason his order to be still and silent actually made her do so.

"Good." Bison said, pacing around her bed, "The reactivation trigger command worked after all. I feared that you had lost too much of your programming from your amnesia including the failsafe to outright reset you."

'Why can't I move? Is this the Bison man that everyone kept telling me about?' Why was he here for her? Didn't he deem her useless before trying to kill her and Naruto? That was what she had been told by Naruto and he never lied to her.

For all of the good that came from having his Killer Bee back under his command, there was something about her that Bison didn't like. Those eyes of hers. The emotive blue, instead of the vast dead pools she used to have/ He had spent so much time ensuring that she would always have them and that his enemies would always drown in the nothingness behind them before she killed that. That was the crown jewel Doll that he wanted.

He continued to look her over, with his intimidating expression never fading for a moment. So smug and self-satisfied, as if things had shaken out with what he wanted, "I have a way to fix that emotion in your eyes though. I never truly finished your conditioning the way I did for the other Dolls simply because there was never any or any way to do so. But it seems that things have changed. Luckily it falls in with what I want you to do for me anyway."

'What the hell is this man talking about?' Cammy thought frantically in her head, 'I'll never do anything for this person! You don't have any power over me!' Still her body and her voice failed her, 'Why can't I fight you?'

"What is your only purpose Killer Bee? Respond." Bison asked as if he were testing things out.

"To adhere to Master Bison's will and fight for his benefit. Nothing else." The droning voice was completely similar to the way she used to be prior to Dhalsim's original meddling, 'No! What am I saying?'

"Good. Now my orders are quite simple." Bison said, reaching out to stroke her cheek as if he were a fond parent doting over his daughter, "All of the Dolls had to do it except for you. I had them kill their families, but since you don't have one therein lies a problem. You're almost perfect. It's a simple enough fix though. I merely want you to kill the person that has cared for you the most in the world. Kill the person that you care for the most."

Kill the person that has cared for her most in the world? How would someone that didn't know her know who that was? But apparently her body understood exactly what was being asked of her, "Yes Master Bison. Mission accepted."

"If you can kill the thing that you love more than anything else, there won't be anyone you won't kill for me." It also helped that if his guess was right on who this person was, her would-be target was one of the people he wanted vengeance on anyway. Killing one of his hated enemies with the very girl that the person had spent so much money, effort, and care on; what could be better? "And if you can't do it the only use you'll have for me is with your death."

If she failed, the trauma that her death would inflict on who killed her would be immense, crippling even. If she succeeded he would be one foe down with no effort to himself and he would have his Killer Bee back for good, with nothing tying her to those idealistic fools any longer.

Her body began to try and weakly get up to accomplish her mission when one of Bison's hands pressed onto her chest to keep her down, "No Killer Bee. There's no need for you to hastily carry this out. As you are now there would be no question as to the result, so rest. Sleep. And when you awaken tonight, carry out your assignment."

'No, no, no, no, no…' Cammy thought to herself as her eyes involuntarily closed and she began to drift off, the last thing she heard being Bison's laughter fading out of her mind.

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Fighter Interviews (Zangief)<span>

_Introduce yourself to our viewers. Let them know a little something about you if you would._

"I am the 'Red Cyclone' of Russia! Zangief! Real men do their talking in the ring, so anything else you wish to know about me you'll find out there in battle!"

_Fair enough. What are your thoughts on the tournament so far?_

"Feh, it's insulting that all of these puny people managed to qualify for such an important tournament. I've seen two women amongst the contestants! What kind of joke is that? Such frail looking creatures as well. One lariat from me will snap them in half! I'm not looking for much more from most of the men either."

_So just because you're fighting women and men that aren't as muscular as you, you think that they're not strong enough to be in a world tournament? There's more to fighting than just brute strength you know._

"Who do you think you're talking to? Of course I know that! Skill is also a major factor! But you can learn skill, as I have. You cannot learn pure power! There is simply no substitute for it!"

_What about speed?_

"I will hit whatever comes close to me no problem. Speed means nothing when you will crush whatever you grab without fail. Being hit and harmed does not frighten me either. My muscles are like an iron suit of armor! I cannot be harmed by the small fists of most of my enemies!"

_Why do you think you're the man to win this tournament?_

"My skills and body have been forged in the unforgiving Siberian lands. This tournament is nothing to me. I will destroy all brave enough and foolish enough to stand before my might! Test me and see… if you dare."

_Anything you want to say to the people watching at home?_

"Mother Russia, watch me closely. This is for you! I will not fail!"

Fighter Interviews (Ken)

_Could you give us your name and where you're from sir?_

"Yeah sure thing. Ken Masters, from California. I don't really live in town. I've got a lot of land a few skips and hops away from the Sierra Nevada mountain range. It's a really great place actually."

_You're the man that owns the Masters Hotel chain of luxury hotels. What made you want to join this tournament when you're as rich as you are, especially when you already have the title of the premier U.S. Martial Arts Tournament champion? What do you have to prove?_

"A lot actually. I'm a martial artist first and foremost. I was trained since I was a boy, and I love it. I love getting stronger and testing my limits. I want to test myself against all of the fighters I can. My best friend is in this thing too, and I want to show him that he's not the only one that's been getting stronger over the years since we finished training under our master."

_If you win what will you do with the prize?_

"Shove it up the sponsor's-… I mean, donate it *up Bison's ass*."

_What do you think of the tournament so far then?_

"It seems like a hell of a time. It's a pretty fun atmosphere. Maybe if this place isn't torn to hell by the time it's over it'll last long enough that I can have some fun with my friends before going home."

_You're the second person to say that the monastery is going to be torn apart because of the tournament._

"There's a reason for that. But you'll see later. Don't worry about it now though. Just smile and ignore the fact that you're interviewing the people that might accidentally cripple, maim, or kill you within the next two days. Haha."

_Ah, that's good, but it's a rather dark bit of humor isn't it?_

"Yeah heh… funny thing about that. I was only half joking. Seriously, when stuff starts blowing up people better turn and run. The only good thing about this is that it's outside, so we can't _literally_ bring the house down."

_Okay, I'm adequately freaked out now. Anything you want to say to the people watching at home._

"Yeah, Eliza baby if I end up fighting Ryu I want you to record it somehow so I can watch it later after I kick his stick-in-the-mud ass all over the place. Same for Naruto's little loudmouth ass too. Cheer for me and I'll see you when I get home. I love you!"

Fighter Interviews (Ryu)

_Do you mind introducing yourself to the people watching you that might not have seen the First World Warrior Tournament?_

"Of course, that's no problem. My name is Ryu. Just Ryu. I don't really have a home. My home is the world and I go where the battles of my life take me. That just so happens to be here and now today."

_There isn't much record of you going anywhere or doing anything since the first tournament ended. What, are you a spirit of martial arts that just shows up whenever the world spawns a challenge that you deem worth your time?_

"No. And I wouldn't joke about something like that. There really is a man like that out there. Be grateful that he isn't here. Believe me."

"_Err, really?"_

"I would never lie, especially about something as serious as this."

_Okay, well how do you feel about this tournament as opposed to the last one?_

"I'm actually very excited. Many of the fighters involved are people I've had fights against or have fought alongside, and I know for certain that they are strong warriors. The mystery that comes with the people I've never faced is also appealing. I just want to fight and prove that I'm the strongest."

_You've already done that though. Your defeat of Sagat during the finals of the first tournament happened to be an incredible performance._

"…I don't consider that victory to truly be mine. It's hard to explain why I feel this way, but just understand that much. A true victory over Sagat in this tournament, to prove that I can do it without resorting to dark places, it would mean the world to me."

_That rematch sounds like it would be incredible. What makes you think that you can win it now, or the overall tournament in general?_

"I don't know if I can win either. But isn't that why fighting is so incredible? No matter the factors involved or the elements that compose a battle, anything can happen. This is why we fight, and why the matches in this tournament will be so interesting to begin with; because the true answer lies in the battle alone. Nowhere else."

_Do you want to make a prediction right now?_

"The only prediction I can give you, is that no matter who I end up facing I'll give them my best and expect the same from them. There should be a few explosive confrontations to count on, and I plan on coming out on top in all of them."

_As expected of the champ. Is there anything you want to say to anyone watching right now?_

"This will be an incredible event. I have a nagging feeling that we all may see or be a part of something during these fights over the course of two days that no one will ever forget."

Fighter Interviews (E. Honda)

_Can you tell us your name and your place of origin for the benefit of those watching us?_

"Whatever you say bub. The name's Edmond Honda, based out of Tokyo, Japan… I'll let you all guess where since I only want strong warriors to be able to seek me out. My discipline is sumo."

_Sumo is a rather impractical fighting style for a fighter to use in a tournament that consists of street fighting isn't it? I don't wish to offend, so please don't take it that way._

"No, I hear that more than you could ever imagine. Trust me, I wouldn't be here if I wasn't capable of laying a hellacious beatdown on folks with my skills. Sumo is more versatile than you think."

_What's your motivation for being in this tournament to begin with? Reports say that you're an Ozeki level sumo, so wouldn't you be better served trying to win the title of Yokuzuna amongst your own ilk instead? This seems like a distraction to that focus._

"Wahahaha! True enough! But I'm in this tournament to try and earn some respect not just for myself, but for sumo in general. Around the world in places outside of Japan people don't see the appeal, and the dedication or hard training that it takes to take our path. If I can do that, I think I'll get promoted sooner than later."

_Do you like the tournament so far? Are you excited for it?_

"I'm ready for the action to start. I like the atmosphere and everything, but I'm just getting antsy. I hope I get to fight first and get it out of the way. Overthinking matches like this in tournament situations is always a bad thing."

_What makes you think you can win? I'm certain that you don't find yourself at a disadvantage, but other combat-savvy viewers might. Any words to sway their thoughts?_

"I've got the same chance to win as anyone else. Everyone here is a strong fighter because they stuck to their guns and did what they did the best until they stood head and shoulders above everyone else. I'll just have to pound them all into the pavement and prove that what I bring to the table is better than what they're bringing."

_Any words for the viewers that you want to let them know?_

"Don't sleep on the power of sumo, or you might wind up getting yourself hurt."

Fighter Interviews (Sasuke)

_Alright, could you introduce yourself to the people watching at home? Your name and your hometown please._

"…"

_Come on. Give us something here. You're already in the tournament, so people already know your name. We can just tell them that you qualified in China, but that could lead to inaccuracies in where people think you to be from. Where are you from?_

"Another dimension."

_Because your skills are so otherworldly?_

"Hm, you could say that… idiots. Any other questions that I can ignore?"

_What are your thoughts on the tournament so far?_

"I'm only here for the fights and none of them have started yet, so right now I honestly couldn't care less about it."

_Jeez kid, you're such a buzzkill. What exactly is annoying you about the tournament?_

"All of the screaming people. The giggling girls behind my back that won't say anything to my face. The loud announcer outside shouting at the top of his lungs about nothing like some shitty club DJ. The fact that too many people I know are here that keep trying to talk to me… especially one not-so-orange clad idiot who shall not be named. You. This set. The fact that I have to do an interview like this is some dog and pony show and you're trotting me out on display. Tell me when to stop. I can keep going all day, so I guess you can get your interview after all."

_So you said that you don't like that people you know keep trying to talk to you. Is there anyone you _do _consider a friend or like to talk to?_

"Only one person I've met in the last five years and they're not anywhere near here. Change the topic."

_What makes you think you can win the tournament?_

"Because I'm the best. Because the further in the tournament I go the easier it'll get. The more I'll see. I'll know how my next opponents fight by the next round so the first round will be the toughest, and from there I'll have all the time I need to work out a way to take their own habits and turn them against them. No one can hide anything from my eyes."

_Speaking of which, did your eyes just turn red?_

"Yes."

_How did you put in contact lenses that fast?_

"I didn't."

…

"…"

…_Okay. Could you stop glaring at me? Those red eyes are really-._

"…"

_Well that ends the interview. Thank you for your time._

"Hm."

_Wait, what? Why did I just tell him to leave? I feel like we skipped about seven other questions that I wanted to ask him, but I feel like we did them. Where did he go?_

Fighter Interviews (Dee Jay)

_Alright, alright. You don't have to have a seat, but could you calm down a touch and stay in the shots please? You're giving the floor director hell here. Now if you'd introduce yourself?_

"The name's Dee Jay mon! Comin' into your living room live, straight from Jamaica! How's that? Do you want me to do it again? Maybe the next time I should play a tune for the people to help get 'em invested in me?"

_No, no, this is fine. We're on a tight schedule here. So why did you decide to join the tournament?_

"I thought it'd be a good idea to help give myself some rhythms for the next album I'm set to record. All these fighters here, there's got to be someone that'll give me some inspiration!"

_How do you feel about the tournament so far?_

"I'm liking the beats that these Thai musicians have with their instruments, it's pretty wild stuff! I'm digging the festival atmosphere that this place has going for it, it's a good time all around mon! It's all about takin' it easy in the meantime before fighting for Dee Jay. No reason to get all stressed out!"

_Anyone you want to fight?_

"I want to give my own kickboxing a test against Muay Thai, so Sagat. Other than that, I'll fight anybody here, it's all for fun in the end isn't it?"

_Not for some people, but I see your point Dee Jay. So why do you think you can win?_

"I don't know. If I win I win mon, it's no big deal in the end. Being here to show my stuff is enough for me. No need to get greedy right?"

_Anything you want to share with the people at home? Anything you want them to hear from you?_

"Let me get my maracas, I've got a song I want the people to hear. A new release, first time in the world! Be right back!"

Fighter Interviews (T. Hawk)

_What's your name and where are you from? It's just an introduction for the viewers so that they can know who you are._

"Thunder Hawk of the Thunderfoot Tribe. I live with my people in Mexico by the Monte Albán plains."

_You don't sound very pleased with that. It's your home isn't it?_

"No. My home was taken from me and my tribe years ago."

_And you don't want to elaborate on that?_

"No. Move on. That's a warning.

_Easy, whatever you say. We'll move on. What do you think of the tournament?_

"I'm waiting to see this sponsor. I want to _thank_ him for putting this whole tournament together… personally. Show him my gratitude."

_That sounds ominous. Want to elaborate on _that_?_

"No. Next question."

_*talkative people aren't they?* Of course… well is there anything you want to say to anyone watching?_

"Bison I know you can hear me. Return my land to me, and I might consider not destroying you for what you did to Julia and the younger girl from the tribe. Of course that all depends on you. Ignoring me could be the worst mistake that you would ever make."

Fighter Interviews (Dhalsim)

"My name is Dhalsim of a small village in the Kerala region of India. My title has many definitions, but for the sake of making it easy for people to get the gist of what I do, I am a spiritual leader for the people of my village."

…_I didn't even ask you anything yet._

"My apologies, but I was able to read your mind and determine what you were going to say. Your thoughts were very loud, I take it you've asked those questions a lot over a short period of time for them to dominate your thoughts."

_Brother you're right on the money. Today's just been one of those days. So what do you think of the tournament thus far?_

"While I do not enjoy the idea of violence to be something that is celebrated and revered, I can appreciate the cheerful spirit of those around taking part in the event. It is important to find joy in your everyday life wherever you can get it. Who am I to say that people cannot derive theirs from watching other willing souls test their skills?"

_You don't like to fight?_

"No. I detest causing harm to others and will never kill another living creature. I will never fight simply for my own gains. It is not my way."

_So why would someone like you enter a fighting tournament?_

"I am here in order to raise awareness and money for my village to keep getting the things that it needs such as medical treatment, more clean water, things of that nature. If the abilities I have been gifted with are able to help the people I've been entrusted with protecting and caring for in this regard, I will go against my own beliefs to keep them healthy and safe."

_That's a rather noble approach to something like this._

"I do what I feel I must."

_So what makes you think that you can win this tournament?_

"Expectations and responsibilities… these are the ties that bind us. If we did otherwise we would not be ourselves. I will do what I have to, and I will do what I must. The only thing that I can say… is that I have nothing to say."

…_What?_

"It is not important."

_Okay. Well is there anything that you want to tell someone that might be watching?_

"I will say all that I need to through my actions. There is no need for unnecessary words."

* * *

><p><strong>Alright people. I start college classes again on Monday, and it's my last year so some of these will invariably wind up being rather time consuming. Just warning you now to prepare for that. I doubt it'll slow me down any more than having a job for the entire last year did, so I'm probably just blowing smoke here.<strong>

**Anyway, chapter complete. Later days. I'll see if I can't finish a chapter of something else soon. This was actually pretty easy to write despite how long it was.**

**Kenchi out.**


	34. Sunset on Day One

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I'm going to be Dee Jay for Halloween. Now all I have to do is grow enough hair for a mohawk and dreadlocks… or get a wig. Do they even make that wig?

**Chapter 34: Sunset on Day One**

* * *

><p>"You're going to splint it and go?" Chun-Li asked Naruto with a raised eyebrow as he sat on the ground while said temporary medical appendage was added on to Naruto's injured wrist, "That thing swelled up like a balloon right on the joint and you're still going to fight me?"<p>

"Uh huh." Naruto said, cringing as the bandages were wrapped tightly around his wrist and hand. As thick as they were wound he wouldn't be moving that thing even if Cammy hadn't snapped it like a twig fifteen minutes ago, "I don't need this hand to fight."

Yes… because it wasn't like seventy percent of his most effective offense required him to have both hands to work or anything.

If Naruto were to be completely honest with himself, which inside of his head he was screaming at himself that he was screwed, he would openly admit that his ability to fight had been significantly hampered a matter of twenty or so minutes ago by an semi-unconscious Doll.

Admitting this to himself was one thing. Letting his next opponent see him sweat too much about his current circumstance was something different altogether.

It wasn't too much longer when the doctor on hand finished applying the temporary splint to Naruto's wrist. He stood up from where he had been kneeling and let Naruto stand as well as the young man tried moving around his left arm to make sure it was set properly, "I'm sure you know that this isn't any kind of substitute for surgery and a cast, so if you're going to fight all I can do is advise you not to. You can't bend your wrist, and you can't even make a fist with that hand."

And indeed he could not. Naruto just deadpanned at his useless left hand, but nodded to the doctor anyway, "I've got it. Thanks a lot for the help." The physician on the scene acknowledged Naruto's thanks and started making his way out of the courtyard to let the fighters have their run of the place.

Now he had to face the chiding glance of Chun-Li who was probably going to tell him something about not fighting for his own safety, and about how he wasn't going to get her to take it easy on him because of his injury. Something like that, "If you fight me you're probably going to get way more hurt than you are now. I really think you should consider retiring from the tournament."

See? Right on cue.

"Look, you're probably right." Naruto said, still staring at his hand as if he could will it to heal within the next thirty seconds, "You're going to kick my ass all over the place. But remember what I said before, about how I couldn't ask Cam to do something that I wouldn't do myself? Yeah, I don't run away from things like this."

Stubborn idiot. Well Chun-Li figured that she would just have to get used to the idea of kicking a crippled teenager around, because that was what was presented for her at the moment. If she couldn't convince him to back down, especially after the effort that Cammy gave, she would just have to beat him here to keep him from getting hurt worse in a showdown with Sagat, "Are you only this dead-set on taking me on so that you can fight Sagat next round to get him back?"

"Nope." Naruto said, and while his voice confirmed his statement his eyes didn't. That was the only reason that he was a bad liar. Looking into his eyes someone could find the answer to any question that they wanted to ask him, "Now let's get this started."

Whatever he wanted. He was a big boy and he could make his own decisions.

Instead of a Tai Chi stance, Chun-Li stood in a more physical and direct kind of stance. One that Naruto hadn't seen her take before when watching her fight, "After the last time we had it out I realized that I needed to hit people like you that were fast and tough with more volume of strikes to hurt you. So I started working on training my Chinese Kempo. Enjoy." She said with a smirk.

Oh boy. Resigning himself to his combat fate, Naruto stood in his fighting stance until he realized that he was leading with the wrong side. His left was the side facing Chun-Li which meant that his broken hand would be the probing punch and first line of defense against anything she did. Not really the best idea. With a sheepish look on his face he switched to southpaw, leading with his right. Kami he hated leading with his right. That was his haymaker hand damn it.

"_After a bit of a delay for some medical issues it's time to begin the second match of the quarterfinal round. Naruto Uzumaki vs. Chun-Li: fight!"_

"You ready for this? Eyes on me Naruto!" Chun-Li's first move was to storm toward Naruto in a frontal attack. After he grounded himself down to prepare to defend or dodge whatever she tried he found himself unprepared for her first actual move.

Just outside of striking range, Chun-Li flipped over Naruto's head as quick as a whip, staying so low in her motion that when she was fully upside down her bangs actually brushed against the top spikes of Naruto's hair. All meant to provide no wasted space when she leveled Naruto with a flying kick before he could even turn to react.

Naruto fell to the ground and twisted to protect himself from landing on his injured hand and quickly rolled himself out of the way of Chun-Li's follow up move, "Hazanshu (Supreme Mountain Kick)!" With a single sudden somersault through the air, Chun-Li dropped an axe kick meant to tear Naruto into two, but it missed and busted a groove the shape of her leg into the ground through the brick, "Heh heh… that close little brother. You'd better watch yourself."

Spending no more time on the ground than he needed to, Naruto got back up and dusted his clothes off before standing at the ready. Alright, it was his turn now, "Little brother huh? Well what'll you call me when 'little brother' kicks your ass?"

"The same thing." Chun-Li stated, noting how differently the fight was going from the first time that they had engaged one another. He wasn't attacking her outright they way he had then. He seemed to be waiting, not fighting as riskily as he seemed to want to.

It was because of his hand.

The way he fought was really with his hands and legs, with his special abilities as supplements to fluster and throw off his opponents while he waited for an opening to bash an enemy into oblivion. But without his hands he couldn't do that.

As a matter of fact she'd never seen him launch any spitfires or make any clones without using his hands to make those funny little signs first.

The smile of the powerful woman was absolutely predatory at that point. Her original strategy that she had developed to use when battling Naruto was to keep her distance because she was wary of being surrounded on all sides, but now that she had seemed to break down how Naruto's powers worked she didn't have to worry about that if she was correct in her assumption.

From the look on her face, Naruto was assured that nothing good was coming his way. That was not a smile that promised good things for him. And indeed it didn't, "Kikoken (Spirit Energy Strike)!" Chun-Li fired her small yellow shot at him that was surrounded in a wispy blue shell.

Naruto jumped back away from it and watched it run out of steam, but it was only meant to keep him from completely checking her advance. Chun-Li had run at him and after the Kikoken had vanished she slid low at him. Naruto tried to time her and stomp down on her when she got close enough, but she stopped short and switched to posting up on one hand to swing her legs at him in a kick at his body.

Naruto was able to block with his good arm and had to curse his lack of a second to retaliate with. Maybe he should have gotten the doctor to tie his fingers together with the index and middle fingers extended so that he could at least bust out the clones? Health and safety be damned. It wasn't his fingers that were broken, it was his wrist. Unfortunately the latter meant that he couldn't work the former.

With a twist of her body, Chun-Li spun her body directly upside down and rotated like a helicopter with her legs outstretched, "Kaiten-teki Kaku Kyakushuu (Spinning Bird Kick)!" The kicks were high enough on the crouched Naruto that she could have scalped him if those lovely legs were blades. Were Naruto just a touch taller they might have been catching his head out of the air like a fly ball.

A rather rudimentary way to respond still worked nonetheless, and Naruto just basically shoved her and knocked her to the ground. Sometimes simple was the best, because landed almost directly on her head and was now the person on her back. After her cringe of pain, both of them actually locked eyes for a split second and somehow synched up.

Naruto quickly dove for a roll to the side out of his crouching position when Chun-Li's body seemingly respawned from the dead and tried a complete circular sweep upon waking up. After reaching his feet from the roll, Naruto launched himself right back at her as she jumped back to her feet.

It launched into a speedy mix of punches and kicks from Naruto that Chun-Li found easy to block and parry. The reason being that he was down one entire limb to attack her with, and since she could punch and kick faster than him. She found a moment and placed her foot through Naruto's instep to end his advance before shooting a palm at his face that he barely leaned out of the way of.

Her own balance was knocked off when due to the close proximity, Naruto pummeled his shoulder against her chest and face to stun her and give him an opening. With his one good arm he grabbed her collar and turned before slamming her over his shoulder hard into the ground.

"_How impressive was that? Even with just one good hand available to him, young Naruto powers his opponent down with authority!"_

A 'thank you' needed to go to Karin for forcing him to learn the slightest bit of formal grappling that she had incorporated into her own personal style. He still thought it was just an excuse for her to use three hours in order to teach him on how to touch her body, but it worked like gangbusters here.

'What?' Chun-Li thought to herself as she rolled away from the site where Naruto drove her into the dirt before he could try to subdue her the way that he did Fei Long in round one, 'Since when does Naruto use actual martial arts techniques?' First in round one he used a move that was decidedly a Muay Thai maneuver against Fei Long, and here he pulled out a random Judo technique, 'He usually fights like an agile brawler.'

It was how she had kicked his butt all over half of Victoria Harbor when they first met and she thought he was a criminal. In the beginning until he changed the site o their battle he didn't have the space for decent use of clones and he wasn't fast enough by himself for his style of combat to throw her off-guard.

A small smile found its way to her face at a sudden revelation. Naruto never fought the same way against a single enemy twice. It wasn't that he was a textbook of moves from styles all over the world. Quite the opposite really. He barely knew any actual formal technique, but he was dexterous enough to use his body in any way that he saw fit for the situation, and he was very impressionable when it came to ways of fighting and using certain methods of attack.

In other words if he saw something cool that he thought he could do he wanted to learn about it. He'd never present you with the most technical and polished assault. He'd never show himself to be a textbook of fighting ability, but the sheer versatility of what he could do was potentially staggering. He was a jack of many trades and a master of none in particular.

"Not bad." Chun-Li said, dusting herself off as she stood back on her feet. She was glad that she had another similar dress to wear tomorrow because after two fights in one day this one was thoroughly ruined, "But that was just round one."

This time Naruto took the initiative and became the aggressor, as he felt that he had adjusted well enough to fighting with the use of only one hand. Sitting back and waiting for openings wasn't his style. He'd much rather create them.

The crowd roared in approval of more rapid-fire hand-to-hand combat, but once again, Chun-Li found his moves easier to keep track of with one of his weapons on hand missing. Timing him perfectly she weaved her hands around his punching arm and struck him several times in the chest with heart stunting separate palm strikes, "Hard to change your instincts in the middle of a fight right?"

Trash talking him while kicking his tail? Oh, that was so unnecessary.

Rushing down an enemy was Naruto's hallmark of attack and had been for every single battle he had ever waged. Of course in all of those battles he had always had both hands available to him as well.

While she had been caught off-guard by the ever evolving unorthodox attack that Naruto boasted, after taking the time to mull over just what made him so effective and the fact that he didn't have access to the best things that made him special took away most of the healthy respect (see: fear) for what he could do if given the opportunity.

Without respecting what he could do to hurt her, there wasn't anything holding her back from turning him into a heavy bag with legs.

An attempt to begin defending himself from Naruto resulted in Chun-Li slapping his good arm away and battering him with heavy Kenpo-style punches that rattled his frame with every one that landed, "Quit or I'll just keep hitting you!" Chun-Li demanded, avoiding any attempts from Naruto to retaliate before making him pay once more with even more punches, "I already know how to handle you, and that was even before you messed your hand up!"

'You know how to handle me?' Naruto thought to himself. He didn't voice it aloud because his focus was on trying to avoid or at least lessen the impact of Chun-Li's swift Kenpo punches. He had to admit that he could tell that she had been training hard to learn a way to fight without dominant use of her legs to take her out of position, 'There isn't some damn blueprint on how to beat me!'

As she kept landing her blows more often than not, Naruto was able to spot a telegraphed punch from Chun-Li, but blocking with his good arm would only keep him from responding quickly, thus making him miss his chance. He had to use his head.

Literally.

Chun-Li's fist smacked off of the metal plate of Naruto's headband harmlessly as he had intentionally moved his forehead into the path of her punch. It was a gambit that worked as it gave Naruto's body a full range of motion to work with to confuse her, and counter he did, lifting his leg straight upward in a high snap kick that rocked her chin directly up and had her looking at the sky.

Lowering her head from the kick, she saw that in Naruto's good hand while his leg had been up he had been focusing on creating a Rasengan and thrust forward with it while dropping his leg from the previous kick. She stepped back to avoid it and counter, but it was merely a feint. Naruto let the blue orb of chakra fade and overextended himself on purpose.

In real time after screwing up in the heat of the moment there's a certain sort of feeling that washes over a person in the split-second between the time where they immediately realize that they had made a mistake and the time where they suffer the consequences for their mistake. Time seems to slow and a thousand thoughts go through your head. For the sake of Chun-Li we will only be paying attention to five stages of acceptance that came to her during this time span.

Denial: 'No way. I didn't misread him. He overstepped, get ready to tag that brat. He's close enough for the Kikoshou so begin building your ki and show him a real attack.'

Anger: 'I can't believe I let that kick land! I got too overzealous with my combinations! Damn it! Stupid tricky little bastard! I bet he thinks he's so cool!'

Bargaining: 'Okay, with one arm he doesn't have the juice to really knock me out. He can't even use any of his ninjutsu attacks other than the one he just outright whiffed. I'll take his hit, get back up, and keep kicking his ass.'

Depression: 'Man… I blew it. Am I really at a kid's mercy depending on his next move?'

Acceptance: 'Fine. Show me what you've got Naruto. But you'd better make it count. Don't let me stop your next move or you're through.'

Naruto's overstepped Rasengan wasn't a miss. It was entirely intended. While it was a waste of chakra, he couldn't think of anything dangerous enough to make Chun-Li panic into stepping out of her own punching range. His Rasengan hand reached far enough forward that he was touching the ground, at which time he stepped through with a wheel kick that drilled her right in the shoulder/neck area.

She let out a gasp and quickly realized that gratefully her right arm was not dislocated and useless, nor had Naruto crushed her collarbone. Luck had spared her that much at least.

XxX

"Man I can't believe he's lasting and doing this well." Ken said, eyes locked firmly on the battle below, "But then again, when we fought him I remember his hands staying busy a lot for those sign language things that he does to use his special moves." Naruto used his hands mostly to block unless he was certain that the punch he threw would land.

With a nod, Ryu had to concur, "He's protected his left side as if his life depended on it." No hit that Chun-Li landed throughout the fight made contact with his left arm, even when he had to hold it behind his back to do so, "She can't seem to land anything to take advantage of his injury, and it isn't for lack of trying. Naruto just isn't letting her do it."

So he was letting himself get beaten up earlier because his right side could take it as opposed to where she was really aiming. Ryu had fought Naruto and had rushed him before. There was no way that his defense was as shoddy as he had shown it to be when Chun-Li had been on the assault. He knew how to protect himself better than that.

That was a shift in style that Ken didn't really like, "So because he's hurt he's allowing himself to be hurt all over… just so that he isn't injured anymore on his injured side from trying to defend properly?"

"More or less." Ryu said, narrowing his eyes on the scene, "She's going to try and finish him now. He can't trick her into missing and she'll be sharper from here on out. She knows that the last sequence should have put an end to the fight. Only sheer luck kept her in it."

XxX

In his head, Naruto mentally cursed at the sight of Chun-Li shaking out her right arm and showing it to be mostly fine, 'It's got to be those puffy sleeves of hers. No way that the kick I landed doesn't bust a stack of bricks. No way.' He looked down at his own right hand and formed another Rasengan in it, but when he looked up he saw Chun-Li throw her arms forward in double palm strike, only from a distance.

"Kikoken (Spirit Energy Strike)!"

Her quick little shot of ki flew Naruto's way and he had to circumvent the damage by slamming his Rasengan into it. A blast followed that covered his body, but it wasn't half as strong as a Hadoken, even from Sakura. Thus when the smoke cleared, the only thing that had happened were the burns that littered his arm. And he charged.

Chun-Li hadn't expected the projectile to really hurt Naruto and hadn't put much effort into it other than to make it fast enough to reach him. Instead she tried a roundabout way of getting close, choosing to jump at a nearby large statue that they had been fighting near. Naruto had been going after her with his Rasengan and smashed it into the statue to utterly destroy it.

In a fleet-footed show of agility, Chun-Li merely kicked off of the statue lightly just before Naruto managed to turn it to rubble and wound up landing directly behind him with a glint in her eye, "Kikoshou (Spirit Energy Blast)!" Before she had ever even landed, she had been forming a crackling ball of blue ki in between her palms. Like the center of her usual Kikoken only blue in color and seemingly more stable.

The moment she touched down she sent her hands out forward and the ball in her hands expanded with a torrent of power exploding from it, causing it to quadruple in size, so much so that a blue outline orb surrounded and resonated from her entire body. Even that part was intense enough to tear segments of brick up from the ground around her body. And Naruto was her target.

The target wasn't too keen on merely being a target for a finishing technique though. And that target was Naruto, who instantly shoved a Rasengan-filled hand right into the ground and let it burst instead of drive, assisting in a jump that shot him into the air like a rocket. Unsafely high as a matter of fact, 'Oh this was a bad idea!' If nothing else, it got him away from blue death at the hands of Chun-Li's ultimate ki technique, but landing was to be the new problem presented to his health.

Two seconds of hang time after his three second rise topped out. That was five seconds before his fall back to the ground began, and enough time for Chun-Li to run clear out of steam with the Kikoshou.

As the last dregs of ki forced its way out of Chun-Li's body, she slumped forward in a momentary show of weakness before quickly trying to recover. It wasn't her fault. The sheer amount of energy that attack took to use drained her miserably, hence why she refrained from using it in the first round against Balrog. It wasn't needed to guarantee a finish the way it was here.

But she had missed, and now she was spent. No, she had one shot left. He was stuck in the air and unlike the last time they fought he couldn't bombard her with distance attacks, 'Time him and end this. He'll drop right into your lap. Unless he learned how to fly he doesn't have a choice.' In the midst of his fall, Naruto positioned himself into a swan dive, 'A safety roll?' That was an extremely high-level acrobatic move.

Used during dangerous falls at a forward trajectory to try and space out the impact area of the landing if not avoid it altogether. With an added wrinkle.

The moment Naruto's head and shoulders touched to begin the roll he was already in a ball. Chun-Li's counter was already ruined by his positioning, but she certainly didn't expect to get double mule kicked in the face before Naruto even finished his first roll.

The worst hits are the ones you never see coming, and after seeing the soles of Naruto's sandals Chun-Li didn't see anything else. Thank you Blanka for the rolling idea. It almost broke his damn neck though.

Knowing that his blow landed flush, Naruto's roll completed with him lying on his back and staring up at the sky until he heard the sound of a limp body hitting the ground in a heap. At that point he blinked tiredly before sitting up and looking at Chun-Li's unmoving body set twenty feet away from him, "Are we done onee-chan?"

He got no response and took that as a yes. With a look at the big screen Naruto frowned and rolled his eyes at the sight of how damnably ragged he looked thanks to the efforts of both Chun-Li and Fei Long. Thank Kami this was his last fight until tomorrow.

"_The winner by knockout is Naruto Uzumaki! He'll be moving on to day two and the semifinals to face Sagat next!"_

What a day.

XxX

"Idiot." Sasuke said to himself from his seat by himself where he had been watching the match in peace. Despite his words, he had a smirk on his face. Leave it to Naruto to find a way to win a fight against someone like Chun-Li with access to only one jutsu.

"You shouldn't refer to your friend as such."

Sasuke almost jumped out of his skin at the sound of the calm yet powerful voice coming from directly behind him. Sitting on the roof of the competitor's waiting building, higher up near the top was Dhalsim in a meditative position.

How in the world did this person sneak up on him? There had been professionally trained assassins that couldn't do such a thing to him. But as he thought about it Sasuke realized why. He could feel no hitch in Dhalsim's emotions. No excitement, anger, pride, bloodlust for the coming battle they were to have. Nothing that went with those that were about to be enemies.

'Who is this person supposed to be?' Sasuke thought to himself before schooling his features, "Naruto's not my friend. He used to be my classmate and teammate a long time ago. Friends aren't really my thing."

"There's no need to lie boy." Dhalsim said, sounding assured yet not necessarily accusing in his method of speech, "I can feel it. You do not despise people as much as you try to make it seem that you do. You're actually quite fond of more than a few of them."

What was this? The last thing Sasuke needed or wanted was his opponent getting into his head before they ever even fought, "Leave…" Sasuke growled out. And without another moment to waste, Dhalsim vanished right before his eyes via teleportation. And that gave Sasuke thoughts, "Hm, actually… maybe this man can be useful to me." He thought aloud after Dhalsim had left.

He still had to kick his ass first.

With that, Sasuke jumped down from the roof when he saw Naruto entering the same building he was sitting on. He still had time to kill before his quarterfinal match against Dhalsim, and he had already seen Ryu and Ken fight. They were up next so he needed to get ready anyway.

XxX

(Fighter Standby Building – Medic Bay)

After winning his match, Naruto had taken the initiative to carry Chun-Li up to the medical area himself. He was going that way anyway so that he could get his hand checked over for real now that there was time for it.

He proceeded to set the woman down on one of the vacant beds, flinching at having to use his left hand to make sure he had been holding her up safely. Pain aside, he spared her a scrutinizing look before the doctors got there. From what he could tell with his 'limited' medical experience, she was fine. Her breathing was steady, her pulse was strong. Nothing was really wrong, he just knocked her straight unconscious.

No big deal right? Hits to the head weren't that bad. He took them all the time and he turned out just fine.

"Yeah you're gonna be fine…" Naruto said before snickering slightly, "…Onee-chan. I still can't believe you called me 'little brother' to throw me off." Pinching the senior fighter's cheek the way everyone always seemed to do to tease him he pulled back when he saw her scowl and heard her actually growl at him in her unaware state, "Okay, I'll just talk to you later."

The doctors came in at that point to begin assisting the downed Hong Kong native and basically butted Naruto out of the way so that he didn't make things more difficult for their work and he didn't have any problems with that. He knew all of jack shit about actual medical knowledge anyway.

And speaking of current patients, Cammy still looked to be down and out over on her bed. Her face looked to be a bit fitful in her resting state, but she had been battered pretty badly in defeat against Sagat. She was a tough cookie though. She'd be up and back to her normal self in no time.

The sweet little thing might have snapped his wrist like a pair of chopsticks, but she didn't mean it and he knew it. Cammy probably didn't even realize that she did it.

"So broken hand huh?" Naruto already knew that Sasuke had been there. He didn't think that the bastard cared. Meh, he probably still didn't, "You know that if you don't fix that you're going to get torn apart tomorrow. But then again you always did have freaky-fast healing." Except for when they both got their asses handed to them by Akuma, but that was just a full-on rout all around. That was a different situation entirely.

Instead of replying confidently, Naruto just looked at his hand and at the ratty splint that adorned it. He still healed so quickly that medical scientists would have called him a marvel, but the potency of his recovery ability was still stunted.

Damn it, where was Dhalsim? He was ready to fix the problem already!

Ugh, getting all bent out of shape about it wouldn't solve anything, and he was in the middle of a conversation, "I'll be fine. You've still got a match to win yourself, so I don't want to hear that out of you." If he beat Dhalsim, Sasuke would have to fight Ken or Ryu next, so it wasn't like he'd have it easy either if he advanced, "What do you want?"

Sasuke scoffed and almost turned his nose up at the prospect, "What makes you think I want anything from you?" Aside from the fact that he went directly to him, "I'm preparing for my last match today." He noticed that his subtle insult/slight didn't get the usual rise out of Naruto that he had expected it to and noticed the pair of females lain up in bed, "How are they doing?"

He had been the chief reason that one had ended up like that, and he lived with the other one at home so concern was clearly understandable.

"Fine. They just need to rest right now." Naruto gestured with his head for the two of them to leave the room and the girls have some peace and quiet, "Let's take this somewhere else." He momentarily grabbed Cammy's hand and stroked the back of it with his thumb before letting her alone and going on his way.

Sasuke noticed this, but said nothing about it as he went with Naruto further down the hall to request some assistance with his left hand. There was a need to locate some doctors in waiting in order to get someone to help him, "Come on… with your luck if you don't get that thing checked out stuff will start falling off."

XxX

(Elsewhere in the Martial Arts Temple)

Much like the medical services, the monks of the temple provided housing for the competitors of the tournament, and since more than a few of them had departed after their losses in the first round it was much easier to accommodate the remaining fighters.

With his station as a national hero they had of course given Sagat the finest room that they could provide with their humble amenities, but even so it was still a rather nice place to stay. It was much more than Sagat needed, which was just a place to rest and quietly meditate to prepare himself for tomorrow.

He just wanted to be left alone in isolation until the time came for him to clear his last hurdle tomorrow before taking on Ryu in the final round. That didn't seem to be an option though as he could feel an intentionally powerful presence outside of his door.

For someone that didn't want to be found by seemingly every other participant in the competition, he was certainly coming to bother Sagat quite often.

"What do you want Bison?" Sagat said in an unamused tone of voice. He had endured his fill of the man for one day, that was for certain, "I'm taking this time to myself until my matches tomorrow."

"Just wanted to let you know that Ryu is about to have his bout." He could see the slimy smile on the dictator's face even from behind the door to his room, as if he always had an ace up his sleeve to keep the upper hand, "I figured that would be something you wanted to see."

"No need." Sagat said, dismissive of the entire thing, "The only time I need to see him is when we finally meet in the final fight. Until then everything else is a precursor." Not that Bison could see it, but he then snarled angrily, "Bison… if you do anything to keep him from coming into our destined battle at any less than his absolute best-."

"I would never interfere with the integrity of _my_ tournament."

Of course he wouldn't. Because once he did, people would know that he was truly there and all bets would be off. There wouldn't be any more song and dance waiting on him. Anyone that was able enough to do so would go for his jugular without delay. Several people in the tournament wanted his head on a pike, and more than a few of them were of the kill-at-the-nearest-opening variety.

"Good." Sagat said regardless of how much he distrusted his 'boss', "Because the moment things stray from our agreed upon terms I don't care what you have over me or will try to hold against me. You'll have to try and kill me, because this fight with Ryu is something I would stake my life on regardless."

"Have it your way then." Bison said as he departed from behind the door, back to wherever he was taking refuge until he felt it necessary to insert himself into the affair, "Good luck."

Sagat merely returned to his inner pondering, trying to get his mind right for the trials of tomorrow, "Luck is for losers…"

XxX

(Temple Courtyard – Ken vs. Ryu)

Standing in front of each other in their similar gi attire, Ken and Ryu both stared at each other with differing looks on their faces. The confident, stoic, well-prepared expression of Ryu as he seemed to be sizing his best friend up, and Ken's look of boisterous assurance and excitement at getting to compete against one another.

They had some tough acts to follow, but right now wasn't about how good the fight would be. No, they just wanted to defeat the other. It was as simple as that.

"Ready?" Ken asked, flicking his blonde hair over his shoulder casually, smirking at his childhood training partner, "Don't think all of that 'defending champion' crap means anything to me. You'd better come at me to win bro."

"Don't worry about me, I'll hold up my end of things." Ryu replied, slipping into their shared fighting stance that Ken mirrored, "You'll get nothing less than one-hundred percent in this match." There was no need for him to bow to Ken as equals. That much went unsaid as far as they were concerned. They had done things like this hundreds of times before.

Just not in front of an audience and to a definite finish.

"_The third match of the quarterfinals features the U.S. Champion Ken Masters against the defending tournament champion in Ryu! Fight!"_

The first to make a move was Ken, who dashed forward in a blur before stopping just out of striking range. Ryu didn't bite on the fake though, and Ken used a switch-leg front kick to probe at Ryu's defenses.

Other than being knocked back a couple of steps, Ryu was well off and ready to bring the fight right back to his friend. He started striking with his left and right hands, but Ken was able to get inside and block the punches before they could swing around and gain any power to them. Dropping low he aimed to kick out one of Ryu's legs and succeeded in doing so, dropping him to one knee before sticking him with an uppercut that sent him stumbling back, chin raised in the air with a darkening bruise on it.

A very pleased looking Ken didn't try to over-pursue as he knew that Ryu wasn't stunned enough to warrant an all-out follow up attack. Still he was very pleased with his current handiwork, landing the first clean blow of the battle, "No steak for you after today I'd wager."

Ryu lowered his chin with a challenging look on his face as he tried to downplay just how solidly Ken had hit him. It was really a great shot. Had Ken been in the position to use the Shoryuuken it probably would have ended the fight, but the blond bomber clearly took what he could get on that occasion, "You get one of those." Everybody gets one.

"I'll get as many as I damn well want!" Ken stated aloud as he headed back in to do battle with his opponent once again.

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" Ryu fired a quick blast of blue ki at Ken who dodged to the side, but that was according to plan. Ryu followed the path of his own Hadoken in his approach and got Ken's side in an outmaneuvering attempt. Ken spotted him and turned to face him properly, but suffered a hard fist sunken deep in his belly that lifted him off of the ground.

Transferring and chaining out of the energy of that punch, Ryu grabbed the front of Ken's gi and the back of it with his other hand before tightening his thick muscles and shifting into a hard slam onto the ground that smashed the brick.

"_What high impact! And the fight is still in its early stages! This is going to get wild ladies and gentlemen!"_

The moment Ken's body hit the ground, blood that had originally started welling up from how Ryu had punched him sprayed from his mouth. What a forceful move. He thought that Ryu would be too straightforward in his fighting approach to pull a wily feint with his bread and butter attack; his Hadoken.

But when Ryu's hand left his gi, Ken spun around on his back and swept at Ryu's legs to keep him from following up. Ryu was no fool though and flipped in the air over the attempt at his standing base.

Ken kipped back up to his feet nimbly and met Ryu's falling kick with a forceful punch that sent out a shockwave upon impact. No one was close enough to feel it, but the statues of the courtyard were, and some that weren't already destroyed by the day of battles had some pieces chip off of them as a result.

Both men were pushed away, Ken back along the ground and Ryu into a backflip that he landed safely from. Since he already had his legs underneath him the next move belonged to Ken as he tracked Ryu's trajectory and leapt at him, spinning like a top with one leg extended, "Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (Tornado Whirlwind Leg)!"

Ryu landed and immediately got his arms up to block, but it was far too much force for him to hold up against and the spinning kicks knocked him off of his feet and back through the air until he landed and rolled through back on his feet to meet an advancing Ken.

As they broke into vicious hand-to-hand fighting that looked almost choreographed in how smooth each parry and dodge was, the crowd roared in approval and chanted the name of their favorite fighter in the current matchup.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Fighter Standby Building – Medic Bay)

No surgery was really needed as Cammy had just dislocated his wrist badly, but they still needed to protect that joint from further damage while it healed. Sasuke stood by and took a sort of morbid satisfaction in seeing and hearing the doctor pop Naruto's wrist back into place. The look on his face of him trying not to yell out was admittedly hilarious as well.

While a protective shell was being placed around Naruto's hand and lower forearm, Sasuke decided to appease his earlier curiosity, "You're into that girl. That Cammy girl." It wasn't so much a question as it was a statement.

"I don't know." Naruto said, annoyed at having to keep his entire left arm still so that the cast could be put on him, "It's weird. Don't ask. I can't tell, but even if I am I don't need it. There are already girls that want something to do with me, and I care about them all too." He really hoped that they would just outgrow him at some point, because he didn't know what he wanted.

While he could appreciate the cautious approach to a delicate situation, the rebuttal was decidedly blunt, "Pick one and be done with it." Sasuke insisted with a roll of his eyes, "It's not rocket science dobe. Just do what you want. There's nothing more to it than that."

In return the Uchiha teen took a glare from Naruto, "Listen, this isn't your kind of thing where I'm gonna ignore them for four years and hope they go away. And it's not like you where you're only into one girl for sure that you want anything to do with." He said, giving Sasuke a flat stare when he looked away from him, "You treat Kazama Daigo's little sister Akira ten times better than you've ever treated any other girl I've ever-."

"Shut up or I'll break your other hand." In response to the threat, Naruto just lifted said unbroken free hand in a defensively dismissive manner as things cooled down again. This brought Sasuke to his next point, "I think I've got a lead on how to get us home. Dhalsim. His teleportation ability has to be some kind of space-time thing."

Naruto hesitated a bit at hearing Sasuke speak about going back to their dimension. He didn't know if it was the ringing in his head or not, but he figured it was time to be honest with himself and by proxy Sasuke as well, "…Sasuke, I don't want to go back. I love it here."

Batsu was right. Even if it had been a promise, if it made him miserable and broke his life and the lives of many other up there was no reason to keep seeking such a thing.

"I already know, remember? You think I do?" That wasn't the response from Sasuke that Naruto had expected, "I don't want to go back. There's nothing for me there except a jail cell or the gallows. I defected from the village, attacked two of its shinobi on the way out, put four more in mortal danger, and joined the sworn enemy of Konoha." When you were an Uchiha Clan member you did everything big, especially when it came to fucking things up, in one sense or another.

And it was true enough if one were to be realistic. It wasn't like very much good will would be instilled by his body of actions, especially once it was noted that Sasuke had heightened his Cursed Seal to the state that it was really meant to be used at.

"If that's the case, why are you looking for a way back?"

"Because while I might not want to go home, I _need_ to go back home Naruto. I'm the only one that can kill my brother."

"What if he's already dead?"

"…Then I don't need to go back at all. But there's no way I can find out stuck here."

"…Somebody told me that I should just do what I want; what makes me happy. If you go back to kill your brother but you're stuck as a missing-nin, is that really going to make you happy?"

Sasuke hadn't been happy since he was seven years old. The thought of actually doing something for himself instead of what he felt he needed to do felt foreign to him. He almost committed to such a thing back when they had been on Team 7, but things changed again and put him right back on the determined path of revenge.

"_Revenge is not always sweet. Once it is consummated we feel inferior to our victim."_

"_Living well in the face of your perpetrator is the best revenge."_

Gen's words. He seemed to have a million little proverbs in his head. How the old killer knew that Sasuke's motivations for strength had been revenge he'd never know, but he'd been going on about it for years. Even now to this day still.

In the end, Sasuke just shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to leave Naruto alone in the room where his cast was being placed on his arm. Naruto couldn't follow due to the diligent work meant to cover his arm in a protective shell, "Naruto I've forgotten what being happy feels like." He said when Naruto was far out of earshot.

XxX

(Temple Courtyard – Ryu vs. Ken)

A punch lands to Ryu's temple that snaps his head around.

A retaliatory punch connects that smashes Ken's nose on his face.

A kick slams a shin into Ryu's side, nearly folding him in half.

The kick is caught and in return an uppercut hits Ken under the chin while his legs is caught.

Already off-balance, Ken was knocked up slightly by the uppercut before back handspringing through it and landing on his feet. But the moment he got his eyes back on Ryu he saw the man preparing a Hadoken. Another one? Come on bud, he had to come a bit more original than that. They had been taught the same way, "Shakunetsu Hadoken (Scorching Surge Fist)!"

And Ryu shot off a Hadoken that glowing orange and looked none too friendly to the touch. Well that was a new wrinkle.

Thinking that it was just cosmetic in difference though, Ken managed to find a way to dodge it, but felt the sheer heat coming off of it when it passed by him. No, that wasn't even close to the same Hadoken that they had both known.

Just how different it was happened to be put on display when it flew the length of the arena and collided with the protective wall, exploding hard on contact and shocking the fans nearby into fear.

Ken was amazed that Ryu had created a Hadoken stronger than the original that exploded in contact. Dangerous to use as it was, it created explosions, and explosions were cool. Both men were taking visible breaths and were wearing the bruises and wounds of war, "If you think that a new Hadoken is all it'll take to beat me, you're dead wrong."

"It couldn't hurt to try and win with it though." Ryu said with a rare smirk on his face before getting into position to fire another one. Ken seemed prepared to dodge as he saw the ki build in Ryu's hands, but Ryu instead of shooting the projectile vanished in a blur of speed and caught Ken unaware with a series of punches from the backside at his kidneys on both sides.

Swinging around in an about face to keep the pressure away from his blindspot, Ken only served to turn himself around as Ryu moved with him and continued his onslaught on Ken's torso. Did Ryu really know how Ken moved that well to the extent that he could so effectively shadow him? It seemed so, because that was what was happening.

Eventually his legs gave out and Ken stumbled forward a few steps before he fell face forward on the ground due to the beating that his body had taken. A few coughs and droplets of blood dripped onto the ground as a result and Ken had to take into account that Ryu had been using his guts as a heavy bag for an extended period of time.

Wary of the possibility of a sudden resilient wakeup counter from Ken, Ryu stayed back and shifted into a cooldown stance while he waited for Ken to either be deemed unable to continue or get off of the ground.

'Okay… none of that was cool.' Ken thought to himself as he picked himself back up, 'Fine then. I asked for it didn't I?" That he did. And he was about to give it right back to Ryu in kind.

Speaking of whom, Ryu was not surprised in the least when Ken got up again. He knew that the man would be a tougher out than that. He was actually pleased that living in his comfortable life with his wife didn't dull Ken's fighting spirit any. After getting back up, Ken beckoned him forth again and Ryu wasn't shy to do just that.

Streaking ahead, Ryu smashed his fist off of Ken's head, but he didn't stumble back. Instead he grabbed Ryu by the inside of his glove to ensure he had a grip and pulled him into a backwards roll. Ken had them rolling in reverse like a wheel before finally kicking Ryu off and hurling him into the stone stairs, breaking into them with his body.

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!"

The ball of ki slammed into Ryu and mashed him farther into the stairs on impact, also burning away part of the front of his gi and the skin on his chest. Ken's Hadoken attacks weren't as fast or as strong as his own, but they were still destructive.

"You give up?" Ken shouted across the courtyard at Ryu who was slowly starting to get up from the rubble that had been formed out of the steps. No one would be using the first five of those again. Still though, Ryu gave no answer when he got to his feet again, and Ken fired another Hadoken across the field, striking him right in the chest, "How about now?"

Being blown into a reclining position in the hole on the stairs wasn't really as comfortable as it sounded. Ryu felt like his entire rib structure could have been blown out of his back by Ken's second Hadoken and he found it hard to even move from his place. Still though, he was not about to surrender. If Ken wanted to win he had to stop him for real.

"So hardheaded…" Ken said as he charged another Hadoken and let it fly, "I can do this until you black out you know!" And to prove his point he kept firing away. Each blast that landed shoving Ryu further into the hole that was carved from the ancient stairs. The crowd cringed and felt the ground shake from every single one that landed.

'Is this really what's going to beat me?' Ryu thought to himself frantically as he felt his body begin to shut down. His arms became heavier and harder to move and the bump count of the battle was beginning to catch up to him with the damage accumulated.

He could hear each shot that he felt slamming off of him, he could hear the stone and dirt crumbling around him, he could hear the crowd noise pounding in his ears, and then it all began to fade out. The sounds stopped, the pain stopped even though Ken's attack had yet to cease.

And Ryu began to mentally panic. Was he out of it? Would they stop the fight? Was it all over? No, he couldn't lose like that. He owed not only Ken, but the people watching him his very best. He had to prove to himself that he was as powerful as everyone thought he was from the first tournament, that his win over Sagat wasn't a fluke and that he could do it without the evil Satsui no Hadou.

He couldn't lose yet. Not there. Not when he had so much to prove.

"**You're stronger than him! Why are you letting that weakling get the better of you? Fighting is who we are! Now stand up!"**

The urging of the dark drive to win inside of his head prompted to Ryu to basically rise from the dead, even as another Hadoken impacted off of him. He merely snarled and shrugged it off. His now tattered white gi hung off of his waist where his belt had been holding it closed until then. Before he could take one more shot he seemingly vanished from sight without even moving his legs, as if he were sliding across the ground.

Ken caught sight of his movements and his jaw dropped, "That speed technique… I've seen that before!" From Akuma. The Ashura Senku (Asura Flashing Sky). It was what the more-demon-than-man used to dodge his surprise attack and knock him out cold from his blind spot in one fluid movement, "How did he learn to do that?"

"I'll show you a real Hadoken." Ryu said in a grim and vile tone of voice before moving his arms into position and charging an intense concentration of purple energy, larger than the normal Hadoken that he normally created, "Die in flames!"

There was something seriously wrong and Ken knew it. Ryu's eyes had turned red in color and there was an aura of darkness around him, visibly red in color. No, this was too much like_ that_ man… like Akuma. A tentatively defensive Ken kept a wary eye on Ryu as his power seemed to grow stronger and stronger. The chipped pieces of stone from the battlefield began to levitate somewhat off of the ground due to his mere presence, "Oh hell, I can't beat that straight up. Not a chance."

"Metsu Hadoken (Destroying Surge Fist)!"

A gargantuan rippling purple ball of ki was fired from Ryu's hands like a bullet and even before it flew Ken could feel the sheer killing intent flying off of it. There wasn't a chance that he could survive if it hit him, "You've got to be kidding me!" Channeling ki to his legs to the extent that the bottoms of his pants caught ablaze, Ken focused every bit of power he had with only one intent behind it, "Man I really hope Eliza isn't watching this! Guren Senpukyaku (Crimson Lotus Whirlwind Kick)!"

It was an absolutely awe-inspiring sight.

Spinning like a flaming saw blade, Ken cut Ryu's massive Hadoken clean in half with his legs. The two split halves of the horrible attack continued to fly until they reached the large arches at the end of the arena that had seen fighters like Fei Long make their exit from the venue altogether. Well it was turned into a towering heap of falling rubble when the two segmented Hadoken halves hit them and obliterated them.

As things had just gotten real and threatening, people started panicking and clearing the way in the opposite direction from where the destruction had been wrought. They knew that the people in the tournament were strong, but to completely annihilate a beautiful, well-built, and durable piece of key temple architecture like that was terrifying. And Ken had just survived such a thing by cutting it in half with his kicks?

Ken landed in a spinning, sliding stop from his kicks, but despite going straight through the Hadoken right at Ryu, the man himself wasn't on the other side of his own ultimate projectile.

But without warning, Ryu appeared behind him in a speedy burst with his arm raised to deliver a finishing rabbit punch of death to the back of Ken's neck. He stopped short however and seemed to be fighting with himself to bring it all to an end, 'No! I'm not that kind of person! I won't kill, especially not my closest friend!'

"**Finish him off! Begin the ****Shun Goku Satsu (Instant Hell Murder)****! He's ripe for the killing! Prove our strength by taking his life! Only the strong should be allowed to live and no one is stronger than we are!"**

The gasp of the crowd alerted Ken that Ryu had taken his back, and without hesitating due to his buddy's seeming intent to end his life he moved to take advantage. It was still a fight, and he could still see the murder in Ryu's eyes, "Shinryuuken (Divine Dragon Fist)!" Ken put everything he had into a flaming Shoryuuken that sucked Ryu's body into a vertical spiraling vacuum of fire that carried him up past Ken's fist and into the air.

A flaming Ryu fell from the air and dropped to the ground in a heap, staring at the sky with his normal brown eyes instead of the warped red eyes that he possessed under the influence of his dark side.

He was still conscious, but his body wouldn't respond to anything any longer, 'I… lost.' He thought to himself as he shut his eyes in serene contemplation, "…Good."

This merely proved that the evil inside of him wasn't suppressed the way he wanted it to be yet. To prove himself as the true fighter he knew he could be he simply could not rely on that twisted surge of power from within him. It influenced him to do terrible things. He was about to kill Ken for God's sake. If he hadn't stopped himself and had actually gone through with it he didn't know what he would have done afterwards.

A thoroughly exhausted Ken stood over him, looking down in a scrutinizing manner as he tried to locate any sign of an unstable Ryu, "Is that you back in there bro? Did I punch all of the crazy out of you?"

"For now anyway." Ryu replied in a mumble with a straining sigh, "You win today."

Having dealt with a killer Ryu in the past, Ken had to admit that the brainwashed Ryu under the influence of Bison's Psycho Power was nothing compared to Satsui no Hadou Ryu. There was simply no comparison. One was just more brutal and callous than regular Ryu, and the other was supercharged in addition to being infinitely more violent and uncaring in the devastation that he inflicted.

He never came face-to-face with this power when Ryu was having his identity crisis years back, but now he could see why his best friend had been so alarmed at the time. On two separate occasions he could have ended Ken's life in back-to-back situations, "Man, if you learned how to harness that power-."

"-I can't! I don't need it!" Ryu snapped from his place on the ground, "Don't you see by now? If I give in to that power I'll become like _him_! Like Akuma! You were right here! You saw exactly what it did to me!"

If there was one thing that Ken didn't like hearing out of Ryu it was the sound of him being a quitter. It just didn't fit with who the man was. Being afraid of himself was just not in the question. With an abject turn he walked away from Ryu as the medics ran onto the field to assist the downed former champion, "Okay. Well until you learn how to either use it and win with it or suppress it and keep from freaking out you can just keep losing like this when the fights get too tough." He said dismissively.

He wasn't about to help Ryu throw a pity party for himself. They were meant to push and drive each other to new heights, not stay muddled with each other down in the dumps. No one grew any stronger or better as a man that way. He won today. Ryu lost today. He was meant to focus on how to fix what went wrong and learn from it for next time, not dwell on it and lose his nerve. The last time Ryu did that his slump lasted for longer than a year.

"_In what I have to say is something of an upset, Ken Masters has defeated and eliminated the last champion of the World Warrior Tournament! Ryu is out, and Ken advances to the semifinal round to face the winner of the last match of the day. In just a moment it'll be Sasuke vs. Dhalsim, but I don't see how they can top the incredible display we've just seen!"_

XxX

(Fighter Standby Building – Medic Bay)

"No way. He's out?" It was hard for Naruto to believe as the last touches to his hard cast on his left arm were put on. He had managed to view the battle between friends and fighters of the same discipline on the TV provided in the room and he was surprised by what he had seen, "Wow. Ryu actually lost after all of that."

Was that the strange Hadou power that Ryu had told him about once upon a time? It was definitely reminiscent of the strength that Akuma used to utterly batter them into pulp back in the summer, but not as refined, as if he were inexperienced with what to do to make the use of so much dark ki.

It was clear that he held back from the finish though. It was a good thing that he did too, because from the looks of the first strike of what he was going to do to put an end to the fight with Ken it would have crippled or killed him.

"And we're done." The doctor affixing the solid cast to Naruto's arm said, patting it a few times to make sure that it was as dense and as hard as he had figured it would be, "That should keep that hand safe until the joint and the tendons in your wrist repair themselves… at least until you fight again." He then got up muttering to himself about how his hard work was just going to get destroyed within twenty-four hours of him completing it.

"Thanks." Naruto said to the departing doctor, only getting a grunt and a half-hearted wave over the shoulder from the medical worker. But with the rush of injuries that the day had brought his work it was understandable that he'd be grouchy. This tournament was tearing the formerly beautiful and elaborate courtyard of the martial arts monastery apart and had already reduced one very grand structure outside of it to chunks of rock.

With no more reason to sit in the lone room by himself he walked back into the place set aside for the injured competitors that needed the rest, such as Chun-Li and Cammy. The other fighters were still on the premises doing their own thing elsewhere, and Naruto wasn't about to go around searching for them before the last match of the day. He needed to get to Dhalsim and the only time he'd know where the man was for sure was during his fight with Sasuke. He needed to be able to get down there quickly after their match had concluded so he needed to stay close to the courtyard.

Upon entering the room he found Chun-Li awake and sitting up in her bed with her boots off, her ox-tails undone letting her hair down naturally, a bandage wrapped around her forehead, and one stuck to her cheek covering a deep bruise that he had inflicted on her. The doctors had clearly made sure that she could be as comfortable as possible for the duration of her downtime.

Her eyes flickered to him and gifted him with a warm smile, not angry about her defeat, "What's up little brother? Came to check up on me?"

"I just watched Ryu get beaten by Ken in high-definition." Naruto remarked, sitting down on her bed next to her once she pulled her legs in to give him room, "So that leaves me against Sagat tomorrow and Ken against either Dhalsim or Sasuke." But he didn't care too much about that as his gaze moved over to Cammy again, "Did she wake up yet?"

"No." Chun-Li said with a frown, "But she did take a pretty bad beating at the end there. Worse than anyone else that lost in this whole thing. She's aware though. You can see her respond to things when you touch her so she's fine. Probably just exhausted." She then shoved Naruto up off of the bed with one of her feet, "Now go watch the last match. I'll be right here in case anything changes."

When Chun-Li pushed him with her leg she nearly kicked him straight out the door whether she knew it or not so she was clearly fine other than the beating that he had to give her to defeat her, "You sure you're up for it?"

"Yeah, sure. It's not like I can leave her alone when she can't defend herself right?" She said with a shrug, "You've got to remember that this tournament is still Shadaloo-sponsored. Bison could try anything anywhere, and a snake like him would go after the softest target he could first. She's the only one of us that stayed down and out after she lost to Sagat, and I doubt that having his right-hand man beat the daylights out of her marks the limit of what he wants with us."

Okay, yeah. Good idea. The medic bay was kind of remote. Even though they were martial arts monks and would definitely try to stop him if he attempted to kidnap Cammy under their watch (sponsor or not), the medics probably couldn't stop Bison from doing so or worse if he tried to leave with her.

"Well if you need help in a hurry just make a mess of something." Naruto said, making the okay sign with his fingers, "Everyone else around here is doing it, right?" He tried to keep spirits up, but the day was turning into a cluster and nothing had even happened yet.

As he walked down the weathered hall to head back outside he threw his hands up behind his neck and squinted his eyes in thought. Everyone that knew what was up with the tournament had been turned into a bundle of nerves and Bison hadn't even shown that he was even alive to them yet.

Guile was losing his sense of self after his bid for revenged tapered out in the very first round and had gone off to do whatever it was he did when he inwardly reflected. He seemed to be a shaken man.

While not directly involved in everything, he was still aware of it all, and Blanka had gotten his arm broken by Cammy. Afterwards he had gone off into the forests around the temple to rest and heal where he felt comfortable.

E. Honda was probably the best off out of all of them since he was probably off chowing down to refuel after his defeat.

Ryu had lost his composure and had let his 'dark side' out in the middle of a fight with his best friend and nearly killed the man before suppressing it at the last moment. It resulted in a rather resounding defeat at the hands of said best friend and now he was clearly all mixed up over what had almost overcome him.

Ken was probably rattled by what he had just had to endure, and was probably also questioning if he really deserved to be that far in the tournament since Ryu had him dead to rights and merely pulled back on ending it. That had to be dominating his thoughts instead of anything about a genocidal megalomaniac that for all intents and purposes seemed to be nothing more than a shadow looming over the entire competition.

Chun-Li was still resting and healing from her defeat to Naruto and she seemed to be a bit antsy and stir-crazy while waiting on the real reason for their presence to pop off. She wanted to get to the bottom of this and take Bison's head off in the worst way. She just needed an excuse and a target.

Cammy was all kinds of beaten up via Sagat's brutal methods in their quarterfinal matchup and she still hadn't shown signs of consciousness since. Aside from that she had seemingly lost control of her own physical actions on two separate occasions when she handicapped both Blanka and Naruto in an absent-minded state.

This place was turning into a powder keg and Naruto had to wonder just how many of them knew it and how much of it was just all in their heads. The anticipation of what was to become of them after walking into the web of the spider seemed to be tearing them all apart inside, and nothing was even happening.

With an irritable growl he kicked the doors to the temple building open and went outside amid the cheering crowd as the last match of the day was set to begin.

XxX

(Temple Courtyard – Dhalsim vs. Sasuke)

The two final fighters of the day stood across from each other as the nearly set sun bathed the entire temple grounds in orange as if everything were on fire. Neither man nor teenager said a word to the other as Dhalsim had his eyes closed completely.

Though his face didn't show it, Sasuke was a bit put off that Dhalsim already seemed to know about the chances of being caught in a genjutsu. He had to be aware of the danger of eye contact somehow. That didn't sit well with him.

"_It's the finale of day one! Sasuke Uchiha vs. Dhalsim: fight!"_

Sasuke quickly placed his hands together to begin forming hand-seals, but as he did, Dhalsim threw a punch. Not just any punch since any normal melee attack would have never reached that distance. Dhalsim's punch did though, as his entire arm stretched out like rubber and flew at Sasuke's face.

It missed when Sasuke narrowly leaned his head out of the way, but when the arm retracted the hand grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him facedown along the ground until Dhalsim finally let go.

Well someone thought they were a bit of a badass didn't they? An angry Sasuke looked up and lunged forward for a knife-hand strike at the close-up Dhalsim's throat only for him to teleport out of the way. In confusion Sasuke looked around to see where he had gotten to and caught him reappearing out of the corner of his eye in midair and launching both of his arms at him in another stretchy, ranged punch.

This time he wasn't taking the chance of going for the close slipping of strikes in order to set up for counterattacks. He dove clear out of the way and made sure there was nothing coming close to harming him, 'He can keep me from ever getting close and he can still fight me as if he were right next to me!' Sasuke had always hated fighting people that were taller than him, but this was something else altogether.

Dhalsim landed on the ground gracefully with his palms pressed together as he inhaled deeply and spat a small fireball Sasuke's way, "Yoga Fire!" The young man quickly avoided the small fireball, but when his eyes turned back to Dhalsim he caught the last dregs of the man's presence before he teleported again, "Yoga Teleport!"

Once again a stretchy limb flew past Sasuke's head from another area just out of his original field of vision. This time it was a foot and a leg that jutted out with the speed of a javelin trying to take his head off. He let loose a barrage of shuriken to cut that noodle of a leg up nicely, but it shot back to regular length from Dhalsim almost instantly, forcing him to have wasted the weaponry.

Enough of this crap.

Sasuke resolved to get close enough to make that infuriating man hurt one way or another. He wanted answers from him, and he was quite certain he'd have to beat what he wanted out of Dhalsim first. At the moment he seemed a long way away from that. A straightforward rushdown was dangerous, but he had the medicine for that.

Lightning formed in his right hand before he swung it out in an arcing pattern, "Chidori Senbon (One Thousand Birds Senbon)!" Countless needles of electricity danced from Sasuke's fingertips and streaked across the battlefield like horizontal raindrops.

Not that Sasuke was surprised by what occurred, but Dhalsim merely teleported out of the way once again. Alright, that was expected. Annoying, but expected. Sasuke immediately turned and ran in the direction that he would have tried to land at had he been presented with the same ability. He turned toward his own blindspot on his weak arm side.

And there Dhalsim was, firing a low fist out at him again like an elastic battering ram. Sasuke saw it and dashed right past it, Chidori still in hand, 'Beat the retraction, beat the retraction, beat the retraction!' He was fast. Faster than anyone he had ever gone up against actually, but he still wasn't that fast. And before he could make it to Dhalsim himself and jab right through him with it, Dhalsim's arm returned. Still, the chance to punch right through him was present.

Until at the very last second, Dhalsim balanced on one leg and stretched just out of Sasuke's range of reach. He couldn't believe it, but the shin he received across his face immediately after sobered him up to his missed attack very quickly. Rolling through his knockdown, Sasuke hopped back up to his feet and was right back on the attack, "Katon: Housenka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Phoenix Flower Jutsu)!"

Several small and speedy fireballs flew from Sasuke's mouth at Dhalsim. Faster and more numerous than the Indian spiritual leader's, but did that give Sasuke any satisfaction to show the man how a fire attack was supposed to be done? No, not as long as none of them were hitting him.

But as a matter of fact, two grazed him. Dhalsim intentionally leapt into the air and flew at Sasuke like a missile, spinning and leading with his head, "Yoga Mummy!" He dove straight through the smaller fireballs and didn't show any burns or any real damage at all.

This man was making light of so many of his techniques. Sasuke could feel the angry mark on his neck flaring up, but he kept it down. No, it wouldn't do to use the Cursed Seal here. Not now. He had everything he needed to win without giving up his trump card. He just needed time to think. Luckily, Dhalsim continued spiraling forward until he landed on his feet. This was more than enough time for Sasuke to even the score so to speak.

"Hyakurenko!" With a burst of speed, Sasuke was right in front of Dhalsim, delivering rapid-fire jabs at Dhalsim's face and body with a Mantis Kung Fu style of delivery. His method of using the technique was different from the place he had learned it, but it was adjusted for his own use.

With one solid kick to the head, Sasuke sent Dhalsim away forcefully. The man proceeded to get back up right after though. Who knew that a Yoga practitioner would be such a tough out in combat?

"Your fighting style is strange." Dhalsim said as he retook his strange ready stance, "It doesn't seem to be based on anything in particular, but seems to include dozens if not hundreds of forms. You spread yourself too thin. Your focus is skewed."

"I'll show you how skewed my focus is you-!" The hotheaded response from Sasuke was cut off when Dhalsim sat on thin air in his meditative posture, a precursor to something Sasuke had already seen time and time again in this battle. And once again, Dhalsim vanished into thin air.

That damned technique again! But much to Sasuke's luck this time he reappeared right in front of him, swinging his fist downward in a hammer-like motion that Sasuke blocked overhand, simultaneously sinking a powerful fist into his opponent's emaciated looking belly.

For the trouble of actually landing his blow, Sasuke was rewarded with a face full of flames that spewed forth from Dhalsim's mouth. It was a momentary bath of fire for Sasuke before he retreated and dove as far out of the line of the blaze as he could.

With a growl he ripped away his flaming black shirt and winced at the light burns on his face. His hands had gotten the worst of the fire though and it showed in the red and blistered skin of his wounds. Getting burned hurt! Was that what he'd been doing to people for all of these years?

"Please give up."

Sasuke looked up and saw Dhalsim hovering in the air in a seated meditative position, "Give up?" Sasuke parroted with a scoff, "Are you out of your mind? One little fire spray and you think you've got me beaten just like that? I've been playing with fire since I was seven years old. This isn't the first time I've been burned." It was just the first time it had happened this badly.

"I despise fighting and harming others, so I would rather not do so." Dhalsim continued to say as he remained hovering in the air, "But winning this tournament will provide the village I've sworn to protect with the things that it needs, and I will not lose."

"That's unfortunate." Sasuke said as he looked up at his airborne enemy, "Because when it comes to things like this, people that enjoy it at least a little will always do better than the people that hate it. I don't mind fighting at all. It's what the Uchiha bloodline is meant to do!"

With a resigned sigh, Dhalsim just chose to teleport again. Sasuke's eyes could keep up with any regular movement he made and Sasuke's body was quicker than his by a significant margin, thus teleporting was the only reliable way he could get any kind of positional edge over his young adversary.

This time he lucked out incredibly and reappeared at Sasuke's back as the former ninja looked around in every direction he figured Dhalsim would appear from. This was the time for an attack that would end the fight without harming him more than necessary.

"Come with me my friend." He said mostly to himself before stretching his arms out and grabbing onto Sasuke's shoulders, "Yoga Shangri-La!" He pulled himself downward vertically leading with the top of his head like a spike to drop down on top of Sasuke's head had he not looked up at the very last moment with his cheeks puffed out and a victorious look in his eyes.

"Katon: Gouryuuka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Jutsu)!" A large, grand flaming dragon head flew out of Sasuke's mouth and up at Dhalsim, burning the length of his arms that had by then let go of him, and followed shortly thereafter by his entire body being covered in the rising fireball.

The high-temperature jutsu continued to rise into the air, trailing hot black smoke behind it like a bad engine until it burst high in the sky, covering the air above the temple in dark clouds that put an early sundown on the day's festivities.

But Sasuke cared not for this. That jutsu should have incinerated Dhalsim. It had been a direct hit, had scored perfectly. He couldn't have aimed any better if he had been shooting at a stationary dummy. But not only was his body still completely intact, he looked none the worse for wear. The nasty burns that covered his entire visible body should have been seen as gifts from above compared to what should have happened. That was Sasuke's strongest fire technique.

"How?" Dhalsim said, voice fraught with pain as he lay twitching in deep discomfort on the ground, "I had your back. There was no way you knew I was coming. You need to use your hands to prepare your spiritual attacks."

"My eyes see things that no one else can see." Sasuke said, drawing attention to his red Sharingan eyes, "When you teleport you leave a ripple of your energy behind. The same thing happens in the exact area that you plan to reappear in. I saw it before you made it to that spot before your last flanking maneuver and kept my back to you so that I could prepare my hand-seals without you seeing me do it."

He hadn't planned on Dhalsim grabbing him and trying to compress his spine and crush his skull for his next move, but it all worked out in the end and made him look like a genius. All in all it couldn't have worked out much better for the scenario he had been placed into.

Still though. He had obtained the win that he wanted. Now he could get something else that he was seeking out of the mysterious Indian mystic. Namely of his odd assortment of abilities. And one in particular more than the others.

"My turn for the questions." Sasuke said, planting a foot on Dhalsim's chest and forming a Chidori in his right hand just in case it was needed for some persuasion. Hey, they hadn't called the match off yet so it wasn't illegal, "You should be dead. How did you survive?"

Cringing at the touch to his burns despite the fact that it was light, Dhalsim saw no reason to hide his ability, "It is a blessing from the god of fire that I worship, Agni. A gift for my dutiful adherence to my spiritual training. What concern is it to you?" He asked, getting no answer at first and getting him to narrow his eyes at Sasuke, "But that is not the real question you wish to ask me. I am sorry child, but I have no way of returning you to your dimension with my teleportation abilities. It is only meant to pull me through the astral plane to a determined location in this realm."

He probably looked into his mind to figure out what he really desired before Sasuke could say it. Well was that so?

Then he was of no use to Sasuke from that point forward, "Hm. Sorry for wasting your time then. Good match." He said, parting from that point as he needed nothing else from him at that moment. Right then, Sasuke needed to go get some damn ointment for his burns and hope that none of them were too bad.

"_The winner of the last match of the quarterfinal round in a blazing duel of fire against fire: Sasuke Uchiha! He advances to the semifinals on day two to face off with another fire-starting competitor in Ken Masters!"_

Not long after the announcement was made, Dhalsim's skyward view was filled with the sight of Naruto, looking down at him a bit worriedly at his condition, "Uh, are you alright? Sasuke-teme kind of… char-broiled you." He knew the feeling, but the fireball Sasuke hit Dhalsim with was way worse.

"I can assure you that I will be fine." Dhalsim said to assuage him and his concerns, "Fire is not something that can harm me so easily. That makes it all the more impressive that the Sasuke boy was able to defeat me with it. It probably would have killed another had it hit them." The casual way that he said such a thing, as if it weren't a big deal that his life had just been in jeopardy simply reaffirmed Naruto's belief that Dhalsim was a freaky guy.

If he was sure about that, it was time to get down to the real reason that Naruto had rushed down to him after he had been defeated in his match. Concern for the man's health aside, there was a deep need for Naruto to get to the point, "Okay, well I came to talk to you because… I think I'm ready. I'm ready for whatever you have to do to get me right again."

Any semblance of pain flowing through Dhalsim's system stopped at that and he fixed Naruto with a stern and unyielding stare. His injured body was now secondary in importance, "And you're certain of this? I cannot feel that far into your emotions. It is something that only you can confirm."

And confirm he did, "I'm ready." There wasn't any more time to waste. Naruto hadn't gotten word from the Kyuubi inside of him, hadn't felt a bit of its chakra even when he had been in dire straits since he went down from his injuries at Akuma's hands in early June. It had been six months since then, "I don't want to sound like I'm in a rush or anything, but when's the soonest that we can-?"

"Tonight." Dhalsim said, getting up off of the ground slowly before any of the medical staff could even get to him, "Give me some time to rest and heal. I need to regain my energy before we can begin the process. Is that sufficient for you?"

So later that night? That soon? He expected sometime after the tournament at the soonest, not within a few hours. As overwhelming as the timing was, there wasn't a chance that the offer was going to be turned down.

Not with the current situation at hand. More firepower of the biju variety would certainly be most welcome.

"It's perfect." Naruto said with a smirk as he walked with Dhalsim to get his medical attention. The two of them needed to hash out just where it was going to happen, when it was going to happen, and if Dhalsim needed anything extra out of Naruto.

Things were finally looking up. The dark clouds over the temple didn't seem to be very foreboding at all. After all, Sasuke had been the one to make those, not nature. It wasn't like it was a sign from above that everything was going to go to hell in a handbasket in a matter of hours, right?

After all, what could possibly be the most dangerous thing about Naruto's state of mind if the Kyuubi was down?

* * *

><p><strong>Ooh that Bison. The least redeemable villain of all time in my opinion. Yep. Capcom did one hell of a job with him. Didn't try to make him cool, made his moves all annoying as hell with little time cost for missing them… good work. Jerk boss character.<strong>

**Anywho, that's the chapter. You all know what's up for the next time, I think. So I'll see some or most of you then. Later.**

**Kenchi out.**


	35. A Biju in His Pocket

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. If I ever get famous from being a fighter (Ha! Yeah right…) I want to be sponsored by Jack Link's Beef Jerky. I've only seen one person that has ever been personally sponsored by them, and damn it if that isn't the manliest sponsor tag you can have on your shirts and trunks these days.

**Chapter 35: A Biju in His Pocket**

* * *

><p>"I don't get it." Naruto said aloud as he walked through the weathered stone hallway of the martial arts temple that played host to the Second World Warrior Tournament. The day was over, the sun had fully set and night had fallen, thus it was time to show the fighters that had decided to stay to their rooms for the night, "I mean yeah, this whole tournament is kind of brutal, but unless fighting for our lives on TV is the big endgame here I don't get it."<p>

And he doubted that this was the only reason the lot of them wound up being tipped off to the existence of the tournament.

In Naruto's arms he held Cammy, who was still asleep, but seemed as if she only needed a touch of rest to help her to recover from the beatdown from Sagat that eliminated her from contention. Walking with them happened to be the third of the four fighters that qualified from the Pacific side of the qualifiers, E. Honda.

The good-natured sumo had his light blue yukata fully over his shoulders covering his body instead of down around his waist in its battle position while he walked ahead of his scrappy blonde friend, "What does it matter? I've got your back kid. No one's getting a shot at your neck outside of the ring as long as I'm here!" He finished with boisterous laughter and a hard pat on Naruto's back that got him to stumble forward.

Naruto gave him a slight glare due to the fact that he had an injured and sleeping girl in his grasp and didn't really feel like dropping her, but quickly relented. All the man was saying was that he was willing to help in case something terrible happened.

It was reassuring and all, but other than that fact, Bison and Shadaloo in general held no large grudge or any foreseeable issue at all against E. Honda. Other than E. Honda's own reasons of wanting to put an end to Shadaloo peddling biochemical drugs to sumo wrestlers including a few in his stable, he had no reason to run up against them and make himself a target.

As the attendant leading them through the temple stopped by a room he bowed to Naruto and E. Honda before speaking, "This is one of the rooms we have available. You may each decide which of you stays here."

E. Honda gestured to Naruto to take it, and Naruto walked inside, setting Cammy down on the modest bed before taking her boots off, "This'll be her room when she wakes up. Could I get the room next to it just in case?" Upon his request the attendant nodded and gestured for both of the men to continue to follow him, "I'll be back in a little bit Cam. After you wake up we can go get something to eat." He said to her quietly before getting up to leave.

After walking five more feet, Naruto stopped at the very next open room and looked around at the very minimalist setup inside, "Well this looks to be you kid, so I'll catch you later?" E. Honda asked as Naruto walked slightly inside and pulled out a scroll that had both his and Cammy's suitcases inside. He'd give her hers later. Right now as he shut the door to the room he needed a nap like no one's business.

The bed wasn't as high-quality as his, but it was a martial arts temple. It wasn't supposed to be a damn Tempurpedic mattress. Even so, it still felt heavenly when his back touched down on it and his head hit the pillow. He hadn't even bothered to kick his sandals off first.

Naruto stared at the ceiling for a grand total of ten seconds before he shut his weary eyes and tried to get a quick rest.

Now he didn't know if it had been five minutes or five hours, but before he knew it he felt a foreign presence suddenly appear in his presence and his eyes opened to the bald head, brown skin, and solid white, pupil-less eyes of Dhalsim looking down at him.

It was lucky that Dhalsim had the power to teleport because if he didn't possess said ability, Naruto would have headbutted him when he sat abruptly out of surprise and let out a yelp, "Why would you do that?" Naruto shouted at him with a glare, "Knock like a regular person fool!" Ooh, if he'd have had a knife under his pillow… Mr. Mystic Man could have said goodbye right then.

If Dhalsim was put off by the young man's shout of a greeting he didn't show it, "Are you ready for the ritual?" He was covered in bandages that protected the burns that Sasuke had inflicted on him hours ago, but his face didn't show any expression of pain either.

Muttering to himself about rude awakenings, Naruto stood up and nodded, bones still feeling a bit battered from the two punishing bouts that he had endured that day, not even counting the wrist that Cammy had snapped.

What time was it by the way? It was pitch dark outside when he had gotten into his room to begin with, but now he had no idea. His sense of time was askew.

But that wasn't important. It didn't matter how much he hurt right then. All that mattered was healing the Kyuubi. As much as they had their differences and didn't see eye-to-eye, when it came down to it they were all that they had when there had been nothing else.

"Let's do this." Naruto consented, fishing his cell phone out of his pocket in the dark. Thank goodness he had sprung for a tough model with the day that he had just gone through. With the press of a few buttons he had Chun-Li on the line, "Hey yeah. Could you come and keep watch over Cammy for a few hours? She's still sleeping."

"_Mmm… so was I."_ She wasn't cranky but from how she yawned she did sound quite tired herself, _"But I guess I can pick up where I left off in her room. The bed's big enough for me and her."_ Naruto liked to think that he did an admirable job keeping his mind out of the gutter when she said that, _"I'll be there in a minute or two."_

Well that was one thing he could take off of his mind, "Great. I'll probably be busy for a few hours… or until morning, I don't know. Thanks." Before he even hung up, Dhalsim had a hand set on his shoulder. Man this guy was impatient, "Fine, let's go." And just like that, both he and Naruto vanished in Dhalsim's Yoga Teleport.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Aohura City, Chigoku Region, Japan)

There had been something of a little viewing party for the tournament at Karin's personal mansion and the entire day had been spent by the Aohura City crew watching their friends get kicked around by the best fighters in the world and each other. There was nothing like watching it all happen on a high definition screen the size of a movie theater screen.

The matches had ended hours ago, and now it was the aftershow with analysts trying to talk about what they had just seen as if they could possibly comprehend the incredible feats of the fighters that had shown their skills all afternoon long, but that didn't stop the youngsters from sitting around and talking about it themselves.

"I can't believe Ryu lost." Sakura said, shaking her head in disbelief from her seat next to Kei who was holding onto Cammy's cat. She had figured that he was going to be primed for another showdown with Sagat in the finals… or maybe Naruto lest she forget that the former 'God of Muay Thai' would have to get through her best friend first, "I thought that he had the Satsui no Hadou under control."

In another sofa with his girlfriend and Sakura's friend Hinata sleeping against him, Batsu rolled his eyes, "That's what you're stuck on? Yeah, he was scary as hell when he almost torched Ken with that Hadoken, but come on, Naruto's going on to day two. Show some excitement for that why don't you?"

Sakura shot him a half-hearted glare, she was happy that he had advanced, but she didn't say anything as Karin sat in her own throne-like chair in a proper fashion for her station, "As impressive a feat as it is, especially with an injured hand, we should not forget the fact that this is all orchestrated by Shadaloo. All of our friends are injured and exhausted to various degrees."

It was true. If ever there was going to be a time to attack, it would be at night when the cameras were gone. They had spent all day trying to destroy each other, and even if it occurred off-screen, there probably wouldn't be a better time to take down anyone left there.

Still dressed in her school uniform, Ibuki was pacing around the room with her hands behind her back just thinking about the entire situation, "But they're all together. Between Guile, Blanka, Ken, Ryu, E. Honda, Sasuke, Cammy, Chun-Li, and Naruto, do you really think a bad guy would risk trying to go after them even then?"

Granted she'd never met half of those people, but she'd heard of them and that they were friends of her friends. She'd also seen them all in battle today, and if all of them found themselves in battle against one man there wasn't any way he'd manage to bring them all down. It just didn't make any sense.

"It depends on how strong he is after his body was destroyed." Sakura mused to herself, catching her friend Kei's confusion from her place next to her. That was right. Neither she nor Ibuki really knew anything about the last episode with Shadaloo, "In Thailand he took everything that Guile, Charlie, Ken, Ryu, and I could throw at him. I don't know how Naruto and Cammy subdued him for as long as they did by themselves because with all of us together we barely ruined his body. If this is anything like then, I'm not sure."

"Then we should go right?" Ibuki said, turning to the entirety of her friends and trying to appeal to them, "What if something really does go wrong and they need help? Kanzuki-san's got a bunch of ways we can get to Thailand by tomorrow afternoon. We can make it."

Yeah, she'd probably get into trouble with her village, but screw that. She had missed out on helping her friends against the psychopaths in Shadaloo the first time due to injury, and now that it was happening again she was going to be a non-factor for a second time?

This well-meaning desire to show up and back up her friends wound up being quickly quelled by Karin though, "We will not be going anywhere. Do you remember the reason that Naruto-san chose to train and compete in the tournament to begin with? He chose to go directly into the maw of the enemy to prevent the reach of the criminals from reaching out at all of us. Were we to fly out first thing, what would the reason for entering even have been?"

Naruto didn't have any interest in winning tournaments outside of the few times when Karin was able to coax him into sanctioned competition. An intimate knowledge of Naruto would reveal that he didn't have anything to prove to anyone, and really only did it in the past for the prize money.

The only reason he entered was to ensure that any grievances Bison held against him remained just between them, and Cammy went with him because she was just sweet like that. Were it not for that, Naruto probably wouldn't have cared one way or another about the Second World Warrior Tournament. According to Sakura he didn't give two craps about the first one even though she notably tried to persuade him to enter.

Still, Ibuki didn't like the passive approach being pitched by the wealthy young woman, and she took offense to being more or less told that everyone was meant to wait and stand down on the homefront until someone came home, "So he's just supposed to play your white knight, going off to slay a dragon while you sit back in your castle and wait for him?"

Karin's gaze on the teenage kunoichi turned downright frosty in return despite the red that momentarily marked her cheeks at the knight/princess comparison, "I do not think I like what you seem to be implying of me. Perhaps you should clarify in case I am mistaken."

"You know exactly what I'm saying." Ibuki didn't back down a touch in the face of a glare that had made hardened businessmen sell out their company's assets to her for her father's sake in the past, "You probably see Naruto as some kind of asset more than anything else, and him winning the tournament makes things all the better for you right? And your family was getting strong-armed by Shadaloo weren't they? Sending Naruto out to kill off the leadership of the organization would certainly benefit you wouldn't it?"

If her lineage had not been so completely refined to teach her restraint in situations such as this, Karin probably would have slapped Ibuki for insinuating such a thing, "You are forgiven for such a callous statement. I believe I will attribute this to a momentary lack of judgment."

"You can call it whatever you want sister, but bewitching someone like Naruto and sending him off to fight your battles for you isn't fair at all."

"Excuse me? Bewitching him you say?"

"So you're not using his attachment to the people he cares for to get him to do what you want?"

"I would never do any such thing! How dare you! I did not want him to go to begin with! Perhaps he is merely being the upstanding ninja of his own accord that we know him to be, unlike some jealous, shifty kunoichi we all know."

"First of all, 'upstanding ninja' is an oxymoron of a statement if I've ever heard one. And second of all; shifty? How am I shifty Little Miss Business Shark? People like you are way more treacherous than a ninja!"

As things seemed to begin escalating, Batsu's eyes opened wide and he held his sleeping girlfriend a bit closer with a touch of excitement in his face, "…Catfight." He muttered low enough for no one else to hear him. He saw such amazing things.

The pair of rival maidens were standing chest-to-chest with each other, trying to melt the other's skull with the power of their stare. Killing intent wasn't quite there, but intent to cause great harm did indeed happen to be there. But before either of them felt the need to back up and square off with the other, they were both eased away from each other calmly when Sakura slowly pushed them apart.

"Alright everyone calm down." Sakura tried to say with a strained smile on her face, "We're probably all still just jazzed up from doing nothing but watching fights since we got out of school today. No one wants to fight tonight, do they?" Such a brave girl.

Despite acting as the voice of reason that she tried to be, much to her confusion both Ibuki and Karin turned their glares onto her, getting her to carefully back away a few steps just in case.

"Sakura-san, one of us will find an actual reason to deal with you at a later time. At the moment Ibuki-san and I are the ones with a pressing issue."

"Yeah Sakura-chan, don't be so eager to get in the middle of this. Enjoy the peace while you can."

While disappointed in the lack of catfight due to Sakura managing to at least defuse that much, Batsu still found himself markedly interested even when he noticed that Kei had moved herself and the kitten far out of the possible line of fire to sit next to him and Hinata to get a better view, "So I'm new to this kind of thing. What exactly is happening?"

Kei made an effort to keep her voice as quiet as possible lest she disturb the beehive she was right in the middle of, "Well Ibuki took the most direct offense to Karin spending an exorbitant amount of time with Naruto to the extent that she felt comfortable making a move on him. Meanwhile Ibuki has had less opportunity herself and has had to resort to more direct actions when she's had the chance with him."

"And what's with both of them turning on Sakura? She seems confused about it."

"That's easy. Sakura's so far ahead of the other two in her day-to-day relationship with Naruto that basic intimacy doesn't have much of anything to do with them anymore. It's way past that even if Naruto and Sakura don't recognize that they're not just friends. Karin and Ibuki do, and see challenging Sakura in that department as far more dangerous than trying to pick off one another. Both of them don't want anything to do with her in something like this yet."

"Ah, I get it. You know this is really funny."

"It _is_ really funny. It's like Animal Planet but with people."

"So it's like reality TV?"

"I don't think it's quite that mindless."

XxX

(With Naruto – Outside of Bangkok, Thailand – Martial Arts Temple)

It was definitely past midnight, that much was for sure. The sound of night creatures, of crickets and all sorts of evening animals, filled the air while Naruto and Dhalsim sat in the middle of a wooden bridge in the center of a beautiful garden. They needed a place of absolute tranquility for Dhalsim to do what he needed to establish the needed link with Naruto's mind.

Facing each other in their seated positions, Dhalsim reached out and placed a hand on the top of Naruto's spiky head, "Ease your mind child. I trust you are aware of your own subconscious as a separate plane of your existence?"

"Yeah…" Naruto said, a bit uncomfortable at the contact, "But I really only visualize myself in there when I'm sleeping or forced unconscious, like a dream. The rest of the time when I choose to speak to the Kyuubi I'd either think out loud or it would talk to me first."

"Do not worry." Dhalsim calmly assured Naruto, shutting his rather intimidating eyes as he began channeling his spiritual energy between them, "I can assist you in reaching this place while awake, but once inside I will need you to guide me, otherwise I risk being lost. The place we seek is a very small portion of your brain, and without proper guidance I can find myself lost in your mind with no way to find the correct place. Now relax."

It was a bit difficult to do something like that when his head was in the grasp of a strange man, but Naruto eventually reached a state of relaxation and felt himself nod off into lucidity. The next thing he knew he found himself in the flooded tunnels of his mindscape with Dhalsim at his side, marveling at what comprised the young man's mind, "Well… here we are."

Dhalsim could see that.

It was a bit amazing. Normally most people would have a mental construct of their home, or of a place where they felt safe, but this was the exact opposite. A leaky sewer system didn't exactly scream mental stability.

Looking down at the water that surrounded his ankles in a bit of annoyance, Dhalsim levitated himself out of it, eliciting an eye-roll from Naruto who deemed it just showing off. If it really bothered him that much he could have just walked on top of it, but there was no need because it wasn't real, "Lead on child. I will follow."

And lead on Naruto did, with a practiced ease of someone that knew the way by heart. It was a good thing too, because all of those damn tunnels looked the same.

"_Such a weakling."_

Naruto's eye twitched at a faint-sounding taunt that was rather common from his tenant, but shrugged it off and continued on. If the Kyuubi could insult him it was probably feeling better, so maybe this wouldn't be so difficult after all.

Rounding the bend that led down the more cramped corridor that would lead them to the cage of the grand beast within him, Naruto started to feel odd. It was the feeling people had when there was an unfamiliar presence in a room with them, but it wasn't Dhalsim.

Speaking of whom, he seemed to be aware of it as well, "So you feel it then? This is the taint I've been speaking of that rests within you."

But what was it? If Naruto had to put his finger on it, it felt similar to the aura from… Akuma and Ryu. Son of a bitch, "What did that bastard do to me? Putting a ki-nuke of a time bomb in my head? Beating me into a coma wasn't enough?"

"I do not believe that this is the case at all." Dhalsim said, resting a hand on the outraged Naruto's shoulder so that he could maintain his focus, "Ki powered by anger and hate this oppressive should have killed you were it not for the source within that seemed to stanch it significantly. But it had to go somewhere inside of your body, and it found something to leech off of it and gain strength."

Something inside of him leeched off of the Satsui no Hadou, and it wasn't the Kyuubi that did so? That had to be one of the most alarming things he'd heard in quite some time, "What are you talking about?"

"Your own insecurities and reservations. Your personal hang-ups." Dhalsim listed freely, "These are prime areas of the mind for hate and anger to fester and grow. You try to think about other things instinctually. No person wishes to dwell on such matters because it can destroy their psyche to do so. This is why I requested that you find your fears, because facing them would be the easiest way to bring this… thing within you to light to be dealt with, before it becomes too powerful to expel."

"What thing?" Naruto asked as they stepped into the open chamber where the bars of the Kyuubi sat, "I don't feel anything around here but this feeling, you, and me!"

"Exactly."

…Did Naruto just hear his own voice from inside of his own mind? Okay, that was a new level of crazy that he didn't think he'd ever reach.

Peering into the dark from behind the bars of the Kyuubi's cage, out stepped a second Naruto, dressed the exact same but with pitch-black eyes, red pupils, and longer blonde hair that held a dark red tint to it. This Naruto held a confident look on his face that went beyond any kind of self-confidence and into the realm of complete assurance that he was in no danger.

"You might not believe it…" The warped version of Naruto said as he slowly continued to walk forward, "…But getting nearly toasted by Akuma was the best thing that ever happened to us. As much as I hate him and want to pull his head off of his shoulders he's done something very special for us."

Dhalsim backed away, standing warily as Naruto followed his cue and did the same, prepared for the worst, "That's weird. Nearly getting killed and hurting the Kyuubi don't seem like good things to me."

"But they were." The second Naruto continued to speak, finally stopping his progressive steps when he saw Dhalsim and the original Naruto on the defensive, "It finally gave me the power I needed to go about doing what _we_ needed all this time!"

"And what did we need?"

"The will to do what was necessary to benefit us! Everyone else be damned! Who cares?" The Dark Naruto started radiating power. The Kyuubi's power, "When I manifested due to Akuma's power there had been so much damage done to the Kyuubi by it that it was forced to rest after it healed us enough to wake us up! So I simply bided my time inside of its cage, siphoning off the chakra it was producing to heal itself in order to gain strength and take my form."

That was why it was taking so long for it to wake up? Because this leech kept taking the chakra it was dedicating to healing for himself.

"Don't you get it? No matter what we do there are always going to be people that want to hurt the things close to us to get to you and I! In this world we've got Shadaloo and Mad Gear and lunatics like Akuma that want us dead! What good does having friends do if they're so useless they can't help us? But you don't have the sack to throw it all away, even when it would save our lives!" Dark Naruto seemed to be growing angrier by the second until he finally chuckled a bit and calmed down, "That's where I come in. I'll make sure no one ever hurts us again. We'll never feel pain again after I take over your body."

Take over his body? No, no, that was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back right there, "Look uh… evil me? I can't let you do that." Naruto tried to reason. The dark version of him kept saying 'we' so he had to consider him somewhat important to do that, "Besides, how would you even make sure we never feel pain again? That seems kind of impossible. I hurt myself eating too fast sometimes."

"I'm not talking about physical pain. We've never cared anything for that." The Dark Naruto said, all semblance of good nature removed from his face at that point, "I'm talking about the kind of pain you can't bandage up and move past. Our heart. We feel pain in our heart because there are things _you_ can't live without. So it's simple really. In order to protect us, I'll just destroy everything important to us. Our loved ones; they're the only things keeping us from being unstoppable. That makes them a weakness, and that means they have to die."

Naruto froze in place at hearing what basically amounted to him so casually dismissing the lives of everyone he knew, "…Do you mind saying that again? I think I misheard you."

Dark Naruto had no problems getting his point across, "I'll kill everything that makes our heart weak, to make sure that we keep getting stronger. So strong that nobody can ever do anything to us again… but I have to start with you, 'cause if I don't you'll just fight me the whole way. You understand where I'm coming from, right?"

"He is the manifestation of all of your hate, anger, and fear." Dhalsim told Naruto, moving in front of him to act as the stunned ninja started drifting back to reality, "But only one of you can benefit from the presence of the creature within you. Only one of you can exist in control in the end. Defeat him."

The Indian mystic knew full well which Naruto he would rather have in control. There was no question that the real Naruto was the only one that could be allowed to exist on this night.

"He can't beat me!" Dark Naruto said with a laugh, "I am him, just with a real killer instinct!"

Dhalsim merely shook his head and reinforced Naruto's will once more with his words of conviction, "Do not listen to him. Simply remember what I told you. Face your inner horrors, bring them to light, and he will not stand."

Moving in blurry images, Dark Naruto got himself close to Dhalsim as he continued to speak. A strong hand closed around his neck just before either he or Naruto were really aware of his movements. Dhalsim tried to struggle, but the bones in his neck began to give underneath the crushing grip of the blond destroyer.

"See? We've trained hard for this tournament haven't we?" He said as he turned toward the real Naruto that had been slightly knocked away by the act, "If you'd just grabbed Chun-Li around her neck like this she would never have done as much damage as she did. If you'd just grabbed Cammy like this you could have broken her neck before she broke your hand. You're _always_ letting us get hurt because of the people we're attached to!"

"But we're not attached to him are we? And he's just butting in."

"That doesn't matter!" Naruto rushed forward at his twisted counterpart as he hurled Dhalsim away to defend himself. Both Narutos struck at each other with their hard cast-covered broken hands but proceeded to block each attack with their good ones, holding each injured limb in a progressively crushing grip, "If you were really me…" The real Naruto said through the pain of having his injured hand steadily crushed, "…If you were really me then you wouldn't ever say anything like that! You know what we're afraid of losing!"

"Exactly!" Dark Naruto spoke in a similarly strained tone, "Why keep them if we're so afraid of losing them? Cut them loose and make us stronger! You should know what I'm talking about! Without the Kyuubi powering you, could you even keep them safe? Even with it could you do so?"

"Yes!"

"Prove it!"

Both of them broke away from each other before Dark Naruto smirked and started tearing away at the cast on his arm before flexing out his hand. Blinking in surprise, Naruto narrowed his eyes before forming a Rasengan in the same hand and shredding the cast straight off of his arm. This was all in his mind. Injuries meant nothing here, "Get out of my head."

"Make me."

As Dhalsim recovered in the dirty water covering the floor, both Naruto and Dark Naruto started clashing all over the chamber, with the only thing allowing him to track their movements being the streaks being cut through the water as they moved.

'No…' Dhalsim thought as even inside of Naruto's mind he couldn't find his voice to speak out, 'This is not the kind of battle that can be won with your fists!'

Fighting like this was just making it all worse.

XxX

(Real World – Inside of the Temple – Fighters' Quarters)

The room was silent as the pair of females in Cammy and Chun-Li slumbered, resting and regaining their energy from a very hard day. Without warning however, Cammy's eyes popped open, peering into the inky darkness of the room.

Looking down to her side where Chun-Li had been sleeping right next to her, Cammy idly noted that the Interpol agent was a serious cover hog, but that was grossly unimportant as her body seemed to stand on autopilot, 'No. Come on, stop it. Don't listen to that man! I don't want to listen to him!' As she got up she left Chun-Li alone. That was not her target. The orders that she had been given were very specific.

On went her boots and gauntlets before she quietly crept out into the hall into the room next door, only to find it empty. But with Naruto's belongings on the floor it was clear that this was his room. So where was the man himself?

Leaving his room after feeling the need to grab a replacement hat, she started searching the premises until she came across a combat monk that bowed to her after her impressive performance in battle earlier that day against the strongest man that Thailand had ever produced in Sagat.

Cammy's face was emotionless though as she spoke in the form of a question, "Naruto Uzumaki. Do you know where I might find him?"

With a nod, the monk pointed in a general direction, "In our tranquility garden. You can find him there with the Yoga Master that also fought today. They seem to be in a meditative session and do not wish to be disturbed though." When Cammy simply walked past him, the monk took it in stride and gave one parting bow as the girl went off to follow his directions.

She wanted to turn around. She wanted to go back to her room that she had woken up in. She couldn't even bring herself to move her arms to pinch herself in case it was all a dream. And as she stepped out into the night air and took in the specific sounds and smells she knew for certain that this was real, and that this was happening.

'Why won't I stop?' Moving through the garden she came ever closer to the ornate bridge that spanned across the large pond in the center of the area and made out two figures sitting there in the moonlight seemingly meditating, 'How is this even possible?'

This was far different from the times that her body would just instinctually move in combat for a technique that she never knew she was privy to, nor was it even like when she blanked out during her match with Blanka or during the longer stretch during the one with Sagat. She was fully aware of everything that she was doing, but her body didn't seem to be connected to her mind.

It was as if she were on the outside observing herself against her will. And she watched herself as she walked up behind Dhalsim and past him as he remained unresponsive to her very presence. He was of no importance to her objective either. No, her target sat only inches in front of him, in an equally prone position to do nothing to retaliate against him. He seemed almost asleep.

Cammy raised her hand, the metal of her red gauntlet shining in the moonlight as she prepared to end Naruto's life in one move. As quick as a whip her hand lashed out to break his neck in one smooth chop, but the bottom end of her hand never reached him.

Her wrist was stuck in Naruto's firm and steadily tightening grasp before she could ever touch him. Naruto let out an audible breath before slowly opening his eyes that were discolored from their usual blue to red with a dead-black sclera to each of them. He seemed to be looking up at her, not with a pained confusion, but with a look of a man that was disappointed but had expected as much, "I knew you would come back to haunt us one day Cam."

Though in her mind Cammy was stunned by how uncharacteristically cold Naruto had spoken to her, her body didn't seem to care and tried to pull away from him to try another avenue of attack. She got her space, but not by escaping his grip. Instead she was punched free by Naruto, who hit her hard enough to smash her through the railing on the side of the bridge into the shallow pond that it had been built over.

Naruto's body rose from its seated position and he cracked his neck as he turned to face Cammy who was picking herself up out of the water. Something was very wrong. Naruto's body language was all wrong. His face didn't show any sign of surprise at Cammy being there to take his life, but a smirk popped up instead, "I just _knew_ one of you would be the death of us. I didn't think it'd be directly though."

'Naruto what are you talking about?' Cammy thought before her body crouched down to prepare to attack him again, 'Don't stand there, run! I won't stop until I kill you!' She launched herself into the air at him before putting every bit of force she could behind a ki-charged falling straight-legged kick, "Cannon Strike!"

Naruto jumped out of the way as Cammy kicked clear through the bridge again, putting herself back in the water. Before she could choose a side of the bridge to get back on from, Naruto appeared in the water, still smirking at her in a very unsettling manner, "To kill our heart we'll have to start with killing you."

A tilt to the side by Cammy's head belied just how devastating hearing him say that to her happened to be, 'Do you… do you really mean that?'

Holding a Rasengan in one hand, Naruto's smirk turned into a grin as he held it out, "Let us show you what we can do when we just don't care anymore." With that, he slammed the Rasengan into the pond and threw up enough water in a blast that Cammy was unable to see him dash forward and drill her with an uppercut straight to the torso.

The months of training had made Naruto strong. So very strong. And that had been the cleanest blow he'd landed all day long to prove it.

That one single hit held within it enough force to break through an entire support beam of the bridge with Cammy's body. She skipped off of the surface of the water until she rolled through and got her legs back underneath her. Shaky legs though, as her body still felt the pain of the earlier beating she had taken from Sagat. With that pain though, came an opening for Cammy to actually speak, "…Can't… stop."

"I can't stop either Cam." Naruto said, rolling out his shoulder as he walked back into the open, "This is what needs to happen. Either you're going to kill us, or we're going to kill you." He slowly rolled through several hand-seals using his cast-covered hand before stopping and inhaling deeply, "Chou Ikitaihou (Super Breath Cannon)!" From his mouth he fired a wide sweeping wave of pure chakra that ruined the beautiful pond in a powerful blast that rocked the temple grounds.

As scared as she was, Cammy had to marvel at the new scope of the technique that turned that portion of the property into ruined scenery, 'It's three times the size that it used to be. He really could have killed me with that.' But this wasn't Naruto, even if he used Naruto's moves. Not the Naruto that took her in, that she had lived with for eight months.

There was something very wrong that couldn't possibly have been accounted for when she was assigned this task to kill the person she cared for the most.

Once again, Cammy swiftly rocked and weaved forward to get within range to keep fighting. Posting herself on one arm, she swung both of her legs at Naruto's head in a brutal attempt to kick him, forcing him to block with his good arm. Taking advantage of this, Cammy quickly righted herself before stepping forward with a nasty straight punch that hit Naruto in the face and knocked him back.

Moving forward to continue her newly reinvigorated onslaught, she was stopped cold when Naruto reared back and headbutted her right in the face, dropping her where she stood. With blood trailing from his lip he sneered down at her before kicking her forcefully in the side, back onto dry land out of the pond.

"You think I care that you're hurt?" Naruto said, walking to her and lifting a leg before stomping down hard on the small of her back, "Not when this is going to end with you dying! You're a threat, and even if you weren't you're a weakness to us! We don't need anyone dragging us down!" He emphasized with another stomp, "I'm doing this to protect us!"

Who was this 'us' and 'we' he kept referring to?

Cammy rolled out of the way of a subsequent stomp and quickly drew a small knife from her boot before lunging at Naruto's throat to catch him. Instead of ending his life, she stabbed into the thick cast on his hand that she had been the earlier cause of. In one sharp move of his arm he broke the blade of the weapon and used his free hand to grab Cammy by the throat. Her attempts to struggle were stymied with a series of terrible knees to her tender body.

With one hand he had her held clear off of the ground, squeezing the life from her as he glared at her, "I knew that killing you on Karin's yacht was the right idea, but our bleeding heart had to give you a chance. He had to add another precious person. Another person to cause us pain! We will _not_ take the pain of failing the people we love, I'd rather kill you myself than have to watch you die!"

"Sonic Boom!" From behind, Naruto suffered a blow from a crescent-shaped spinning ki blast that burned and cut into his outfit and skin, knocking him to the ground and freeing a broken up Cammy from his death clutch. With a glare, Naruto spit onto the ground and stood up to face his attacker from behind, "That was a Sonic Boom that hit you kid, not a tank."

"Guile." Naruto drawled lowly before quickly rushing at him, "You should wait your turn!"

"Ataque de Rolamento (Rolling Attack)!"

Before Naruto could even get close to try and initiate an attack on Guile, he had to contort his body out of the way of a green and orange buzzsaw spinning at him through the air that flipped to a stop to reveal that it was Blanka, with his arm still held in a sling from the injuries he'd suffered that day.

Much to his annoyance, Blanka seemed poised to fight him as well.

"I wasn't going to kill you two at first, but I'm seriously thinking about it now." Naruto said, looking between the two men that stood on either side of him, "Butt out. This isn't any of your business." While they were friends, they weren't as close to him as Cammy was.

Guile narrowed his eyes at Naruto. Something seemed very off with his fellow blonde, but that didn't seem important compared to what he had been doing. The blast in the garden attracted a lot of attention, "It's not my business? You've got a lot of nerve to say something like that after you've been messing with mine. At least my business didn't have me attacking my allies to kill them."

"Why would you try to kill Cammy?" Blanka asked, barely able to rein in his feral temper. He had spent enough time around things that wanted to kill him to know the feeling of bloodlust when it was abound, and there had been nothing but the intent to kill coming from Naruto, "You're friends."

"None of you understand a damn thing." Naruto said again, shaking his head, "But you will. Right before you all die."

"Try it brat!" The mission was to stop Naruto from maiming or killing Cammy until they could find out what was going on. At the moment she was on the ground barely able to muster the strength to crawl one way or another. She was vulnerable, "Sonic Boom!"

Another shot fired that Naruto scoffed at and dodged before having to dodge swipes of razor-sharp claws from one of Blanka's hands that cut one of his arms, spilling blood onto the ground. Mercilessly, Naruto kicked Blanka's bad shoulder, getting him to howl in agony before he was knocked to the ground and dragged along it by his long orange hair as Naruto ran with him.

With a yell of effort, Naruto threw Blanka forward, his body ragdolling off of the ground as Naruto jumped into the air to finish him with a stomp that would crush something on him, but he was intercepted in his descent.

"Flash Kick!" A flipping ki-charged kick from Guile stopped Naruto and knocked him back into the air even as he turtle to protect himself, "What's wrong with him?" Naruto never fought that brutally, even when he was fighting to kill.

Landing back on the ground, Naruto had heavy bruises and abrasions on the backs of his arms from Guile's Flash Kick and felt the arrival of two more people to the scene, "E. Honda… Chun-Li…" He said in a low tone of voice as if he were warning them, "Go. Away."

"Can't do that kid." E. Honda said, pushing the shoulders of his yukata down around his waist, prepared to fight, "Just calm down and stop. Tell us what's wrong."

He didn't say what was wrong, because whenever he told someone the problem from his point of view they wouldn't understand, and they would see that he was in the wrong. For what? For protecting himself from heartbreak by taking the chance of it happening out of the world's hands?

No. It didn't matter how many of them stood against him. This body was his now, and he could finally begin doing what he had to do. Every last one of them was injured. Hurt worse than he was by far. And since he was the Naruto in closest contact with the Kyuubi he had a little extra something to throw onto his combat efforts as well.

All four fighters took an involuntary step back when a stiff red aura started drifting out of Naruto's body, taking the form of a fox around his frame. Taking a deep breath, Naruto used his sharpened nails to tear into the cast on his arm and cast it aside as he could feel the pain in the limb subside swiftly.

"Emotions like love are strong." Naruto said with a forlorn smile even through the Kyuubi's chakra that fueled him, "But nothing makes you weaker than losing the things that you love. So what's the use?" He lifted a hand and pointed at Cammy, "She's first. Then it'll be Sakura-chan, and Batsu, and Karin, and Ibuki, and Ken, and all of you!"

Why was this happening?

At that moment, there was a harsh choking sound as Dhalsim, who had been in his meditative posture on the bridge, lurched forward with blood spilling from his mouth.

XxX

(Moments Before – Naruto's Mindscape)

"Naruto stop!" Dhalsim cried out as Naruto continued to do battle with his dark mental construct, "This is not the way to victory!"

If the damage done to the mindscape could reflect damage dealt to one's actual mind, Naruto probably would have had brain damage by that point. Craters had been knocked into the watery floor and on the walls. Entire pipes had been torn from their tracking all the same. Both Narutos were equally imaginative in coming up with ways to devastate the other.

But no matter what happened they seemed to know each other's moves by heart. It was a stalemate of sorts. No matter how many clones Naruto tried to make, Dark Naruto made the same. No matter how big a Rasengan Naruto presented to fight with, Dark Naruto would gleefully match it.

"Well what do you want me to do?" Naruto responded during a lull in the fighting, "How else am I going to get this pretender out of me? This is my body!"

"He's the embodiment of your darkness, given form by the influence of the dark taint that plagued you! Fighting only makes him stronger! Enhances his sway over you! I did not bring you here to fight!" Dhalsim urged, trying to bring the meaningless battle to a close, "He is your mirror image! He cannot fight you without your consent first, and fighting is what he wants! Every punch you throw gives him more control of your body!"

Control of his body? But the real Naruto didn't feel like he had lost control of anything. How would he even know though?

Dark Naruto let out an audible sigh and shook his head, "Cat's out of the bag now I guess…" He said before booming toward Dhalsim in a burst of water from the ground. As a reflex, Dhalsim lashed out with stretchy arms to subdue him, but it was to no avail as Naruto weaved around his ranged melee attack and prepared his own, "Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

Straight in the center of the chest, the spinning ball of chakra took a short moment to grind into Dhalsim before shooting him off like a cannonball straight into the pipe-laden wall, pulverizing it upon contact.

Standing back up straight from his Rasengan thrust, Dark Naruto had a deep frown on his face as Dhalsim crumbled out of the wall and fell facedown into the water, "You're right. A fight is what I want. And if he doesn't consent to fight I can't start anything with myself. But that doesn't go for you. You always did piss me off."

Seeing Dhalsim get taken apart by his own signature attack made Naruto want to jump ahead back into fighting, but above all else he remembered what he was told. Fighting would only make things worse, "Why?"

Ignoring him, Dark Naruto just shook his head as if he still couldn't see what Naruto was fighting him for. This was for their own benefit, "Oh come on. We were afraid of losing the Kyuubi, well we don't have to worry about that now with me in charge! We'll never lose that power again, and I can control it better than you can. I'm your hatred, I can take it."

Naruto almost snarled at his dark manifest in return, "You know the power isn't what I care about! If you were really me you wouldn't even bring that up to try and get me on your side. The power isn't why I'm worried about losing the Kyuubi. If I never got to use its chakra again so what? I'd just find a way to work around it, the way I have been since you've been stealing its chakra to form yourself."

"The Kyuubi is a source of power, you know that! Don't lie to yourself and say that's not what we're afraid of losing!" Dark Naruto held up a hand that seemed to draw the Kyuubi's chakra to it, "We were never any safer, any stronger, any more able to do anything we wanted than when we fought Bison and took him down with our full strength. With the Kyuubi, and with me in control we'll be unstoppable."

"No, you're wrong. It's not just power, the Kyuubi's the only link I've got left to home, it's been with me since the day I dropped here even when I didn't have anyone else! Even if it's a bastard to me I'm afraid of losing it because even if we hate each other it's always been there, even when I didn't know that it was! Always looking over my shoulder and having my back even when I didn't want it to! The sick part is that it's the closest thing to actual family I have…"

"Don't you say that! Don't try to make it seem like it's one of our friends!"

"Why? Because you can't kill this one you coward?"

"I'm doing that for us! No matter what we do we can't get away from it!" Dark Naruto insisted with a swipe of his arm, "In Konoha there was supposed to be a gang of freaks after us for no reason other than who we were, and the same thing keeps happening here!"

Patience was wearing thin on both sides, and Naruto's jaw locked in a determination to finish this any way he had to. Before he could step forward though, Dhalsim's weak voice reached his ears, "…Don't fight. The only way to solve this is to come to peace with your dark side."

That was right. And Naruto had gotten Dhalsim hurt, hopefully not for real, due to his playing into the hands of his darkness and giving it strength. He had to hash this out diplomatically, "What's your point?" He said to his doppelganger.

The mostly peaceful exchange continued much to his berserk dark side's chagrin, but he wouldn't let his will be broken when he had a point to make, "Any enemy we make will come for our friends, and they already have. We've been lucky. All of our friends have almost been killed at one time or another by enemies after us. People will use them to hurt us. They're doing it right now. Well I won't give them the satisfaction. I'd crush them all myself than let them be used against me."

When what you thought gave you strength turned into your weakness you had to cut it loose.

"Listen to yourself!" Naruto stormed forward and grabbed his inner darkness by the collar, "You don't get it! You're the worst case scenario! You want to talk about what we're afraid of, what we could never take happening! Well you're the worst of all! There's nothing I'm more afraid of than you!"

That gave Dark Naruto pause in the face of the half of him that he had previously been aspiring to kill and take full control from, "W-What do you mean? I told you already, I'm you. How can you be afraid of yourself?"

He was doing this to make sure that the two of them were safe.

Roughly releasing his other half, Naruto ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. This was it, "Seeing you and hearing you talk to me made it clear. I'm afraid of all of that stuff. I'm scared of losing the Kyuubi, but it's not because I'll miss its power, it's because over the last few years I've gotten attached to it. I'm afraid of my friends dying or being used to hurt me, but I believe in them. They're all strong enough that I shouldn't ever have to worry about them."

He could deal with all of that. On one level or another all of the people in his life were warriors, fighters, martial artists, ninjas, whatever they wanted to call themselves respectively. Needless to say, putting their bodies and lives at risk came with the territory and they were all aware of the possibility of death.

But there was one thing that always gave him pause, "I never want to be the reason that they die." Naruto told himself, "I don't want anyone getting hurt fighting my battles for me, I don't want anyone I love dying because I screwed up like I did with Charlie. But the worst thing is exactly what you said you would do. I almost lost control of myself fighting Bison, I would have hurt Cam had he not been the bigger threat, and against Akuma I actually did lose control."

If he faltered enough that he truly ever found himself unable to distinguish friend from foe, he didn't think that there was anyone that could stop him. Until running across Akuma and being defeated at his uncontrollable worst this was why he felt the need to go back to his world. He had trained himself in the mountains around Aohura City to the breaking point. He had gone past the limits of his control out there, and if he had ever gone on a complete rampage he had deduced that there was nothing that could be done to keep him from tearing apart anything he came across.

And now he found that his dark side wished to have full control with cognizant thought, and he wanted to do the very last thing that Naruto would have ever wished to happen; to make himself the one responsible for bringing about his friends deaths. No.

"The way you're doing things is wrong." Naruto said, "It's not something we ever want to think about, but killing off our friends won't take away our weakness. You sound like Sasuke-teme all those years ago right now." Dark Naruto really was part of the real Naruto because he visibly flinched at that comparison, "Are we a quitter?"

"What? Of course not!"

"Well then don't cop out on who we are, because this definitely isn't it." Naruto said with complete belief, "Don't buy into any of that power at all costs crap. We know better. Every single relationship we've had with everyone close to us in this world made us who we are, gave us something special that we wouldn't have gotten by ourselves. Thinking of them dying because of us still makes me sick to my stomach, but what you're doing is the same thing as giving up on what makes us."

XxX

(Meanwhile – Real World)

Standing on the rooftop of one of the temple buildings overlooking the garden scene that had destroyed his resting time, Sasuke stared down at the sight of Naruto beating the daylights out of all of his friends.

An attempt from Guile to sweep his leg while E. Honda launched into the air to crush the youngster beneath him ended with Naruto stopping Guile's leg with a chakra claw and moving out of the way with the use of a chakra tail pulling him, allowing E. Honda to crater the ground with his weight.

"What the hell is going on?" Sasuke thought aloud. Jumping in would do absolutely no good if he didn't know what was happening to begin with. Blanka was out of it, Chun-Li seemed to be on her last legs so to speak and Guile and E. Honda seemed to be getting pressed to the fullest extent to try and stop Naruto.

Looking down nearby he managed to see someone he could actually ask out of sight of the actual fighting and dropped down by a downed Cammy who turned to him defensively as she slowly stood back up to face him in her fighting stance.

Raising an eyebrow, Sasuke wondered once again just what the hell was happening. He didn't even look like or exude an aura that indicated that he wished to fight with her, so why was she acting so strange?

"…Can't stop…" Cammy managed to somehow grit out past her programmed mission, "…Brainwashed… help before I kill him." Or before he killed her, "…Knock me out."

Right. He could do that, if she wouldn't try to defend herself when he did, but that wouldn't solve the problem because she'd probably just try to kill Naruto again when she woke up. Luckily he had the ultimate brainwashing tool, and she was looking right into his eyes. This would be quick.

In the span of a second he could see exactly what was going on inside of her. It was uncanny how similar to a genjutsu the brainwashing was, only it came from within instead of an outside source. There was a foreign energy inside of her around her brain. Someone had done something like that to her physically?

It would have been impressive if it hadn't been scary to think about a genjutsu that one could never expel the chakra from.

But in a moment it was over. As uncanny as it was, Sasuke couldn't remove it due to the nature of it not being set like a conventional genjutsu, but he could rewrite the intent of the encoding to basically nullify it.

Cammy's eyes fluttered and her legs gave out as her body fell back to her own full control as if she were a marionette that had just had its strings cut.

"There. That should work." Sasuke said, letting her know, in case she hadn't realized it herself, that the job was done, "Now what's wrong with the dobe?" He wasn't looking too much like a 'dead last' right then, that was for sure.

Getting the bearings to her body back, Cammy still seemed a bit out of it even as she shook her head. She didn't know, but she really didn't like it. Whatever was going on was alarming to say the least. This wasn't who Naruto was.

XxX

"You can't win!" Kyuubi-charged Naruto stated as his foot shoved itself into the sizeable belly of E. Honda. As he doubled over he grabbed the man by his topknot to pull him further down into a forceful punch to the face that knocked the sumo out cold.

Even four-on-one with everyone at full strength, taking down a Naruto using the Kyuubi's chakra and fighting with complete abandon to their well-being would have proven to be a tall order, but with everyone physically debilitated as severely as many of them were it was a solely futile effort.

Around the garden that had been reduced entirely to a torn up mess of grass and dirt, the other combatants were strewn about with varying degrees of injury. Blanka was nearly unconscious with one of his arms nigh useless, while Chun-Li couldn't find it in herself to get back up and keep, "Naruto stop." She said, with a cough, "I don't understand."

"That's right, none of you understand!" Naruto shouted right back at her with his abnormally colored eyes, "You'll never get it, and I'm sick of explaining it! I don't have to justify myself to any of you! This is how it has to be!"

Guile, the overall healthiest of the party, still stood ready to fight, hands up and sights set on Naruto, "I see what you meant before about the whole obsession thing. It's a really ugly look." He ran and jumped at Naruto who also bounded high into the air to meet him. Slipping a chakra claw launched his way, Guile managed to hook an arm around Naruto's waist and hurl him at the ground.

Taking a bump off of his back upon contact, Naruto jumped right back up to his feet and charged at Guile as he landed, "Isseishageki Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire Volley)!" Naruto fired dozens of tinier-than-normal chakra projectiles from his mouth that Guile impressively weaved his way through before unleashing a Sonic Boom right in Naruto's face.

Naruto's chakra tail anchored him in place after taking the hit, but it only led to him taking a lightning-quick Flash Kick right underneath the chin, "One!" As Naruto flew into the air he landed and threw a second one that kicked him in the back, "Two!" A third resulting kick unleashed a strong crescent of energy that nailed Naruto in the air one last time, "Strike! Flash Explosion!"

Who knew that losing in the tournament so fast would serve to be a good thing in the end?

"There's something wrong with the way you're fighting kid." Guile said, feeling the shoe being on another foot compared to the last time that the two of them had met, "Your fists are mute. I think that's worse than my fists being filled with rage. Come on now, what are you doing this for?"

"Because I need to."

"You don't _need_ to do anything. What responsibility do you have that makes you try to kill your friends? You don't have to do it, you don't even want to do it. This isn't like my thing with Charlie. At least there I want to get revenge, but you were right, I've got more important things to worry about." At that, Guile opened his arms and exposed his chest as Naruto got up off of the ground, "But if you really want to kill us, if you really think that you need to do it, prove it and kill me right here."

That was a bad idea according to everyone else that was still awake enough to hear what was going on. The merciless beating that Naruto laid on them gave them no quarter or pause until that point when Guile somehow started hitting him. What changed? Even the red glow around his body was gone as well.

Naruto held up his right hand that started to crackle with purple energy, "Metsu Rasengan (Destroying Spiraling Sphere)…" The purple energy began to solidify in the form of a bright and unstable spinning ball, but just as it started to grow in size it started to decrease and lose its purple coloring, "No."

His eyes started to change their color back to normal and his posture began to slump as he swayed in place and one of his hands reached to hold his throbbing head. It was like a breath of relief had passed over all of the temple grounds at that very moment.

Once the tension dropped, Chun-Li slowly stood up and walked over to stand next to Guile as she held her aggravated injuries and looked around at the downed Blanka and E. Honda before observing the staggering Naruto without saying a word.

Guile had no inclination to remain so silent though, "Do you reckon this is over?" So much so did he want her to say yes, because he hated the idea of getting hit with a regular Rasengan. He might have been able to survive one of those though. Whatever that purple Rasengan had been made of, it would have blown his heart out through his back. The energy that formed it seemed to be all but gone though, as he couldn't even feel it from within Naruto's body any longer, "Whatever's wrong with him I mean?"

This was a different Guile than the one Chun-Li had been forced to become accustomed to since the ill-fated trip into the Thai jungles to rid the world of Bison. This one seemed confident again, he seemed focused. Daresay even in control of himself.

"I think so." Chun-Li said, slowly taking a step in Naruto's direction, "Naruto, are you going to kill us the second we drop our guard?"

"…No." The low voice of the aforementioned blond teen said as he slowly lifted his head and looked up at them all with quite a large amount of shame on his face, "I don't know what to say. If I tried to tell you what came over me I don't think you'd understand or believe the first half of it." Looking around at just what he had done while he had been embattled with himself, he cringed, "I didn't kill anyone did I?"

"You did not." Dhalsim said as he walked up from where his body had remained from the very beginning. He was visibly hurt as well, with blood trailing from his mouth, but once again from looking solely at his face no one would ever know as much, "Even when your dark side had stronger control over you, your inhibitions still held fast enough for you both to keep him from truly unleashing your full wrath."

Dark sides? Control? Yeah, that went over both Chun-Li and Guile's heads as they moved to try and rouse E. Honda and Blanka, but rest assured there would be a stiff line of questioning that one Naruto would not be able to dance his way out of if they could help it. Not after everything that had happened tonight.

That was a freak-out for the ages for sure. That kid snapping was dangerous, he made for one scary bad guy.

A sigh of relief came from Naruto as he saw E. Honda and Blanka begin to stir. Thank goodness for that. Turning back to Dhalsim, Naruto gratefully thanked the man, "I don't know how I can repay you." Despite how troublesome it seemed at times, Dhalsim had come through for him despite how roundabout it had all seemed, "If there's anything I can do for you, if you ever need my help for something-."

Dhalsim held up a hand to stop Naruto from further showing his appreciation, "That is unnecessary. I did not do this because I expected or wished for something in return. I did this because I felt it was the right thing to do. I could not allow something like that to further fester inside of you, not in someone such as yourself."

The mystic would not say as much as he had alluded to it months ago when they had met in India, but had Naruto not been ready to face himself and admit to what petrified him this could have ended infinitely worse.

"What are you going to do now?" Naruto asked when Dhalsim turned and started to walk away, "I hurt you in there." He wasn't nearly fool enough to think that the dried blood from his mouth was there for any other reason other than getting leveled with a Rasengan inside of his mind. Spiritual links and all that.

"It is nothing that won't heal. I no longer need to be here." Dhalsim said, "I have helped you, and I have been eliminated from the tournament. There is no reason for me to linger here any longer."

He still had questions though.

Once the problem inside of Naruto's mind was resolved and they were both cast out into the real world, he felt yet another presence and heard an unfamiliar young man's voice inside of Naruto's head that told Naruto that he was proud of him, as if he were a father speaking to a son.

This boy was just one mystery after another. But this was one that he would not find himself a part of. No, he had played his part in the life of Naruto already.

With that, not even waiting for a goodbye or giving one himself, Dhalsim teleported away and out of the garden. What a strange and straightforward man. Guys like Ryu and Guile were downright cordial compared to him, but as Naruto had come to learn, this did not make Dhalsim a bad person. Not at all.

"Naruto."

Such a quiet voice. And he knew exactly who it was from as he turned around and faced his 'roommate', his friend, and the girl that his dark side had almost killed, "Hey Cam."

Even after she tried to kill him he still referred to her by that affectionate shortening of her name. But of course to be fair he had tried to kill her back, and his retaliation had been utterly brutal. Still though, her heart involuntarily swelled up when he spoke to her.

Both of them just stared at each other for the longest time until they spoke simultaneously, "I'm sorry." The stereo apologies surprised the both of them as they felt that they had been the one to truly wrong the other, "Don't apologize to me Naruto. I attacked you first. I couldn't control myself. The Bison person… he put me under his control somehow." She saw Naruto's eyes blaze over in rage before she tried to quell it, "But Sasuke did something to stop his brainwashing."

Sasuke… and he didn't even stick around to be thanked for it. Jerk. Trying to be so cool all of the time. Still, he owed him one for that no matter what the bastard would say about not needing or wanting anything from him in return later.

Still though, now that it was all over, Naruto knew exactly how he had treated Cammy in their conflict, even when she told him that she couldn't stop herself, "Cammy I… I mean to say… about what I did and, it wasn't really me, but it was me, so… I don't even-."

"It's okay." Cammy stopped him from trying to sputter out an apology with a small smile on her face despite clutching at her pain-wracked body, "We're not so good at apologizing, you and I." For different reasons of course, but the point still stood, "I just want this to all be over."

'You and me both.' Naruto thought, looking around to where E. Honda was up and holding his head. Blanka was being helped back up by Guile and Chun-Li. Everyone looked spent, and with good reason. It had to be past two a.m. at that point, "Right. What now?"

Guile held Blanka up under the jungle man's good arm to support his weight as he answered, "You still have a match tomorrow, so you should sleep. We can wait to bust your ass about what this was all about later. We'll see to these two, you two go."

"No one should really be alone right now at all." Chun-Li said in follow-up. Even with the small window of time after Cammy's loss where she was left alone, that was still enough for Bison to apparently reactivate her and send her on the warpath. Now that it had failed they had all dodged a bullet and had to react as if he'd try something again, "You two stay together, and if one of you freaks out again the other one had better come and find us."

Naruto nodded and supported Cammy in a similar manner as to how Guile was assisting Blanka as the two walked away.

"Those are the weirdest kids." E. Honda commented as he pulled his very dirty light blue yukata back over his shoulders now that the fighting was over. He'd probably be washing rubber scuff marks off of his backside for days because evil Naruto kicked his ass so hard, "They almost killed each other and now they're going to watch each other's backs again?"

"Just because they're weird doesn't mean it's a bad thing." Chun-Li said in their defense as she led the group of men along back inside one of the temple buildings. There had to be some monk doctors that had heard all of that ruckus and could help them. For God's sake it lasted for hours.

"Are you saying that it wasn't a bad thing tonight?"

"Oh shut up Guile, you know what I meant."

XxX

After cleaning up a touch of the dirt and residue from fighting off of himself and depositing Cammy outside of her room, Naruto moved one door over and walked into his own room, feeling a deep need to drop down into his bed on his face and not move again until someone forcefully woke him. Fighting with himself and all of his friends at the same time was damnably exhausting.

Hopefully one of his friends wouldn't choose his wake-up call as the time to try and get one of their hits back on him because he really wanted to try and enjoy his rest as much as he could.

Well he didn't have time to do any of that as not too long after he had started to stretch and yawn while preparing for his slumber, he felt Cammy's presence standing in the doorway just looking at him.

Tired or not, it didn't matter if Cammy was there. Naruto with his sandals kicked off and with the top half of his fighting outfit bunched at his waist by his belt stood in his mesh shirt just looking back at her owlishly, "What's up Cam?"

She shook her head and didn't answer at first before she walked in calmly and began to speak, "I don't want to be by myself again." Nothing good had happened whenever she had been by herself on this trip, "Would it bother you if I stayed here?"

Naruto looked around and shrugged before he took off his mesh shirt and threw it to the side, "Alright, sure." It wasn't like they hadn't slept in the same bed once before, "Come on." After hopping into bed himself and laying down on his back, Naruto watched Cammy shut and lock the door and then get into bed at a more reserved pace than he had, gingerly even, "You alright?"

"Mostly." Cammy said, cringing a bit as she sat down on the edge of the bed and took her boots and gauntlets off. As she did so she inhaled sharply through her teeth as if she were hurting, "Just a bit of discomfort."

In the moonlight shining through the window Naruto could see the bruises on the higher areas of her arms and reached out to touch one. He did that to her. Dark side or not, it was still _his_ dark side, a part of him.

"I'm okay. Honest." Cammy said as she felt Naruto's hand linger on one of her shoulders, "It isn't anything I'm not used to." She turned her head back as she felt Naruto sit up to get a closer look at her, as one bruise in particular trailed up past the back of her shoulder underneath her leotard, "I don't need any sympathy from you Naruto."

"It's not sympathy, now let me see." After a short bout of banter, Cammy acquiesced to the request and let Naruto pull her leotard down past her arms to her waist, exposing her upper body as he used a finger to trail the large discolored bruise on her bare back he had dealt her hours earlier, "How much of this was Sagat and how much of this was me?"

"It doesn't matter." Swinging her legs up on the bed, Cammy laid herself down on Naruto's arm and reeled herself in against him as she set her head against his shoulder. Naruto's cheeks started to flare red at being pressed up against the bare-chested young woman for about half a second before he settled down and held her around the waist. Without saying anything else on the matter, Cammy placed his other hand on her body, high enough to play at one of her breasts.

She didn't stop him from doing so. In fact, she encouraged the contact of his fingers teasing at her nipple, twisting her body enough to allow him freer access.

His hand traced down her trim stomach and back up to the side of her chest, letting him take in the feeling of how soft she was, taking great care not to press on her too hard lest he harm her tender body.

If she didn't have any problems with it why should he? She didn't ever have problems doing anything around him come to think of it.

Brushing his fingers lightly across the area on her back that held one of the nastier bruises that Cammy had suffered over the course of the day, Naruto once again felt Cammy's body quiver from the touch and felt the need to plant a kiss on Cammy's cheek.

Her eyes opened back up and peered up at him while he did the same down at her. The smile on her face came back a bit and she pushed herself up a bit on Naruto's chest, "My mission that was given to me by that Bison man wasn't specifically to kill you. His exact order was for me to find and kill the person I cared for the most. I went to you first for a reason."

That was flattering, and kind of scary, but mostly flattering.

Lemon Start

"Oh Cam…" Naruto said with a touch of appreciation on his face for the girl. He didn't stay her hand when she cast away the belt at his waist and helped him out of the rest of his fighting outfit before he helped her shimmy out of the remainder of her leotard. Even as she straddled his waist, Naruto simply watched her in awe as to how comfortable she was with him in such an intimate situation, "Heh, I can't say I saw this coming tonight."

"I don't see why we shouldn't. There isn't anyone else in the world I think more of than you." Besides, if it was him it was alright, "Who else would it be but you? Who else do you possibly think I would trust enough to do this with?"

Naruto's eyes drifted between Cammy's rather modest and perky breasts and her face as he held onto her thighs to keep her level on top of him, "First time for everything huh?" Laying beneath the cute female soldier, Naruto felt his member come to life as she shifted around and rubbed herself back and forth against it.

Cammy didn't know anything about seduction, that was more Ibuki's forte, but that was never her charm to begin with. She was just so sincere with everything she did and straightforward to a sometimes painstaking degree. There was something endearing about that. She didn't emote very often, but if one paid attention it was easy to see that she actually wore her emotions on her sleeve. As if she had nothing to hide, and would be an open book to you if you simply talked to her.

Naruto's cock was slick with Cammy's juices from her 'prep work' and it seemed that it would be now or never as it were, thus Naruto signaled her that it was time to give it a try with a firm pat to her backside. With that, Cammy shifted into position and without a moment's hesitation pressed Naruto's length down inside of herself with something of a shocked gasp at the sudden feeling of being filled up.

Her hymen was a non-factor and probably had been for as long as she had been fighting. With the way that she fought with regular use of splits and the developed flexibility of her body it wasn't to be worried about.

It was kind of surprising that Cammy had cast away her virginity without a second thought, any attempt to ease into it, or anything like that, but then again not really once Naruto thought about her character. If she had decided upon something, that would be it, and she wasn't going to look back on it.

This was no exception.

Her chest heaved up and down as she tried to adjust to the feeling and wait out the unfamiliar sensation from the abrupt penetration, but once it subsided her body got into gear as she set a slow and grinding pace that Naruto found agonizing as he set his hands on her hips and helped her move, seemingly trying to get her bearings.

It wasn't done purposefully to tease him, Cammy wasn't like that. She was simply legitimately curious. Every move she made, every rock of her hips, every deliberate motion up and down that she took was meant to teach her what she liked and what she thought felt good.

Clearly she had managed to hit her stride and find her spot when she started rising up and down at a quicker pace, chest jiggling as she turned her head up to the ceiling. She mouthed silent words with no sound to them, though slight whimpers did come from her as Naruto had adapted to the situation and started pumping back up into her every time she came down.

Cammy's nails scratched into Naruto's chest hard enough to draw blood from where she had been steadying herself, but that didn't do anything other than to spur him on for more of her. A little scratch or five meant nothing compared to the pleasure going on at the moment.

Reaching farther up on the girl's back and underneath one leg, Naruto almost lost himself to the moment as he forced her back against the cold, hard wall of the temple room. She let out a sharp yelp at the impact that shifted from pain to pleasure from Naruto fucking her against the stone.

Goosebumps rose on her skin from the cold against her bare back even as she shivered from the delightful heat pulsing inside of her pussy. Her slick inner walls were wrapped so tightly around Naruto's cock that she swore she could feel his heartbeat even connected as they were.

Naruto pushed Cammy's elevated leg up from down at his waist to up over his shoulder, pulling a breathless gasp from her as her eyes went wide. Even rendered as helpless as she was in her current position, if sex was normally that good she'd relinquish dominance of herself anytime. It was worth it.

"Come on Cam, sing for me. Let me hear that pretty accent of yours again." Naruto said quietly, pressing his forehead against hers before giving her a rough kiss that she moaned into while he continued to thrust into her.

"Can't stand…" Cammy muttered just before a scream tore from her throat as he kept plunging deeply inside of her pussy. The one leg she was standing on her tiptoes with was about to collapse as the jolts of ecstasy coursed through her and caused her tensed muscles to spasm.

With a short grunt, Naruto swung Cammy off of the wall and back onto the bed, both of them rolling around with each other dangerously before he wound up back on top of her, pinning her wrists down as she writhed beneath him, trying to initiate more friction, more motion. She just wanted more, she didn't care what form it came in or how she got it from him. Just having him inside of her wasn't enough anymore.

With her legs spread almost bashfully, Cammy looked up at Naruto demurely, waiting on him to go as she breathed softly to catch her wind back. She did not have to wait for long for him before he sank himself right back into her.

Giving control over to him was probably the best move she had made that night. Where she had been unsure and basically experimenting with what she figured felt good, Naruto was apt enough to go straight for the kill so to speak. Cammy couldn't help but let out a series of loud and ecstatic screams as Naruto repeatedly assaulted her most sacred spot with every portion of his length.

Her body ached from the damage wrought to her throughout the day, but a little kinky side of Cammy liked it, "Naruto, I-! Ah!" She cried out, wrapping her arms around his spiky head and pulling him into the crook of her neck, "God you're killing me! Don't stop!"

Naruto indeed did not stop, driven forward by coaxing such passionate shouts from the usually docile angel-eyed assassin that came freely. Pulling himself free from her grip, he pinned Cammy down to the bed again with one hand holding both of her wrists over her head as she shook her loosened blonde locks in vain to try and wriggle about.

Each pump of Naruto's hips forcefully drove him into her up to the proverbial hilt, with his hands on her waist pulling himself as deeply as he could go time and time again. Naruto nipped at Cammy's lips and he felt her start to tense up. Shutting her eyes tightly she softly whispered 'no' repeatedly before cringing and wailing out in cue with her climax.

She had never screamed like that for anything in her life, the sound of it reverberated off of the stone walls of the room. Her nerves down below were demanding that she continue cry out as Naruto continued to churn his cock inside of her, making her feel weightless in her rapture.

Don't be silent and reserved. Reward Naruto for his hard work. Let him know that you have never felt anything so good in your life. That _he_ made you feel this way. That your rapture was due to _him_. This was what Cammy thought to herself as Naruto continued to fuck her.

His own buildup to blissful release pending, Naruto reluctantly pulled out of Cammy and shot his seed to the side. It was confusing to her as to why he did so until she realized that this had been so spur-of-the-moment that they had had no protection. Responsible, but part of her was somewhat disappointed. Everything else had felt absolutely wonderful, and she figured that allowing Naruto his orgasm inside of her would have been just so as well.

End Lemon

The two teenagers were in something of a daze for the longest time. The whirlwind of events and feelings swirling within them both ever since the early afternoon had spontaneously led to the two of them sharing such a moment together.

Sitting up with a slight smile on her face, Cammy pulled her knees to her chest and smoothed some of her long hair out of her face, "Well…" She didn't seem to know how to articulate herself, mind still slightly hazy, "Should I keep my door locked at home from now on, or are you still going to behave? Not that a locked door by itself would stop you."

"'Behave' my ass. I should be saying that to you." Naruto said, gathering himself once more as he grinned at his lovely roommate, "You were kind of loud there Cam. I didn't think you could get that noisy."

Having the good sense to realize in hindsight just how loud she actually had been, Cammy blushed a bit, concealed by the darkness of the room, "I didn't know I'd enjoy it that much." She defended weakly before gesturing for Naruto move next to her in bed. It was cold in there and she was stark naked. She now knew from _intimate_ experience that Naruto always ran hot, and that was what she wanted.

Sleeping was pretty redundant for Naruto at that point as the night was basically over. The sun would have to start coming up in a matter of three hours, but cuddling with Cammy was as good a way as any to try and get as much rest as he could.

Getting back at the head of the bed, Naruto set himself on one of the pillows and let Cammy scramble next to him before throwing the blanket over them both, setting her head on his chest and intertwining her legs with his. She was so petite that she could sleep on him with no problem to him. He'd enjoy it until morning, she would too, and everything would be just fine.

Someone could try and come through that door to victimize her again… they'd be leaving devoid a few organs for sure. He was not in the mood for anymore stupid games tonight. He was exhausted, felt a cranky snap coming on, and had a vulnerable girl in his arms at the moment.

"Nobody's gonna hurt you Cam. Never like what he did again. I promise." No one would hurt any of his people close to him. He'd fight himself to keep such a thing from ever happening. And right then no one was closer to him than her.

With that, Naruto could feel Cammy smile into his chest even though she didn't say a word. After all, he always did keep the promises he made to others didn't he?

**"Indeed you do boy."** A voice said inside of Naruto, sounding like one of begrudging respect. He tried to call out mentally for the Kyuubi, but got no response. Whatever. It had to be tired too. Everyone could deal with all of this tomorrow.

* * *

><p><strong>And that's chapter. That's one hell of a day isn't it?<strong>

**Oh man… I haven't had much in the vein of free time since the semester started, since nothing I shoot on camera for any of my work is ever good enough to not take four hours to get it done (not counting editing), and I somehow miraculously got my hands on a copy of Borderlands 2… so those of you in the know can do the math on how a good chunk of my downtime is being spent on that one.**

**I haven't gotten in a good workout since halfway through September. Not cool. All of my combat awesome is not maintained without extreme maintenance involving me getting punched in the face and ragdolled across the mats by high-level wrestlers.**

**All of that aside, the next chapter is the second day of the tournament, featuring those damned semifinal round matches. Rest assured, the show is not over yet folks. I've still got some more to give so stay patient yeah?**

**Hope you enjoyed. Kenchi out.**


	36. The Subtle Art of Attrition

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. When I write this disclaimer 500 times in one form or another I'll get a free T-shirt.

**Chapter 36: The Subtle Art of Attrition**

* * *

><p>Before the sun had even peeked over the horizon to signify the new day, Bison had taken it upon himself to survey the scarred-up garden that had served as the site of his Killer Bee's attempt to murder one of his enemies.<p>

Like the commander of an army walking the field after a horrible battle, he took in the entire scene, observing every detail he could pick up in the dawning light.

Obviously a very severe conflict had taken place there, there was smoke still rising in areas of the field and on the ground he could see dried blood in different places. He had sensed her initiate the battle, and then felt the overwhelming energy that came with the deliciously violent red aura that he was well aware was possessed by Naruto, something he hadn't sensed throughout the tournament.

"Quite clearly she has failed." Despite this, the grin on his twisted face was still ever-present. Killer Bee was a failed attempt at providing the perfect body for his incredible Psycho Power, and he merely found one last use for her. Recycling they called it.

He could no longer feel the subconscious connection between them, which made sense to him. If she had gone up against Naruto and actually forced him to utilize 'the red' against her, there was no chance of her surviving. The boy was an absolute barbarian, a berserker of sorts, when he drew upon that power, and without a doubt he would have torn her apart.

He wasn't jealous of such a gift, though it was clearly amazing. _Clearly_ his Psycho Power was more versatile and had the added bonus of allowing him to keep his intellect. Naruto's turned him into a mindless killer. It turned Vega into a raving lunatic of a narcissi-…

Okay, well Vega had already been a raving lunatic of a narcissist before Naruto had killed him in combat. But at least he had been able to keep it mostly under control until he had the red energy bonded with his cells. It drove him past his previous brink of sanity and then some.

This was all aside from the point. From the signs of combat, it was intense. Even if Naruto managed to survive it in one piece, big deal.

It was of no consequence.

At high noon he would have to deal with Sagat, and that would be very a very high-stakes battle indeed. No one escaped combat with Sagat unscathed even when coming in fully healthy, and from the looks of things Naruto would not be fully healthy coming in.

If that boy could deal with the entire previous day of fighting, get no sleep due to the attempt on his life by Killer Bee that he survived in a hellacious battle, and after all of that somehow emerge victorious in mortal combat with Sagat…

If that were to occur, he would _have_ to ensure that this enemy did not survive this day to leave this temple alive. He was far too dangerous to any future ambition of domination Bison could have to be allowed to survive. If he killed no one else today, he would ensure that the world would watch Naruto Uzumaki suffer and die even if he had to do it himself.

XxX

(Hours Later – Within the Temple – Naruto's Room)

The wake-up call of knocks at his door came much too soon for Naruto who seemed to feel like he had just nodded off by the time the sun was up and bathing the countryside in light when he finally shut his eyes and dozed off. Then a second later the blasted banging on his door came.

His body hurt from the day before, though admittedly he could already feel the Kyuubi connected back to him again and patching his rough spots up. You don't know what you've got until it's gone, most definitely. After what his friends had to do to him the previous night just to deal with his dark side's assault he should have felt like a tenderized steak.

Naruto peered over to the still soundly sleeping Cammy lying down on his chest and trailed a hand gently down her back. He carefully moved her off of him without waking her so that he could hop out of bed and answer the door. Said hop then resulted on him slipping on the floor and banging the back of his head on the hard stone floor.

"Damn it!" Naruto let out in a quiet cry as he sat up and rubbed his new bump while looking down at the spot where he slipped. A bitter frown crossed his face as he saw what it was that had done it and got back up, "Are you kidding me?" He muttered to himself as he fished a clean set of boxers out of his luggage while another knock came at the door.

Without wasting another moment he stormed to the door and almost threw it open with an uncharacteristic scowl on his face, "Yes?" He seethed in a low voice as he saw Chun-Li standing there with one hand on her hip, the other held out and set to knock again, "May I help you onee-chan?"

Raising an eyebrow at cranky Naruto, Chun-Li pointed at the nonexistent watch on her wrist, "It's ten-thirty. Your ass needs to be in the courtyard and ready to roll by noon. Remember? World-renowned fighting tournament with shady sponsors? Semifinal round? You vs. Sagat? Big grandiose trap by a narcissistic madman to have us all amuse him and make him money along with giving him chances to kill us under the radar?"

Naruto just blinked tiredly at her, using one hand to post himself up in the doorway shamelessly in his underwear, "…I didn't even get to sleep until probably after six or seven. Give me a second to reboot before you start treating me like a kid."

"Oh you're definitely not a kid anymore 'little brother'." Chun-Li teased dryly, "You see, I stopped through with Guile after everyone got patched up to see how you two were doing, and when I got to your hall I believe I heard her…" She emphasized, pointing within at the sleeping Cammy, "…Screaming in your room. Good screaming, not bad screaming. I know the difference, otherwise I would have kicked the door down."

At that point, Naruto had enough shame in him to avert his red face away from allowing Chun-Li to look him in the eyes, "Guile knows too?" Oh Kami no. Stupid martial arts monks with their lack of soundproofed rooms and echoing halls, "Motherfucker." How was anyone supposed to have a private moment in an echoing stone building?

"Yeah, but he just shook his head while we were walking away, muttering about stupid hormonal kids. We left you alone." Chun-Li assured him before narrowing her eyes and smirking, "So how was it? From what I heard you didn't sound like you froze up or fumbled around during your first time. Good for you!"

"What, are you jealous?"

"Ha, funny. No, I'm just nosy like that. But seriously, how was it?"

"…Can I just go get dressed now? I really don't want to answer that and be 'that guy'. It's personal."

"I'll just ask Cammy later when you both eat breakfast then. She doesn't care about her own personal stuff so she'll tell me just like that."

No. Stupid inquisitive Interpol detectives… just let sleeping dogs lie for fuck's sake, "No you won't. What happens in Bangkok stays in Bangkok goddamn it."

"We're technically not in Bangkok to begin with. We're like fifty kilometers outside of the city." The older woman commented idly as if nothing about the conversation that was slowly turning Naruto's whole body red bothered her in the least, "Hey, what's that shine on the floor by the be-? Aww, you pulled out. That's so cute."

SLAM!

"Good morning by the way~!"

In a grumbling huff after slamming the door in his way too cheerful friend's face, Naruto turned around and gathered up the clothes and gear he would endeavor to wear and use that day. This had better not have been the start of the theme of the day, because it was going to get old quick.

"I should have let evil-me kick the shit out of you more." He remarked about Chun-Li before moving to the side of his pretty roomie, looking down at her content face half-buried in a pillow, "…And I officially don't care anymore. Worth it." She couldn't hear him, but her body shifted and she sleepily wrinkled her nose momentarily before sighing and continuing her slumber.

That was probably her subconsciously seconding his comment. Right on.

He didn't know if it was his dark side or not, but part of him wanted to wake her up and see if she wanted to have another go-around. He quickly rid himself of that thought. Things were confusing enough already. Plus they didn't have the time.

What happened last night and whatever happened from then on would be something that could (and would have to) be handled after the tournament was done. He didn't regret it, not for a second because it had been incredible, but what it all meant was beyond him and probably Cammy to an even greater extent. Just how aware or interested in the whole intimate relationships thing was she?

It came out of absolutely nowhere. He and Cammy were close. That much clearly had to be true after spending eight months under the same roof alone, and at times she did have her own little personal quirks that he'd picked up on over time, same as any girl. He did indeed love her, but did he _love_ her?

He'd die for her any day of the week, but all the same he'd die for a number of people, many of them girls as well. This completely muddied the waters on that front to say nothing of how confused he was with all of it, and he could say with absolute confidence that he would have never figured that out of all of the problems he'd faced in his life that this of all things would have wound up being one of them.

Damn it. After spending years of his teenage life lamenting the fact that he couldn't get women to dig him he now wondered if he'd wished on one too many stars. This was the kind of shit he needed parents for. His old man could probably give him some sagely advice. His dad was probably the greatest man that ever lived. How else could a child as awe-inspiring as him have been conceived?

'Meh, to hell with it right now.' Naruto thought to himself as he went to gently rouse Cammy from her sleep. He'd deal with it when he didn't run the risk of possibly being murdered on worldwide television by a bald guy twice his size with an eyepatch, ridiculous strength and ki, and obvious anger management issues. That was the more pressing issue at the moment.

XxX

(Elsewhere on the Grounds – Sometime Later)

In another place on the vast temple grounds, the day of another was starting. Or should it be said that it never ended?

A knock came to the door of Sagat, though unlike the one that had come at Naruto's it was markedly more reserved and timid.

Standing up from his meditative seat on the floor, Sagat cracked his stiff neck to the side as he walked to the door and opened it up, a comparatively diminutive young monk standing behind it, staring up at him, "Sir, you requested to be left alone, completely isolated until the following day of matches began. Well the first semifinal bout is to begin in less than an hour."

Despite having been awake through the night, Sagat seemed thoroughly refreshed and at his naturally intimidating best, "I see. I will be down in the courtyard soon." One more match and he would have the glorious battle he had been seeking since falling in bitter defeat to Ryu all those years ago.

The monk quickly moved to one side as Sagat had to duck underneath the doorway to step out and begin walking through the halls to the outside area. While doing so he passed by Ken who was dialing up his wife on his phone, but paid the man no mind. That was the wrong practitioner of that certain style to be focused on.

The one he wanted to face was Ryu. No one else would do. It simply wouldn't be the same. It would feel almost hollow after all he had done to put himself in a position to get the fight he truly wanted to wind up facing someone else in the finals.

And Ken wasn't very focused on Sagat either. If dealing with him was necessary he'd care then. Until the finals if both of them made it there neither of them had anything to say to each other, thus his presence meant nothing to him.

He had to look at the big picture. Two more victories and he wouldn't just be the American champion any longer. He'd have a shot to lay claim to being the best in the world. Now that was something to call home over.

Speaking of something to call home over, Ken found himself passed by in the breezeway outside by his to-be opponent of the day in Sasuke who seemed to be just killing time by walking around the grounds while it was having its mini-festival before the fights, "Hey."

Hearing a voice call out to him, Sasuke stopped and turned to catch sight of Ken hanging out of the opening in a stone wall meant to be a window, "What do you want?" He asked evenly. Fraternizing with someone he was about to go to war with really wasn't his thing unless they were about to start hurling insults back and forth.

Ken just grinned at the dark assassin and raised a gloved fist out to him, "When it comes time for us to fight I want to see the best you've got. You'd better bring it kid. It's 'Championship Saturday' today." He jested.

Shaking his head at the boisterous blond American fighter, Sasuke felt like he kind of reminded him of someone before responding, "Don't you worry about that, but you should be careful what you wish for." Sasuke started to walk away until he heard Ken's voice again.

"Really? That's your best banter?" Ken said, seemingly disappointed by Sasuke's previous rebuttal, almost getting Sasuke to trip over his shoes as he stopped walking, "I thought a pretty boy like you would be one of those subtle kind of shit-talkers. Jeez, what are you gonna throw at me next? How about the old tried and true, 'I'm the one your mother always warned you about' line? Though I think you should save that one for picking up chicks."

Sasuke turned around and glared at Ken for such a stupid thing to talk about and scoffed before choosing to hastily leave, vanishing in a Shunshin, "Idiot."

After the swirl of wind and leaves subsided, Ken smirked and pumped a fist as he went off on his own business, "In his head in thirty seconds." Now Sasuke would be all pissy and aggressive to start the fight and he could prepare for that, "Who's more abrasive than Ken Masters? Nobody!"

Now to find his buddy Ryu in case he was still sulking about the fight yesterday. Seriously, sometimes Ryu had to learn how to let some things roll off of his back and move on. Lose a fight and he was fine? Lose a fight and almost lose control while trying to kill his best friend? He turns into a sulking mess.

XxX

"So you got into a fight with yourself with the fate of your body's control on the line, got laid afterwards, didn't sleep a wink after all of that, and now you're about to fight the 'God of Muay Thai'." E. Honda said, basically summing up Naruto's situation as he walked with the young man dressed back in his normal orange fighting outfit as opposed to the blue he had worn on day one, "Do you want me to knock you out now to save Sagat the trouble?"

"Shut up E." Naruto grumped in return at the joke. Chun-Li was with Cammy helping her find something more civilian to wear now that they were both done fighting in the tournament, and that left Guile and E. Honda to keep with Naruto until bell time, "If you don't have anything helpful to say just save it until the flight home. You can make fun of me all you want then. And what's your damn problem?" Naruto asked Guile who wouldn't look him in the eyes.

"Let's just say it's been a long two days." Guile stated flatly in return, nose still bandaged from yesterday, "The sumo's got a point though kid. Exactly how much do you have left in the tank after all of the fighting yesterday and no sleep?"

"And the sex. Let's not forget the sex." E. Honda added with a chuckle as they traversed the temple grounds that were closed off to the crowd filing into the stands in preparation for the highly awaited fights of the day, "I think we're glossing over that when we should be taunting the hell out of Uzumaki as is our right as his seniors, but I will say now that I'm the one that saw something like this coming eventually. You spend a lot of time around pretty girls your age."

Guile did not want to be reminded of how he almost kicked down the door to Naruto and Cammy mid-coitus, thus why he was refraining from looking in Naruto's general direction. He was a conservative kind of guy, so sue him, "Can we focus here? In case you haven't noticed, in about ten minutes a gigantic Thai kickboxer is going to be doing everything he can to rearrange those marks on Naruto's cheeks all over his face with his fists. Ask me how I know." The airman said as he gestured at his own broken nose.

Naruto had watched Guile fight Sagat, and he watched Cammy fight Sagat. Cammy gave him some fits simply by outquicking him until he adjusted to her movements. That meant he was adaptable. He had to be. He'd been fighting since before Naruto was born so he had to have seen pretty much everything under the sun. Nothing was going to surprise that man today.

He had a temper though, so maybe there was a chance that Naruto could pick up on that. That was a slim thing to bank on in a pinch though, but the paths to victory seemed narrow. Getting hit was an absolute no-no period. Kyuubi or not, Guile's face and how quickly he had been defeated was plenty of evidence that even if you considered yourself tough, Sagat chewed up and spit out tough guys on a daily basis.

No head down and bullying through for this one. A game plan had to be hashed out appropriately and it had to be done before Naruto walked down the steps through the crowd into the courtyard in seven minutes.

"Man, I need Ryu." Naruto said aloud begrudgingly. He didn't really want to admit it about that guy because there was just something about him that he couldn't like, but Ryu was the only person he knew of that had actually gotten the job done against a motivated and top-of-his-game Sagat. It would be idiocy to not try and pick the martial artist's brain for some good info, "Where the hell is he? Has anyone even seen him since yesterday?"

No one around him had since the match with Ryu and Ken came to an end, and that gave Guile and Naruto pause, "What if… Bison. Do you think?"

"I don't think so." Naruto tried to reason, "I'm sure Ken was with him, and if Bison had attacked the two of them I'm pretty sure they'd have torn up more stuff than we did last night when we fought. Balrog got crushed by Chun-Li so he's a non-factor, and Sagat wants to fight in the tournament only so he wouldn't have pulled anything shady against Ryu."

"This temple's too damn big." E. Honda said with a good-natured laugh, "He's probably just off by himself. It's not even that hard. This place is like a small town." For example, Blanka went back into the jungle after everything was over with and didn't come back until breakfast. And then he went right back into the jungle to wait for the fights to begin.

The rumbling sound of crowd noise came into their ears as local music played over the speakers, getting everyone ready for the main attraction of the tournament to begin.

Right. Well it was officially time to prove that he was here for more than just allowing Bison to take potshots at trying to take his life. Time to bust a former world champion's jaw, "I'm soooo ready to kick his ass, dattebayo!"

"I sure as hell hope so."

"Guile, you are the worst cornerman on Earth. You're supposed to be hyping me up."

"I'm a realist kid. If you don't like it, go fuck yourself."

"-Or get Cammy to do it for you."

"Shut the fuck up E! Not the time!"

"Heh heh. This is going to be a fun day."

XxX

In the crowd Chun-Li sat right at the front waiting on the matches to begin alongside Cammy with seats saved for E. Honda, Guile, and also Blanka and Ryu if they ever showed up to watch the remaining bouts, "Why won't you tell me what it was like? You know you don't care about whether I know or not."

"Because Naruto told me that my business was my business." Cammy replied, looking out around the crowd. She really hated being surrounded by so many people. There was always the chance of something bad happening in that kind of scenario. She wasn't fighting any longer, so she wasn't dressed in one of her leotards, instead looking more the part of a normal girl her age with a light blue pinstripe sweater and a black skirt, "I'm not shy about it, but we're around people right now."

"So later then?"

"Probably not then either. Sorry."

"You don't sound sorry."

"That's because I'm not really sorry."

Chun-Li mustered a glare as Cammy donned a beret in the sun, but let the topic settle. She should have known that Cammy wouldn't care too much for the matter of girl-talk. She was such a strange one.

With that path of conversation unceremoniously cut off before it could ever began, there was another elephant in the room that needed addressing. Namely the seven and a half feet of Sagat standing in the courtyard, arms crossed and patiently waiting for his opponent to arrive.

"So do you think Naruto can beat Sagat?" It was a fair enough question. Sagat had managed to walk through Guile and he wound up decimating Cammy despite her hitting him with a blistering series of offensive attacks, "Even at full strength I wouldn't be sure about saying he could, but now he's exhausted as well."

There wasn't any doubt or hesitance in Cammy's voice as she answered, "Yes he can." The scar-cheeked girl turned Chun-Li's way momentarily before looking back out at the field as Naruto started descending the stairs amid cheers from the crowd, "I couldn't tell you how or even why, but it's as clear as day to me. There isn't anyone in the world that I know of that I would pick against Naruto."

She believed that way for the simple fact that she had never been given a reason to feel otherwise. In eight months she had only seen Naruto in a state of true vulnerability once, and she didn't see the party that had done it. With the exception of the month she and the others had to care for him after the destruction of Budokan Hall in Tokyo he had never done anything but earn her confidence in him time and time again.

He had a tendency to get overexcited and run his mouth at times, but he worked his ass off to back it up whenever he could. And right as he walked down the stairs and slapped hands with the crowd that reached out for him there wasn't a hint of playfulness on his face.

Putting her cheeks in her hands, Chun-Li leaned her elbows on the metal railing of the stands, brown eyes locked onto the center of the courtyard, "Time to go to work little brother."

XxX

Naruto's sandaled footsteps scraped against the brick underneath his feet until he stood directly in front of Sagat and looked up nearly two feet to stare into his face, "So… I'm Naruto, nice to meet you. I'll be the guy helping you tear this courtyard to hell until one of us can't intelligently defend themselves anymore." Tension breaking smart remark, ho.

The way he kicked Cammy's tail the other day didn't slip Naruto's mind for a second. But it was a tournament match, and getting pissed off wasn't the way to get ahead in this one. Not today. Not yet.

Sagat let out a 'hm' but didn't smirk or change his expression, "You very well may be right. You are strong, but you won't prevent me from getting what I want out of this tournament. Rest assured I will be going to the finals for my destined challenge, and I will go through you if it requires such. You're not at 100%, anyone with eyes can see that. But I will show you no mercy. Injured child or not."

With a sniff, Naruto jumped back, his body in a reactionary stance that was ready for anything. Sagat put his hands up in his contemporary Muay Thai stance and the two just waited for the call to start. Naruto was expecting Sagat to have marching orders to kill him or maim him, and he wasn't anticipating anything less from the man. Even fighting normally, Sagat was infamous for his temper and ability to kill opponents without even trying to.

Sweat dropped from Naruto's brow onto the ground, but even as the bead of perspiration moved down his face he didn't flinch, eyes not moving from Sagat for a second. In return, Sagat's single eye seemed to be looking through Naruto, like a transparent final wall he had to punch through to achieve his goal.

"_Ladies and gentlemen let me welcome you to the second day of the Second World Warrior Tournament! We have three fights left to determine who is the strongest, and we're going to start you off with the 'God of Muay Thai' in Sagat, taking on Naruto Uzumaki for one of the elusive two spots in the finals! Let's not waste anymore time shall we? FIGHT START!"_

"Ying Seụ̄x (Tiger Shot)!"

Sagat was quick to unleash an orange-hot ball of flaming ki from his fists at Naruto, not that he was expecting to hit him, but he wanted to see what Naruto would try for a first move. What kind of fighter would he be if pressed?

Not naturally a reactionary kind of person, when forced to do so Naruto's first response was often to quickly dodge to one side or another and try to get an angle to strike back from. It was a rather generic approach to evading attack, but since he was usually faster than his enemies due to his being a ninja and because he usually retaliated instantly no one ever really managed to do anything about this.

Sagat was not one of these people.

The moment Naruto landed from his move to dodge the Tiger Shot, he ducked a roundhouse kick that would have probably torn his head off if he wasn't so abnormally tall that Naruto was able to somehow duck enough to avoid it.

Sagat spun around in a full 360 from the kick and tried it again low on the ducking Naruto, but missed again when Naruto rolled to the side. Contorting his body through the roll, Naruto got his legs back beneath him and sprang right at Sagat explosively to begin trying to punch past his guard with rapid strikes, but the range his arms had to travel to actually hit Sagat's face was incredible.

It looked like a father fighting against his child from afar due to how Sagat only had to barely lean back to avoid getting hit in the face and protect his body with his massive arms to ensure that Naruto didn't attack it.

A short knee from Sagat snapped forward and struck Naruto high on the chest, stopping his attempted barrage with a skillful counterstrike of his own. He didn't need to be faster than Naruto, something that was simply not going to happen, he just had to be prepared to retaliate right when it was needed.

Years of combat training gave Sagat picture-perfect timing. Even against the quickest of foes he could get them to telegraph their movements for him, just like he did with Cammy. Naruto was a different breed of beast in that regard, but the basic principle was still the same.

'This isn't working! If I want a shot at his head I've got to leave my damn feet every single time!' Naruto thought to himself as he broke off and moved back, ignoring the jabbing pain bunched in his breastbone.

He'd never gone up against anyone that big before that actually fought with their entire size. Sure, he'd beaten Zangief who stood seven feet tall, but with the style he used Zangief stayed hunched so that he could spring forward for a grab at any moment. Naruto barely had to punch up to sock him in the jaw. With Sagat, he knowingly fought high to avoid anyone reaching his head.

Not only that, but in two previous fights against powerful opponents in Guile and Cammy he had only been hit in the face one time in the first round. That was it. No other time had he been struck above the stomach, and his body was as hard as rock. Conditioned as he knew that it would always be the chief target of any enemy he faced.

In follow-up pursuit after turning the tide, Sagat jumped through the air at Naruto, missing him and instead punching a hole into the ground before sending that same fist out in a rangy strike that Naruto backflipped out of the way of. Growling at the boy, Sagat pressed forward again, trying to move Naruto closer to the row of statues in the courtyard to try and somewhat corral him.

Never stop moving. Wait for your opening. He'll give you one. Everyone always gives you just one. These were the thoughts going through Naruto's head. He was no martial artist, he never would be and he never claimed to be for a moment. He wasn't about form and real technique. If you gave him an opening to punch you he'd punch you. If you gave him an opening to kick you he'd kick you. He'd stab you, throw you, bite you, he'd hit you any way he could if you let him.

"K̄hèā Seụ̄x (Tiger Knee)!" Sagat leapt at Naruto, flying like a wrecking ball and leading with his knee as a battering ram. Naruto had been backed close enough to the statues in question to warrant trying to crush him against them, but Naruto simply jumped back against a statue and stuck his hands and feet against it before springing off just as Sagat plowed straight through it and destroyed the stone construct.

Naruto managed to clear his head and turned to try and muster a counter, but the aggressive Muay Thai master was already turned around, firing another Tiger Shot at him that Naruto again dodged and backpedaled from. Sagat let out a snort as if he were a bull and slowly walked forward, taking his time as he tried to analyze what he had learned thus far.

Naruto's way of moving was more spastic than Cammy's despite their speed similarity and he lacked the finer points of evasion that she did in how smoothly her every move was designed to be, but Naruto was so used to his own body mechanics and was so aware of how he tended to move that it didn't matter. Any mistake he made in his movements he could reflexively make up for if you tried to take the slight imperfection of his actions as an opening to attack.

It wasn't being intentionally clumsy, because clumsy was far too harsh of a word to describe it. There was nothing inept or lumbering about anything that Naruto did. It just seemed that he moved with a pinch of calculated recklessness, constantly trying to stay loose and adaptable. This boy really believed that he could turn the tables on any foe in a heartbeat and was willing to put his body out there to do such.

This was the problem Fei Long had with him in round one. One such as Fei Long whose every movement was so heavily refined and practiced to be called upon at the slightest need for it had been fighting against his polar opposite in Naruto who did what his body felt was right at any given moment with no rhyme or reason.

'He's smarter than he lets on.' Sagat said, narrowing his eye on Naruto's form until he found himself the target of a barrage of sharp metal objects sent his way, 'So that's where the Cammy girl learned how to do such a thing in the last round.' Naruto threw far more than Cammy did, seven to her one.

Being prepared for the weapons this time, Sagat moved but quickly found that he had managed to get tangled in some kind of wiring, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Just like that he saw five Naruto's running circles around him, all holding onto a single strand of metal twine, "Kage no Mayu (Shadow Cocoon)!"

The weapons had been a trap! In the rings of the kunai and shuriken Naruto had let fly he had strung ninja wire that Sagat hadn't been able to ID with his unfamiliarity with ninja tools and his lack of depth perception with one eye.

The clones running circles around did their best to try and speedily tie Sagat up. He was smart enough to prevent his arms and his neck from being bound, but his legs were a tangled mess. He was immobile, and against someone like Naruto that was as good as making yourself a target dummy with waving appendages.

In his right hand he quickly formed a blue ball of spinning chakra and leapt at Sagat directly, "Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

Sagat's one eye went wide at the sight of the attack. He couldn't move, and any attack that Naruto used while he was in that state would most definitely not be of the cream-puff variety. This wasn't the time to hold back apparently, as if he truly wanted to reach his destined encounter he could hold nothing back.

The scar on his chest started to glow an angry red with the ki rapidly coursing through his body as his rage at possibly losing short of his fight with Ryu started to build, "P̄hælpĕn Korṭh (Angry Scar)!" His body exploded with visible burning orange power just as Naruto's Rasengan struck him.

Not discouraged by Sagat's powerup, Naruto drove the Rasengan right into Sagat's chest and blew him back through another in the row of statues that they had been fighting near. He hit clean. He knew that he did. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that the Rasengan landed dead center. Nobody would get up from that. A regular person would have died if he'd hit them that cleanly.

There wasn't a single person that didn't stand up and get caught up in the finality of such a blow landing. Many of them had never seen such a resolute blow land against their hero before, but a seventeen year old, albeit one that knew exactly what he was doing in a fight, had managed to do so.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Tamagawa Minami High School – Aohura City, Chigoku Region, Japan)

"_What a crushing technique! I don't think Naruto could have hit him any harder if he'd tried to! That's probably it for this fight!"_

Every single person in the class with a phone smart enough to do so was streaming the fight live in real time... even the teacher. It seemed it was a bigger deal than Naruto thought it would be when he left to fight the tournament.  
>But it didn't matter whether or not he had the attention of the people back home, only a few of them mattered.<p>

The second Naruto had managed to ensnare Sagat, Ibuki jumped fifteen feet in the air out of her desk out of excitement. Watching the last two fights he had been in almost had her chewing her fingernails out of frustration. Against Chun-Li she never gave him the room to let him fight the way that he needed to, and against Fei Long he had gotten caught up in the gravity of the moment.

But this was exactly the kind of thing that she knew he could do if someone gave him what he needed to make such a thing happen, "That's how you do it Naruto! I was starting to think you'd never break out a tactic like that!"

"Of course. It is only natural, or did you expect him to falter so easily? My eye for talent and selecting those with the potential for greatness cannot be questioned." Karin said, preening openly at her desk with a smug look on her face, "Naruto-san is no fool. He had best earn his self-professed title of 'best ninja in the world.'"

Both Sakura and Kei had been stunned into silence, mouths wide open in amazement. It wasn't that it was so out of left field that neither of them expected such a thing to happen, because they knew that Naruto was damnably good, having known him for years. But come on, even when the family members of astronauts knew that they were about to go into space, it didn't make the sight of the takeoff any less amazing.

"'Atta boy Naruto." Sakura eventually said to herself as replays of the previous move kept playing on the screen of her phone, "Don't you let up. Show everybody what you've got."

XxX

(Naruto vs. Sagat – Outside of Bangkok, Thailand – Martial Arts Temple)

Naruto's clones all high-fived at a job well done before dispelling while the original flexed out the hand he had used to strike Sagat with the Rasengan, "A friend of mine told me right before I came here that an indirect win is still a win, and after the night I had yesterday she's absolutely right. I'm not stepping into a slugfest with you. There's no reason to."

Last two rounds for various reasons Naruto had fought strangely. Against Fei Long he had been starstruck and wanted to go toe-to-toe with someone he was a great fan of. Against Chun-Li, he was unable to use his full range of skills because Cammy had broken his wrist before the match.

Both showings had been a departure from the norm on how he chose to do battle, but it was time to do what he had to do today to win. Execution was key. He knew what he was capable of, and he knew he had the skills to pull off the victory.

"…That was a powerful move."

From the rubble of the row of statues, Sagat's towering figure rose, brushing the pebbles and dirt off of his body as he strode out of it. His orange aura still blazed and the scar on his chest was still growing red.

Naruto couldn't believe it. To stand up after such a thing, it was just unfathomable. His ribcage inside of his body should have been like broken glass shifting around in a bag after getting nailed with a direct hit from the Rasengan.

"So dangerous." Sagat said, touching at the brand new spiral bruise on his torso as he continued to stride forward, "Had I not done what had, you would have wounded me more grievously than you did." His hand formed a fist right across the prominent scar on his chest, "After being nearly killed by Ryu's Shoryuuken let's just say I had to come up with a way to protect myself from open attacks."

Just like that, Naruto's legs started to feel like lead, 'No, no, no… I can't be getting tired yet! I'm wide awake!' His vaunted conditioning had played a trick on him. He had never properly rested from the night before, having stayed up until right before dawn, but staying stationary in bed had fooled him into thinking he was back at full strength.

He was barely several hours removed from a violent physical and spiritual clash after a day full of tough fights and now he was back in another one. He had just gotten the Kyuubi back. This was not advantage Naruto.

And seeing Sagat stand up from the most solid Rasengan he had landed on a real opponent in months sucked the pitiful second-wind right out of him.

Who just took that head-on and got up from it?

Sagat stopped walking and observed Naruto, as the boy was set and waiting once again for whatever was to come his way next, "You've suffered from exhaustion somehow and you haven't recovered yet have you?" Yes, he could see it. Naruto was sweating more than he should have been for the amount of effort that had gone into the battle. His skin looked clammy, and the muscles in his arms looked spastic.

"It doesn't matter." Naruto said with all of the bluster he could rally into his speech, and it was usually enough to make anyone he fought second-guess themselves. Sagat was not just anyone though. When it came to tough or confident talk, he had heard it all, "Even if I am tired, I've still got enough energy to beat anybody else I have to go against!"

"Show me then." Sagat demanded before firing another blast from his fists at Naruto, "Ying Seụ̄x (Tiger Shot)!"

'That move again?' Naruto thought to himself as he saw the fireball flying his way. He was ready to dodge it when a silhouette took form behind it and burst straight through in the form of a large broken piece of statue hurled at him as if it came from a catapult.

In a panic, Naruto had to jump over the swift and heavy flying object by moving in the only direction he knew he'd be able to avoid it without getting an arm or a leg ripped off in the process; up.

Naruto knew the second that he left the ground that it had been a mistake, but he considered it better to chance it than to get nailed by a 400-plus pound chunk of rock.

"S̄eụ̄x Sxydāw (Tiger Uppercut)!"

Sagat's spacing strategy paid off when finally forced Naruto into one of two options that he had been prepared to retaliate to. The moment Naruto went vertical, he leapt into the air and hammered Naruto right in the stomach with a brutal punch that drove blood and spittle right out of him.

XxX

"Fuck." Ken said plainly, having stood with Ryu at the top area overlooking the courtyard as the two friends and training partners watched the semifinals, "I knew Sagat was strong, but man… he took one of Naruto's signature moves and came back with that?" Even Ken wasn't sure that he would be tough enough to take a Rasengan and even stay conscious, let alone fight back afterwards.

Ryu didn't say anything at first, merely observing the battle with vested interest, 'When it comes to fighting the way that Sagat and I choose to, from what I've seen Naruto won't be able to compare to Sagat's might. But Naruto's strength lies in Sagat's weakness. Naruto's method of fighting has nothing to do with logical technique." Sagat's rigid adherence to the principles of martial arts tradition stood more prevalent than even Ryu's own, 'And that is how he can be overcome.'

Naruto had the ability to use avenues of attacks and strategies that took advantage of the unique ongoing situations he would find himself in. Ryu remembered that in two conflicts against Naruto, he was able to gain the upper hand with moves he had never seen anything like before.'

God he wished he was still in the tournament. He wanted to try his hand against everyone left, but he'd have to settle for keeping a watchful eye on the rest of the event, rooting for Ken to pull off the win.

XxX

"_Sagat lands a powerful blow! It's been covered in Thai media that he trains the strength of that move by utilizing it underneath waterfalls to increase its destructive power, and I think punching through a kid is easier than punching through a crashing waterfall!"_

Spinning through his rising aerial attack, Sagat landed on his feet and watched Naruto land violently near the top of the stairs, bouncing once out of it before coming to rest face down on the ground, cradling his chest and shifting around painfully.

He ignored the crowd and just stared at Naruto's body twitch and writhe in place before turning away and laughing with his arms crossed over his chest, body still blazing with powerful ki, "You're a tough child, but that only means so much and takes you only so far. You're not much of a martial artist. I'm sure you knew that though."

Naruto didn't respond, instead crawling farther up the stairs, pushing himself back up with the help of the top step, grunting quietly with great effort as he did so.

Sagat stopped laughing when he saw that Naruto was still trying to get up and continue. Why? He didn't have the discipline of a martial artist, but he most certainly had the spirit of a fighter. He started scaling the stairs after Naruto slowly. Taking his time and going at his own pace.

"I'm not done." Naruto said as he slowly stood up and seemed to have a long folded blade in one of his hands. Wiping the blood from his mouth with his free fist, Naruto glared out at the master of Muay Thai and with a flick of the wrist flipped out the remaining three blades of his fuuma shuriken, "You know, all my life I've had to deal with people telling me that I'm not this and I'm not that. They'd ask why can't I be more like so-and-so? Or what makes me act the way I do and pick my way to do things? Do you want to know why I don't care for trying to be like you or guys like Ryu or Guy? A 'proper' fighter?"

He didn't answer before letting the fuuma shuriken fly, spinning like the blade of a buzzsaw as it careened at the titanic veteran.

Sagat made sure to check the air around it for more metal wire connected to the weapon and saw none, thus he judged it safe to show Naruto just why he had the right to lecture other potentially powerful fighters as straightforward as he did.

Extending one hand, Sagat caught the blade out of midair through the center gripping ring and held it out for the boy to see. He expected Naruto to give a more visible reaction than a raised eyebrow, but chalked it up to him being better at schooling his emotions than he had figured he was. It didn't matter. He held onto the weapon as he continued to walk up the stairs, edging ever closer to Naruto's higher level.

Just before he opened his mouth to speak again, the shuriken that he caught transformed in a puff of smoke and reached out a pair of hands to grab at his eyepatch. The scamp turned it so that it covered his good eye, leaving the useless one exposed and effectively blinding Sagat.

Angrily slamming the clone into the ground hard enough to leave a crater and dispel it, he quickly reached up to right his eyepatch, but that short window of time was all Naruto needed to make something happen with a smattering of hand-seals. With Sagat unable to see, he wouldn't be able to anticipate what was coming, "-Because I live for proving guys like you wrong! Isseishageki Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire Volley)!"

The bombardment of tiny chakra blasts flew from Naruto's mouth and exploded off of Sagat's frame one after another in rapid-fire succession until the payload was spent. Fans that had previously been crowding the side of the stands to see the fight on the stairs better scrambled away when the volley began.

"_Uh… I don't know what just happened folks."_ The announcer called out over the speakers as the large plume of dust surrounding Naruto's aiming area at Sagat engulfed a large portion of the stairs, _"I've seen a lot of things in years and years of calling fights of all sorts, but seeing a kid turn a metal weapon into a copy of himself is kind of new to me…"_

Still looking tired, Naruto had to squint to keep the dust out of his eyes from his last attack on Sagat, 'I didn't think he'd actually try to catch the transformed shuriken-clone to prove a point, but I'm glad he did because that ended up way better than what I was actually planning on doing!'

Naruto had created a clone the moment he clawed his hands over the top step, the summit of the stairs concealing the smoke from a Kage Bunshin, as it also with did the instant transformation that the clone used to turn into a shuriken.

The transformed clone-shuriken had been cradled to his chest to hide it until he got up… and also because Sagat had busted his insides to hell with that Tiger Uppercut and he needed some temporary comfort in clutching at his injuries.

The original plan had called for Sagat to dodge the shuriken and the clone to transform back into a human form after it flew past the man, thus giving him a free shot at Sagat's back.

Things turned out a bit differently than he had expected, but adaptability was paramount for success. It all ended up the same either way; Naruto got a much needed free shot at Sagat. With the time allowed to prepare for more, Naruto made the cross-seal and formed a small row of Kage Bunshin prepared for more fighting, though splitting his chakra that much again seemed to noticeably drain him even more.

It didn't matter. As long as his knees weren't knocking and his vision was still straight it wasn't real exhaustion. Uzumaki Naruto didn't get real exhaustion… yet. There was a first time for everything and he was sorely hoping that today was not the day for this particular first.

"Not good enough…"

Once again the dust cleared to reveal Sagat still standing. The tape on his fists was discolored red, brown, and black and his body was covered in bloody burns roughly the size of golf balls.

"You can choose to use any underhanded method to gain the upper-hand that you want." Sagat said as he spread his hands apart and they started crackling with surging yellow ki, "It's all simply just another test I have to pass before I meet my greatest rival in the finals once more. Khæn Nxn Seụ̄x (Tiger Cannon)!"

The booming flash of ki nearly blinded Naruto at the sight of it once it took form. Sagat's ki blast expanded past the width of the grand stairway, to more than half the height of Sagat's body, and rocketed up at Naruto and his phalanx of clones that looked completely shell-shocked.

The blast completely pulverized the entire top of the stairs, turning it from a once beautiful piece of architecture to an ugly scar that had been torn out of the temple grounds. It had carved a trench through a portion of the upper level above the stands and taken off into the air and even took out the small building not too far behind it that had been set aside as the medical bay the on the first day of matches, blowing it sky high.

"Hmm…" Sagat grunted to himself at the very destructive aftermath of his ultimate attack as the entire area still shook from the reverberation of the ki exploding. There was something missing from the devastation he had just caused. There wasn't a person at the heart of it, "He moved. Impressive."

Such flat-footed speed in the face of a technique that covered as much space as it did and moved as fast as it did. Naruto wasn't even the fastest person left in the tournament, but something had to be said for such dogged survival instincts.

Said individual had somehow wound up in the crowd, having landed on several spectators in his panic to avoid the Tiger Cannon, "Ow…" Naruto groaned as he tried to carefully remove himself from the people that he had landed back-first onto, "That was close. Looks like you aren't going anywhere yet."

"It's only a matter of time."

"Yeah, for you to lose. Not me." Naruto replied, standing up on one of the seats to prepare to jump out of the stands and back at Sagat, "You hit way harder than me, and you almost just vaporized me, but don't underestimate me. You underestimated Ryu, and he tore your chest open like you were getting bypass surgery."

Sagat's scar flashed red like a beacon at the reminder of how he received the lasting reminder of the devastation of Ryu's most powerful Shoryuuken, "That doesn't matter. After I'm through with you and Ryu is through with his semifinal match we'll see if he can do it again."

A look of confusion flashed over Naruto's face, "What the hell are you talking about? You're not going to get to fight Ryu-."

"-Because _you're_ going to win this match." Sagat finished for Naruto, cutting off what he thought was going to be a plucky, spirited response full of determination, "Spare me. Don't tell me what you're going to do, show me."

Naruto was about to rise to the remark, but held himself back, finding it more interesting to figure out what Sagat was thinking. Also, every second he got to catch his breath would only make him stronger, "No, seriously, what the hell are you talking about? Ryu's out. He lost last round, to Ken. The winner of this gets either Ken or Sasuke in the finals." Didn't this guy watch the rest of the quarterfinal matches after he beat Cammy?

In all actuality, Sagat did no such thing. He was the first winner finished for the day and he wanted to get as far away from the quarterfinal match he had taken part in as he could, washing his hands of anything to do with what he had said in the heat of the moment to try and trigger Cammy's Shadaloo programming (as far as he knew it hadn't worked). He wanted to put it out of mind and prepare himself for the next day.

He cared nothing for who he would have faced in the semifinals, either Chun-Li or Naruto; he would defeat either of them. And he assumed that Ryu would defeat Ken, as he considered Ryu the superior fighter. His own bias had much to do with that as well, but he didn't see Ryu losing to anyone left in the running.

"You lie." Sagat replied, but he didn't see any reason why Naruto would have, thus the conviction in his words was weaker than it should have been, "You're not lying."

"No. Cross my heart. He's out." Even the crowd members around Naruto nodded in agreement with him, backing him up, "You didn't know he got beaten? What were you doing yesterday after your fights were through?"

Granted, the big scary man had stalked off on his own immediately after his fight was over, and there weren't TVs anywhere in the temple other than in the medic bay that was now a pile of rubble, but someone would have had to isolate themselves completely to avoid finding out about the results of the tournament that they were a part of.

Sagat's visible ki died down and the glow in his scar faded away. There was an angry look of disbelief on his face at the information being presented to him. But as if his single eye were attracted to look that way, he turned toward another area of the top rim of the courtyard where he saw Ryu standing next to Ken. A begrudging nod came from Ryu who didn't try to say a word.

"I see." Looking down at his fist, Sagat wasn't feeling the same motivation that he had at the outset of the match. It felt eerily similar to the way he had felt during his depression times after the loss to Ryu in the first tournament.

Looking over at Naruto he could see that the young man was still ready to fight. Eyes were stuck straight on him, watching his every move and thinking of the best way to approach him out of the audience to get back into the battle.

His own hopes on the other hand had been shattered. His entire motivation for taking part in Shadaloo's activities for years was nothing more than a true rematch against Ryu. He had worked for a criminal organization, put his own morality into question in the last round of matches by using a brainwashing command on his opponent, and for what?

Bison had screwed up his attempt to get his desired fight against Ryu every time it seemed as if it would come to fruition. And now when he finally seemed as if he would get his chance, it wasn't to be once again.

Shaking his head at the situation placed before him, Sagat shook his head and almost felt like laughing. It had to be some kind of karmic slap for the way he reacted to the loss that changed his life, 'When finally pressed with great adversity after an entire career of success, when I was finally at my lowest, I made the wrong choice and I've been paying for it ever since.' "I'm dropping out of the competition."

The abrupt declaration elicited a crowd reaction of complete disbelief and shock. This was the national hero of the entire country, the greatest Muay Thai fighter of his generation and possibly beyond.

He had been so famed that Naruto had known full well who the man was before the First World Warrior Tournament, before finding out that the man was in Shadaloo, before he had even met him in person.

That was why it turned out to be a thorough shock to his system to find this to be happening, "Why?"

"I am not the man I used to be." Sagat said as he ambled down the stairs to leave through the courtyard. Naruto followed him through the crowd, moving through the people to keep pace with him all the way back down, "My anger to get revenge against Ryu and humiliate him the way I was humiliated drove me. But after everything that has happened since the day I swore I would defeat him… is it really worth it at the cost of my legacy?"

His legacy? This was a tournament being seen worldwide. Would that boost his legacy? He was already legendary, what else did a man like Sagat have to prove anyway? "But our match?" Naruto reasoned, "We're still fighting. You can still win the whole contest. What about that?"

Far be it from him to try and talk his way out of an opponent basically surrendering, but it made no sense. Sagat's raw power and vitality had made it abundantly clear to Naruto that if he wanted to win he would have to try and start tapping into the Kyuubi's power, something he wasn't sure he could even do again on cue yet. There was nothing about this that was settled, and no reason to quit for either of them.

At least in his mind. Not so much in Sagat's.

"I'm not sure I would defeat you here if we continued, despite being far superior to you in experience, strength, and technique." Sagat admitted as he finally reached the courtyard ground and began walking away to the exit of the entire temple, "For all of your deficiencies as a martial artist, there is one thing that I would be remiss to ignore. Your fists have soul. You believe in every move you make, from the punches you throw to the steps you take. I can't feel that anymore."

When his anger was dried up he felt that he had nothing else inside guiding him. Whatever he had at his peak, it was starting to go, and he didn't know what it was to find it and stop it from doing so.

He wasn't going to find it as he was though.

All Naruto could do was watch Sagat walk off of the field and out through the heavily damaged entrance without turning back once. Sagat had left the building.

"_It seems that Sagat has elected to bow out of the tournament… and that leaves the winner, advancing to the final round of the Second World Warrior Tournament; Naruto Uzumaki!"_

Everyone was dead silent, even Naruto. And who could blame any one of them? It was completely unheard of. In twenty-five years of active competition, Sagat had never voluntarily given up of his own accord. Not due to injuries, personal tragedy, nothing had made him do so before.

Still quite surprised at the turn of events, Naruto merely plopped down in the nearest seat in the crowd and just stared as Sagat's frame grew smaller and smaller and finally disappeared. So out of it was he, that he barely noticed his allies had come up to him and surrounded him.

Ken was the first to pat Naruto on the back in congrats as even Ryu stood with him, cracking a smile, "Well it looks like after the next match I'll be seeing you in the finals. Looking forward to kicking your ass again!"

Even when Cammy grabbed one of his hands between both of hers and he got a strong pat on the back from E. Honda he seemed out of it, "Naruto?" Chun-Li asked, snapping her fingers in front of his face to get his focus on her, "What's the matter? You just won."

"Yeah, sure." He didn't feel like he had won. Sagat hadn't been defeated. The upper hand belonged to no one at the time of the fight's conclusion. He didn't necessarily feel happy or upset about it. It was a pretty hollow feeling, "I just want to rest as much as I can more than celebrating right now. I'll do that after I win the whole thing."

While it was weird to see Naruto so reserved about something, especially after succeeding, it made enough sense. Conserving his energy was paramount, especially considering who his two potential opponents were.

Ken stretched his hands over his head and flexed out his knuckles, chuckling slightly to himself, "I'm up then. Don't think you'll be resting for too long, because I'll be making this quick." With that, Ken hopped the railing and jogged out into the courtyard amid the interest of the crowd, "You'd better hope we somehow wind up taking each other out, because if I win you definitely won't be!"

Naruto flipped off Ken, though the man didn't see it as he played to the crowd while stretching and awaiting his opponent. Everyone still seemed a bit out of it from what had just happened moments ago.

At the top of the stairs, Sasuke stood, looking at the heavy damage that had just been wrought on the area with a small sense of amusement. He should have expected that so much would get destroyed, but now there wouldn't be any more medical treatment so it was officially a game of attrition. All he had to do was make sure that he came out healthier than Naruto and he'd have this all in the bag.

He could handle Ken without wasting too much of himself in the process. He knew that he could, 'One more fight Naruto, and we can finally finish this once and for all.'

XxX

(Outside of the Temple)

Sagat hadn't even gone back to retrieve the few belongings he had brought with him to the event. He merely walked away from the temple without turning back once, taking the secluded dirt road until he reached the main road where he could begin his trek back to his village. He was going home to reinvigorate himself.

"Where do you think you're going Sagat?"

Stopping in his tracks, he didn't even need to turn around to know that Bison had gotten the drop on him. What else was new? He honestly hadn't been expecting that he could just walk away and not pay for it.

"Home." He said, finally turning to face Bison who didn't even seem to have his usual evil grin on his face. His expression was a mixture of disappointment and apathy to Sagat's presence, "I'm tired of this. Tired of you. But most of all I'm tired of having lost myself." He looked down at his hands and shook his head, "I'm going to find myself once again, and become the world's best fighter in the world before I become too old to do so."

"What an empty goal." Bison said with a cruel chuckle, "Even when you were the 'God of Muay Thai' you were never the best in the world." He held up his right fist surging with sickly purple Psycho Power, "Even when you were at your peak, thought by all to be the most powerful, this was a farce only because titles of fighting mean nothing to me." He turned around and gestured to the temple that stood a mile or so back, "You can win all of the matches that you wish, train yourself and defeat Ryu if you can. It means nothing."

Sagat's eye narrowed at the sight of the arrogant would-be emperor and his egotistical words, "And why is that?"

"Because of the fact that no matter what, I was always stronger than you. Even now I'm still stronger than you. _Especially_ now. I don't want to be known as just the strongest in the world. I want the world itself."

"Says the man that has spent this entire tournament cowering in the shadows, hiding himself from the enemies he lured here himself."

"I expected my elites to be able to deal with them, but once again I overestimated your abilities. I thought I had trimmed the fat after Vega had been killed, but I seem to be surrounded by incompetence." Bison explained, before unclipping his cape from his shoulders and throwing it aside, "I'm not hiding myself from you though am I? What does that tell you?"

Sagat scoffed at him and prepared himself for battle once more, "That you are a greater fool than I ever figured you to be."

"Cute, but wrong." Bison corrected unamusedly, "It means that I do not require your services any longer. But you can do one last thing for me. You can die. No one will notice your death with the tournament still going on, and you'll be a splendid warm-up for when I make my grand entrance to destroy the winner of my tournament in front of the entire world."

The idea of Bison interrupting the tournament at the end just to steal the glory from the person that managed to win it all made him sick, and out of the three left the man had a grudge against two of them. He didn't have any for Sasuke, but he would probably have still killed Sasuke regardless. This man had no limit to his iniquity.

Right then and there he made the decision that Bison could not live through the remainder of the day. He had been a perpetual dark cloud hanging over the heads of everyone, and it was time to put it to an end, "The last time you met your end it was at the hands of a child. This time there's an adult to do the job and make sure it's finished."

"I met my end at the hands of a child with the power of a raging monster inside of him, thirteen female assassins with faulty programming, the two most powerful fighters of the United States military, the strongest woman in the world, and two disciples of a legendary style. And let's not forget the high-explosives that leveled my entire base." Bison said, laughing at the mere thought of Sagat by himself being able to compare to the force that it took to stop him last time,

A concerted effort of the best fighters in the world and an entire strategy centered around ruining the device that enhanced his powers, and they still almost didn't escape with their lives.

Compared to that, a battle with Sagat was laughable. Bison was who he was for a reason. He was confident in his prowess for one simple reason. One-on-one he had never been defeated since he embraced Psycho Power as the true way to gain strength.

"You're sprinting to your death in challenging me, even if I am weaker than I had been a year ago. You're still fighting a God."

And he would not fall on this day either. Especially not to an old tiger with broken fangs and claws.

* * *

><p><strong>Oh snaps! It's the last match of the semi-finals between Ken and Sasuke to see who gets to go on and face a still recovering Naruto in the final encounter of the tournament. And Sagat's making a moral stand against the lord and master of malevolence in M. Bison.<strong>

**Welp, I've occupied enough of your time and I hope you enjoyed. Someone go do something important to society now while I lay in bed and heal my most grievous injuries.**

**Go on. I don't know why you're still looking at me. Hit the x at the corner of the screen and go make some money dummies. That's what I'd be doing if I weren't bedridden with a torn pec.  
><strong>

**Later. Kenchi out.**


	37. A Shock to the System

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I've personally tried to beat on a car with my bare hands until the axels broke and the wheels fell off. I can't do it. How the hell is a human being supposed to pull that off in under a minute? I can't do it after three months.

**Chapter 37: A Shock to the System**

* * *

><p>One hour. After the semifinal fight Naruto and the second finalist would have one hour to suck up whatever was wrong with them from their last two days of fighting before the last battle of the tournament would commence.<p>

It was a time like this where Naruto found himself grateful that his semifinal fight had been first. It gave him extra time to recuperate, even if it was only a few minutes longer. The nature of his win over Sagat still didn't sit well with him, but as Ibuki had advised him before he left for the trip his pride had to take a backseat for the victory.

Sagat had been one of Bison's henchmen, his absolute best without question. An army-killer of a man. Whatever reason he quit for saved Naruto a lot of pain, possible death or dismemberment, and perhaps prevented the temple from being destroyed in a wild battle. An entire building had already been a casualty as a result of their fight and it hadn't even spilled fully out of control before it ended.

E. Honda shoved a kebob in Naruto's face much to his surprise as he was sitting and thinking before the next match began, "Eat." The rotund sumo ordered him, "Get back what energy you can while you can." He grinned when he saw Naruto do just that, "Atta boy."

Guile just shook his head with his usual stern look on his face before turning his head as he watched Sasuke take his time walking down the stairs. Looking between Sasuke on the large stone stairs and Ken down in the courtyard, he voiced his thoughts aloud, "You could probably quit right now and lose nothing."

Naruto followed part of Guile's gaze and wound up locking eyes with Sasuke who merely smirked at him before continuing on his way, "Fuck that." And let Sasuke have bragging rights for life? Not a chance. He'd already beaten his ass every single time they'd fought since they were kids, and now he was supposed to back out with the world watching?

Sitting right by Naruto, Chun-Li noticed that the two former Konoha genin had taken part in a momentary staredown with one another and felt the need to ask, "Seriously, what is it with you two? I know you fought once, and I heard that was how you 'got to this world' or whatever that means, but it can't be just about one battle."

"Sasuke almost killed him." Cammy said, with her usual lack of tact that she didn't seem to care about being devoid of, "That fight you're talking about, they almost killed each other. Apparently Sasuke shoved his hand through Naruto's chest and shoulder."

"That's not what it's about." Naruto quickly stated before too many of his older friends could jump to some sort of conclusion, "Every day. Every single day back when we were kids training to be ninja, he was the one guy I kept comparing myself to. And no matter what I did it never seemed like I could be better than him." If he couldn't prove himself better than one rival how could he ever have become Hokage, "It used to eat at me all the time because everyone always called him the best and used to say that I sucked."

Why can't you be more like Sasuke Naruto?

Sasuke can do that better Naruto.

I'm so jealous because you're on a team with Sasuke-kun, it must be so easy.

Every damn day.

"I want to be better than him and prove it to someone. One time. Even if it's just once." Naruto finally said, "I want him to win this fight. Ken beat me before too, but this is different. This is literally over ten years in the making."

Yeah it sounded selfish. In the middle of all of the things that had happened over the last two days he still wanted to find time to do battle with his friend/rival. Did that make him a bad person? That he cared more about fighting Sasuke than getting ambushed by an enemy in waiting?

Guile seemed to nod in understanding as to what his younger blond counterpart was saying. It was a matter of pride. Naruto was a prideful young man. He took great pride in his abilities. For God's sake he called himself the 'Best Ninja in the World'. But then Sasuke resurfaced. And how could you call yourself the best ninja if there was a ninja that you'd never been able to defeat once out of oh so many encounters?

"Is that the dark side talking?" Chun-Li muttered, rubbing her temple. She was right on the money with those two idiots earlier the other day. They did have a history of problems with each other.

"No it's probably both sides." Naruto responded, not bothered by the dark side remark. He then crossed his arms over his chest and glared out at the battlefield, "But if he doesn't win then fuck it. I'll just laugh at him, get over it, and fight Ken." Because that was how they lived.

As he finished walking down the stairs, Sasuke could swear that his ears were burning, but paid it no mind. Instead walking out to where Ken was standing to meet him on the multi-leveled temple courtyard that had been reduced to a good chunk of a rubble pit.

The monks that populated that temple were going to throw a bitch fit after everything cleared out and they finally counted up the revenue of their hosting the tournament. It wasn't his problem though, thus he didn't care, 'And to think, the only reason I entered this tournament was because of Gen.' He'd probably have to thank that old killer whenever he made it back to Hong Kong, 'Nah, not really. That old sadistic bastard can die and rot.'

Ken smirked at Sasuke confidently as he rolled his shoulders out in preparation for combat, "Ready to get your ass kicked I see." Quickly slipping into his fighting stance he let off an air of being ready for action.

"_This is the fight that will fill out the seed for the final round! Assassin Sasuke Uchiha against the U.S. Champion Ken Masters! This is going to be a fiery semifinal, and there's no pun intended there folks! Let's get this started! FIGHT!"_

"Hm." Sasuke returned, standing in a rather indifferent posture, not looking ready to fight at all, "You should watch your mouth. I've got a pretty stellar track record against big talking idiots like you."

"Is that any way to speak to an elder? Where's the respect?"

Yet another scoff came from Sasuke who turned his nose away from Ken at the mere thought of what he was implying, "Respect? Sure, I'll show you some respect. Just as soon as you do something worth respecting. So far I've seen you beat an idiot brute of a wrestler, and in the last round you lucked out because your friend didn't want to kill you."

And just like that a switch seemed to be flipped in Ken's demeanor. The smiling was all gone from that point forward, "…What was that?"

Ooh, a nerve had been stricken. Who was in whose head now? "You heard me." Sasuke decided to pile it on and go straight for the jugular, "Ryu had you dead-to-rights twice. The second time was the worst. The only reason you're not dead is because he valued your life more than winning. He didn't want to end a decent sparring partner maybe."

"The powers he used were dark. Evil." The conversation was really taking a turn down an avenue that Ken didn't want to take it. He knew Ryu was watching and he knew that his best friend could hear everything that they were saying, "If he gave in to that power he'd kill people." And of all things, Sasuke began to laugh. He held a hand over his eyes and forehead and laughed, "And you think it's funny?"

Sasuke kept laughing for a short while longer before he smoothed back his dark hair and shook his head, "Yeah, I really do. What a weak thing to say, that the power makes him evil. He should learn to control it, to stop being a wimp that's afraid of the feeling that the power gives him." The black marks of the Cursed Seal of Heaven began to spread across his face and body from the back of his neck as he made a show of locating Ryu before staring at him, "The power isn't what's evil. You see, power doesn't make you want to kill people. It's the person behind the power that kills people."

"Shut your mouth!" Ken moved forward with a blur and launched a haymaker of a punch that Sasuke's black-marked hand caught firmly before it could impact with his face, "What?" The hand tightened around his gloved fist, "What is this?"

"_My _dark power." Sasuke explained, "And unlike _some people_ here, I can actually control it." His movements barely visible, Sasuke sank his fist into Ken's belly with enough force to shoot him back several meters.

The man remained on his feet, dragging a trench through the ground with his bare heels. Though after his movements ceased he sank down to one knee, holding the area that suffered the blow, 'What was-. No, what is that?' He asked as the marks on Sasuke's body regressed, "Wait, why'd you stop using it."

"I don't need it to beat you." Sasuke reasoned with a shrug. His dry confidence covered for the real reason he chose to stanch the Cursed Seal, 'I need to save it for when I need it, not just to make quick work of this guy. If I use it for too long it'll start harming my body and I still have one match left.' There was no need to get reckless just to demoralize the enemy.

Standing back up straight, Ken started channeling ki to his hands, "You're going to be rethinking that in a moment. Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" Putting extra kick into the blast, Ken fired a faster than average blue ki ball the size of his head at Sasuke, putting his reflexes to the test. It was a test that Sasuke passed though as he managed to move around the attack and streak toward Ken.

The American managed to stop a knife-hand strike aimed at his throat similar to how Sasuke stopped his own punch moments ago. Ken didn't have time to rest on his laurels though, as Sasuke's free hand still had a shot at his head that he took with rapid-fire attacks that Ken skillfully evaded by the slimmest of margins. The quick flurry of attacks ended when Sasuke tried to use his Sharingan to time Ken's dodging and slip in a front elbow, but where Sasuke's situational awareness was incomparable due to the Sharingan, Ken had sheer experience fighting against nearly every style under the sun and blocked the elbow.

Yanking the first hand free, Sasuke pushed down on his captured elbow and posted up in the air, spinning upside-down as he delivered acrobatic kicks that still wound up being blocked since Ken now had one arm free as well. Eventually Sasuke was thrown off and flipped through air, landing on his feet in a crouch a short distance away as Ken pressed the pace of the battle by moving forward this time.

Trying to break his momentum, Sasuke timed a flip over Ken before attempting a kick at his blind spot before landing, but this too was blocked, 'What the hell is this?' Sasuke wondered as his failed gambit resulted in Ken getting close enough to begin physically attacking him in earnest, 'I didn't use a single move from the same fighting style that entire time and he still evaded everything!'

The man wasn't even looking in his eyes, he was watching his core. Look up damn it! Just once while they were fighting so he'd never notice getting caught in something illusionary!

Now that his temper was even again, Ken could feel that Sasuke was beginning to get a bit flummoxed at having not put dealt him a critical blow yet, "You're probably wondering how I haven't fallen for any of your crap yet aren't you?" He asked while Sasuke continued to dodge punches and kicks with no room left to counter safely, "I don't fight exactly like Ryu. His ki manipulation is stronger than mine, but when it comes to the actual art itself in hand-to-hand, I'm better. And I can see through your little game kid."

To emphasize that point, Ken's foot stealthily slid forward and stepped on Sasuke's big toe just enough to disrupt his movement, allowing Ken to drive home a crushing hook to the face. Sasuke didn't get hit that hard very often, but he knew how to take a punch. It didn't mean he was pleased with taking one of that magnitude though.

A visible bruise formed on Sasuke's face as he got sight of Ken coming his way again once he jumped to get away from him, but he planned on making Ken pay with his attempt to keep the pressure on, "Gouki Kagizume o Oshite (Grand Talon Press)!" With lightning crackling around his lower body, Sasuke landed on the ground and unleashed a crushing discharge of lightning from his body that actually caught Ken at the end of its range and pushed him back, giving him some shocks.

"Grr." Ken's muscles twitched with discomfort from the blast of electricity, but he hadn't been hurt too badly all things considered. At least he hadn't been any closer. A crater had been blasted into the ground the entire height of Sasuke himself. Survival instincts told Ken to check his six, and indeed from his blind spot he had to dodge a Chidori, the only warning of which had been the telltale sign that the lightning jab produced during its existence, 'The kid's still so fast though. If it wasn't for the sound that would have gotten me.'

"Nice dodge." Sasuke said, flexing out his hand now that it was no longer engulfed in lighting chakra, "I don't know how you had the time to react to that, but that's still pretty impressive."

"I'm so glad I meet your approval." Ken crowed sarcastically gesturing Sasuke forward with two fingers on one hand tauntingly, "Come on, I'm not done beating your ass yet."

XxX

Were anyone to venture onto the only dirt road leading to and from the temple hosting the tournament they would have found themselves paralyzed by a crushing battle of powerful auras. Miles away from the actual site of the televised battles, Sagat stood face-to-face with M. Bison, both waiting on the other to make the first move.

Animals that had been near the road, from the birds to the most insignificant insects, they had all taken it upon themselves to move away from the pending conflict as far and as fast as they could.

"So you're really going to challenge me here?" Bison asked before narrowing his eyes at his former subordinate, "I was not aware that you were so gutless Sagat."

"How is fighting you gutless?"

"Because… suicide is the coward's way out."

The no-nonsense visage of Sagat stared directly at the smirking face of Bison as the man slowly reached for the cape at his shoulders and cast it away. But the throwing of the cape concealed his body, and by the time it floated up and out of the way the man was gone from his sight.

Sagat's single eye widened as he turned and blocked a punch that would have been directed at his neck had he not known that Bison's killer instinct would have called for him to take that shot, 'This is the power he possesses.' Sagat's entire arm tingled from merely guarding himself, and then he saw the crackling ball of purple energy that he was holding in his other hand, "What are you-?"

"Psycho Shot!" Bison let the blast fly, but even at close range Sagat had been mobile enough to move out of the way. As the unstable projectile left his hands, Bison chuckled evilly at the sight of it tearing down trees in the jungle and going forth until it eventually exploded, "You have nothing to offer that I can't send right back at you ten-fold. You are but the learner Sagat."

A low growl came from Sagat as his eye had also been locked on the destruction wrought from his opponent's single attack, "You make me sick." The Muay Thai master stated coldly only to elicit more laughter from Bison.

"You know that cute little technique you use to bring out your full potential in battle." Bison started to say as he slowly walked toward Sagat, "The one you used in your fight with Uzumaki before you cut it short… you're going to want to start using that if you want this to last longer than five minutes." Without warning, as if his body were made of paper, Bison floated into and glided through the air before swiftly dropping down in a forceful stomp that Sagat had to jump back to avoid being crushed beneath like the road.

He was completely unable to avoid the following punch shrouded in sick purple energy that hit him on his blind right side. Another punch straight to his chiseled body doubled Sagat over and allowed Bison to clutch the top of his head and propel him down into a mean-spirited knee strike right to the face that sent blood flying.

'He's still this powerful.' Sagat thought to himself as he could hear the madman's laughter echoing through the open-aired wilderness, 'He's lacking his original body and he's still as strong as he is.' He could hear the dirt of the road shift beneath Bison's feet and when he felt he was close enough he lashed out with a high kick from his back aimed at the head that Bison blocked with one hand. Still, it let him get back up which was the main reason for the attack, "You're not supposed to be this strong without the Psycho Drive."

"Oh Sagat…" Bison said, his eyes glowing for show, "You have no idea how powerful I was without the Psycho Drive, in a body that was decaying from the amount of power that the device gave me. Well this body is new, not yet decimated from my own powers. What I lack in strength, which isn't significant compared to the rest of you worms, I make up for in speed instead. You've never seen me fight seriously, you only know about it in passing."

"Ying Seụ̄x (Tiger Shot)!" Firing a blazing orange blast of energy at Bison, Sagat growled when the man merely floated up over it into the air before flipping and dropping down holding out a fist to punch down on him with, "S̄eụ̄x Sxydāw (Tiger Uppercut)!"

Instead of falling into the trajectory of Sagat's devastating rising uppercut, Bison altered his descent to miss it altogether, landing on the ground while Sagat was still stuck in the air. He was trying to drive the point home that Sagat could play stand-up all he wanted to. There was nothing he could do.

Sagat landed from his failed attack fists clenched tightly at how Bison was walking right through him. World-class fighters had crumbled at his feet from less effort on his part.

But fighting this man was like fighting no one else on Earth. As if to taunt him further, Bison pointed to his wrist as if he were wearing a watch and mouthed 'five minutes' to antagonize him. A grin sprang to the man's face when he saw Sagat's scar finally begin to glow again, "Oh thank goodness we can finally get this out of the way and I can get this over with. I've got my own tournament finale to crash you know."

Triggering his Angry Scar technique, ki flooded out of Sagat's body and engulfed him in orange. If he had to compare the feeling to anything he would have said that it felt like a weight had been lifted from his entire body, "This is what you wanted?"

Bison grinned cruelly and answered the seemingly harmless question, "Why yes it is. I was-." He was cut off from whatever taunting remark he was about to make by Sagat flying across the road and plowing into him with a Tiger Knee that drove the both of them into the forest and brought down an entire row of trees in brutal, smashing fashion.

XxX

(Meanwhile – At the Temple – Ken vs. Sasuke)

Sasuke was in the midst of playing the most high-stakes game of dodgeball he had ever dreamed of partaking in. Instead of having to duck and avoid red rubber balls filled with air he had to avoid screaming blue projectiles of focused energy.

Ken wasn't letting up, constantly moving back before firing repeated Hadokens that wowed the audience as if it were a light show. Normal light shows wouldn't potentially debilitate you if one of them hit you though.

It was still more of an exercise in futility from Sasuke's point of view though, 'He'll never hit me with a single one of those. Not if he keeps firing them off by themselves. He's wasting energy for nothing.'

The rate of fire from Ken kept up though, as he felt that he was subtly luring Sasuke near the high crowd wall, 'Just a little bit further now and I'll be ready to put an end to this.' Despite the young man's obvious talent, Ken was not as wary of Sasuke's martial arts skills as many others probably would have been, and he had a very good reason for that. Making Sasuke think he was afraid of getting close was all a part of his plan.

However Sasuke wasn't entirely unaware that Ken had something planned for him. He was allowing himself to be corralled to learn just where he was to be taken until he figured out that it was to the far wall, 'He thinks he can trap me with something as simple as that?'

This wasn't some amateur hour show. Even if he had roughly 180 degrees of movement unavailable to him, that still left more than enough space for someone like him to get away. The blasts from the Hadokens started pummeling the sturdy metal wall that hid the undersides of the crowd stands, and with each blast that vibrated their positions the people thought that it was great with all of their cheering and yelling.

Ken faced Sasuke who was mere feet from the wall and fired three blasts, watching Sasuke skillfully sway out of the way of each one without moving his feet, 'Okay, now that was kind of cool, but whatever.' "Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" Ken fired one at his body that Sasuke would have to make a move in order to dodge.

Rolling his eyes, Sasuke seemed to drift up and back like a levitating phantom before planting his feet on the wall and kicking off to leap over Ken's head, dropping with a sudden single-leg kick aimed at his rear side. It was so quick, and all of the extra directions were meant to criss-cross an enemy's eyes and leave them vulnerable to the final move. Ken merely grinned when he saw Sasuke jet overhead and hopped back in anticipation.

The moment Sasuke's foot touched the ground he wound up being punished for his assumptions of his opponent's tactical skills, "Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (Tornado Whirlwind Leg)!" Ken's jumping body spun like a top and delivered kick after kick to Sasuke, each blow a reminder of just how ill-advised his blindspot attack really was.

Ken landed in a skid while Sasuke's body flew through the air and smacked off of the metal wall with a clang as he dented it. He fell off to the ground and bounced once before going still.

"Oh man…" Ken said to himself, chuckling slightly as he watched Sasuke begin to stir and get back up, "You still don't see it do you? Either that, or you do see it and you're just trying to ignore the obvious for some reason."

"What the hell are you talking about loser?" Insults were always a fallback when you were losing your temper, and Sasuke snapped out one as he stood up in another foreign fighting stance that only got Ken to shake his head again, "What?"

"That. This is exactly what I'm talking about." Ken said, pointing at Sasuke's form, "That's the Chinese Kenpo stance that Chun-Li used on Naruto last round, and when you were standing against the wall you were using Fei Long's stance to help you sway out of the way of my Hadoken barrage."

While he came off as a careless bonehead stereotypical blond, Ken was highly intelligent. He had to be in order to run the business ventures that he oversaw with his family's fortune, and he had to be in order to be as skilled as he was in fighting without possessing Ryu's level of ki manipulating ability. He was a savant of physical martial arts styles.

"What's your point?" Sasuke said, switching stances to Eagle Claw kung fu as if he was reacting to Ken's words.

Ken's gaze turned hard and his face became completely serious, "Don't play stupid with me. It's your favorite little trick. Somehow you can copy the techniques that you've see people do. It's how you overwhelm people. You use so many techniques, and you've probably got so many more that no one's even seen you do that no one can possibly scout you properly. You could probably fight twenty battles and never use the same move twice. But you've got one major problem, and because of it if you keep trying this cute little crap with me you're going to get beaten to a pulp."

Sasuke didn't want to hear any of it and rushed forward, zigzagging until he got close enough to lash out with a swinging kick that missed Ken's torso, following up by switching legs to deliver a back kick that Ken caught before delivering a snap kick to Sasuke's body and throwing him away by the leg.

With a growl, Sasuke looked up from the ground. He was starting to lose his temper. Just how was Ken pulling this off? Everything he tried, nothing seemed to even catch him off-guard. Sasuke was faster, everybody knew it, Ken had to know it, but something was wrong. Did Ken really come up with a weakness?

A stern finger pointed in Sasuke's direction before Ken gave him a thumbs down, "You know what your problem is? You've got all of those moves, and you execute the movements themselves well. That's all fine and dandy… but you don't have any idea of how to use most of them the right way." He held up five fingers on one hand, "Since this fight started you've used five obvious moves that didn't fit in with the style you were set in."

Most of them had happened at the very start, after the first time Sasuke closed the distance right after ending his Cursed Seal actions. Sasuke started with his usual mixture of kung fu styles but switched abruptly to more acrobatic moves of several different disciplines.

Just now he used an obviously American Kickboxing technique, a style Ken knew like the back of his hand, out of an Eagle Claw stance. That move had absolutely no place being used out of the stance, especially given the Eagle Claw's combat nature being so absurdly different from kickboxing.

A bead of sweat formed on Sasuke's brow, 'That old bastard Gen always said I'd run into something like this one day.' After seeing how Gen could seamlessly shift between dozens of kung fu styles, even some lost to mainstream knowledge over the years, on command, Sasuke decided that he would try something similar but on a far grander scale. He learned the entirety of the Snake, Crane, and Mantis as a start to this.

Over the years after hundreds of fights and assassinations, Sasuke had been subjected to multiple moves and fighting postures that he found himself able to perform in one way or another and this formed the second portion of his fighting theory. While his base came from the three kung fu styles he had learned and trained with Gen, he spliced in random techniques and stances in an effort to create shock openings; little windows of surprise that would allow him to throw an enemy off-guard and kill them with his next series of moves.

His versatility in a fight was nearly limitless using such a method, and confusing enemies without genjutsu was all a matter of switching to the right move at the right time, but there was a serious weakness to fighting that way. Any real martial arts master could see the attacks foreign to Sasuke's formal training the way that Gen did and how Ken was doing now. Anything unfamiliar with the Snake, Crane, and Mantis styles could easily be picked out and adjusted for if one knew what to look for or not to look for.

XxX

In the crowd, the heel of Naruto's ninja sandal was beginning to wear the luster off of the metal beneath his chair as quickly as his foot kept hitting against it. Sasuke had basically taken the theory of using Rock Lee's movements from his chunin exam training years ago to several different levels, and Ken could still see through it.

'No matter which one of them I fight it's gonna be rough.' That much went without saying, which was why he didn't vocalize his thoughts to his surrounding friends.

He had fought Ken in the spring, along with Sakura against Ryu as well, but that couldn't be considered anything more than an exhibition bout. It was a fight in an airport terminal, there was no way it was going to get anything close to serious with so many bystanders in close proximity.

From the way the man acted so carefree most of the time it was hard to believe that he was the contemporary equal of Ryu, the former World Warrior Tournament champion (that had actually lost that accolade at the hands of Ken in the previous round). But then you watched Ken fight, and it all came together. It could not be disputed.

Ken Masters was one of the most dangerous people on the entire planet. With skill forged in fire and sharpened by the steel resistance of combat.

As Naruto's eyes scrutinized the fight as best he could, trying to soak up whatever he could to use in the near future, Chun-Li and Guile couldn't help but look around routinely, keeping their senses open, "As long as we're all this close together he's never going to show himself." Chun-Li said, speaking of Bison, "What is he waiting for?" Guile merely grunted in agreement, his thickly muscled arms crossed over his chest.

Really, what was he waiting for? They were all hurt, physically and mentally exhausted, and wound up to varying degrees of severity amongst them. If there was going to be a time to strike it was going to have to be then. They were going to keep Naruto and Ken watched over like hawks until the tournament ended, and they weren't splitting up again after all of the bad things that had happened.

Even Ryu was in easy sight, standing at the top of the plaza to oversee the match. He wasn't even playing lone wolf/solitary warrior as blatantly as he usually did. Looking up at him Chun-Li saw him look down at them for just a moment, giving them a stoic nod.

He was reliable. Seriously socially-inept and seemingly unwilling to make the effort to be personable due to his martial arts purist upbringing yes, but Ryu was still a good man that knew how to fight the good fight. Or any fight really.

Seated next to Naruto, Cammy's thoughts dwelled not on the battle at hand on the field the way that Naruto seemed to if his dancing eyes following the action on the field told her anything. Even though her face wasn't much for showing her thoughts or emotions, she did have them, and that much was clear by then.

There was serious apprehension in her heart being brought forth, all due to the heightened paranoia of Guile and Chun-Li, and Naruto's ever-increasing tension going on inside of his spiky noggin. It made her think. Think about the horrible man that came to her after her defeat and took control of her. Something deep inside of her told her to dread him, and she had been given apt reason to do so until Sasuke had managed to free her before she could do something horrible.

Cammy did not see any reason to rush any potential conflict with such a man. As far as she was concerned, assassin's instinct within her or not, she wasn't looking forward to standing against a person like that.

Turning to her side though, she took a very close look at Naruto's battle-weary face. He was showing the wear of the past two days even if he wasn't outwardly wounded.

He was a prime target, as Bison took it upon himself to sic her on him in her moment of weakness. The person she cared for the most. She didn't know why, but the thought of causing permanent harm to him the way Bison wished her too, to destroy him, it made her feel sick to her stomach.

That by itself was enough motivation to fight. For nine months she hadn't felt much of a reason to fight other than instinctual reaction to the crazy things that went on around her, but she seemed to have one now, and it felt good.

…When she got home she really needed to talk to someone about just what all of these feelings meant. Caring for someone should not have evoked such an odd feeling in her belly when thinking about it as far as she knew what it consisted of.

However she was still unaware that caring about a boy was not the same thing as caring about a cat.

XxX

(Miles Away From the Temple – Sagat vs. M. Bison)

"What insolence." Bison said, dusting his uniform off as he walked up from the wreckage of trees and earth that his body and Sagat's Tiger Knee had created in the jungle. Holding his military cap in one hand he finally placed it onto his head after he cleaned as much off of himself as he could. Sagat had managed to deliver quite a bit of punishment, "One must be careful what they wish for after all…"

"You can say that again."

Sagat burst from a pile of fallen trees and rushed across the forest floor where he and Sagat began trading strikes that were blocked and dodged by their adversary. While Bison avoided most of the powerful punches and knees thrown his way, Sagat was enough of a bull that blocking most of them didn't cause his body much further harm.

A move backward gave way to Bison quickly somersaulting forward and slamming Sagat's head down into the dirt with a clubbing kick, "Double Knee Press!" The moment Sagat's face touched the ground, Bison grinned cruelly and slid his feet forward through the dirt to try and grind Sagat's skull into pulp, but he slid past him when Sagat rolled aside and escaped, "Stubborn fool!"

With not a bit of wasted motion, Bison turned around and stopped Sagat's attempted elbow strike by clashing forearms with him, keeping him from taking back control of the battle's ebb and flow. A booming pressure was released from the two powerful energies, purple and orange, colliding. The need for the wildlife to get away was self-preservation in its purest form, for if they stayed anywhere near the battle between those two they would run a high risk of being killed in the crossfire.

The ground beneath the two began to split and shake before they pushed off of each other and Bison teleported out of Sagat's sight. With a growl, Sagat whipped in a random direction and lashed out with a swinging kick just as Bison reappeared. The maniacal grin on his face was seen for a portion of a second before he vanished again in a purple energy shroud and Sagat's leg smashed into a tree trunk, tearing it down.

The miss resulted in Bison winding up behind Sagat, wrapping his arms around the man's sizeable form and pinning his arms to his sides as he began to squeeze the life out of him like a boa constrictor, "The difference between you and I is like trying to reach the moon from atop a skyscraper. Your power is vast, but compared to me it is nothing!"

It was going to be a slow, arduous, painful death. Sagat's rib cage creaked and cracked in protest, drawing sputtering coughs from the man as his lungs were forced to contract against the protective bones surrounding them.

How could this be? Even with the power-up of his anger driving his ki past the point that any mere man could hope to match on their own, Bison did just that, and he was making it look like child's play to keep up with him. No, not on this day. Bison would feel his full fury.

It was an agonizing length of time Sagat managed to slip one of his arms underneath Bison's grip low enough to maneuver it and began blasting him repeatedly with low elbow shots to the kidney that eventually had Bison spitting up blood until he was forced to let go, "You wor-!"

"Cū̀com Seụ̄x (Tiger Raid)!"

Sagat's legs rattled off rapid-fire kicks fast enough to leave speedy, shadowy afterimages. They were meant to fool an adversary into kicks only to hit them with the ones that they couldn't see, but it didn't matter. _Everything_ was landing, regardless of whether Bison saw through the fakes or not.

A strongman might as well have been freely wailing on Bison's body with a mallet. Nothing was missing its mark.

"Raghh!" Sagat finished with a jumping side kick that propelled both him and Bison forward through trees, knocking them and their flaming leaved tops over to mark a fiery trail of their ever-destructive battle.

His body still radiating every last dreg of orange extra ki that he could muster, Sagat's breath came in heavy doses. The Angry Scar technique to tap into his full body's energy and potential had never been active for this long. He'd never needed it.

The shuffling of trees gave notice to Sagat's senses that it was not over, and right on cue Bison came hurtling out of a pile of destroyed and fragmented lumber, like a spinning torpedo, covered in his Psycho Power that reeked of chaos and torment.

Sagat calmed his breathing and shut his eye for a split-second to focus himself. Anger fueled him to push past the limits that his unconscious mind set, the limits that every human being's mind placed to keep them from destroying their own bodies. That would not help at this moment. He needed a clear mind or Bison would grind right through him and there would be nothing he could do.

A clear mind.

"Thảlāy Seụ̄x (Tiger Destruction)!"

Unlike earlier with his powerful ki-enhanced leaping uppercut, the second time and the advanced version was the charm, and Sagat did not miss. His fist planted right in Bison's chest and a brutal part of him wished that he had managed to rip his torso open the way Ryu had done to him with his Shoryuuken years ago.

The power of the move carried them both up into the leaves of the trees and the heat of Sagat's untamed ki managed to set fire to the aerial foliage. Luckily many trees around had been smashed, so any chance of a forest fire was contained within their own little battleground.

Upon landing on the ground, Sagat's body sported burns of his own doing. His formerly white hand wraps were dirty and grimy with blood and other foreign stains from the pair of battles he had fought that day.

Looking around for Bison he saw no sign of him. Nor could he sense the man's presence. Even so, Sagat was not an inexperienced, hopeful fool. If there was no body, the fight wasn't over, 'Could he have fled?'

Tactical retreats were not against Bison's morals, but where could he go when he was trying to hide himself from the tournament competitors until the finale when there would be no one well enough to fight him back?

"The end has come…"

His senses were full of Bison all of a sudden as the man fell from the sky, through the burning canopy, arms crossed and body straight like a javelin hurtling towards Sagat.

Sagat licked his lips and prepared one last ultimate attack that Bison was setting himself up for perfectly, but Bison's stomp was not even aimed at him. It was aimed for directly in front of him. The stomp had enough impact to extinguish the heavier flames around them and knocked Sagat off of his feet where he found himself grabbed around the face and head in an iron-tight clawhold.

'I… I miscalculated?' Sagat thought as his vision was obscured by Bison's hand and the purple energy surrounding it that squeezed down on his head with skull-cracking pressure. Bison had

"A fangless, clawless tiger might as well be a harmless kitten." Bison said as energy in his free hand grew intense enough that it started letting of a coursing noise like that of a power generator, "Now kneel before my Psycho Power. Psycho Punisher!" One haymaker of a punch to the captured Sagat punched through his chest and blasted power straight through him out through his back.

It was like a colored spotlight being fired straight through his torso into the air. The rest of the forest fire flames were snuffed out by Bison's chilling power that choked the life out of the blaze.

Sagat didn't even need to look down at the hole in his body to know that something was horribly wrong. If he was hurt so badly that he couldn't even feel the devastating pain that he should have been in, there was a major problem.

It was cold. The light faded from his single eye amid Bison's madly grinning face before his body was cast aside by the head.

As Sagat's corpse hit the ground, Bison stared at his right hand covered in gore from Sagat's innards and flexed his fingers out, "You made me work. To force me to such a degree all on your own with no assistance or strange abilities… you really were the 'God of Muay Thai' weren't you?"

Of course, Sagat could not respond. He had passed on. And as Bison walked past him one last time before leaving the area he had to wonder to himself why despite such a brutal end, Sagat had died with a smile on his face.

Career fighters were certainly a strange breed.

'I never got the battle with you that I desired Ryu… but at least… at least I remembered who I was… who I am.'

XxX

(At the Temple)

Ryu's attention was directed to the south. From where he was standing at the top of the courtyard above everyone and everything within it he had his sight directed to a purple light that he could barely see.

Something was up. It had to be.

The light was faint and it was miles away from the martial arts temple, but he knew that he could see it. It wasn't some trick on his eyes. Looking around he could see that the fight between Ken and Sasuke had everyone's attention, and even if it hadn't no one else would have been able to see the light from between the trees from where they were all sitting.

Was he just seeing things?

'What was that?' Ryu thought to himself before turning his gaze back down to the fight going on below. He unconsciously tightened the red fighting gloves on his hands as he observed. Everyone was starting to lose it, but just because someone was paranoid didn't mean that there was something out to get them.

XxX

(Ken vs. Sasuke)

"Don't get all tentative now!" Ken shouted as he dashed after Sasuke through the courtyard. Ever since it had been clear that Ken had found a method to break the tricky approach to hand-to-hand arts that Sasuke utilized, the Sharingan of Sasuke was utilized to keep him out of Ken's reach, "Come on and try your luck in close!"

Not a chance.

Sasuke had a high sense of pride in his own abilities almost to the extent of a possessing superiority complex, and that little personality trait that had never quite subsided. A deep part of him was yelling to get back in Ken's face and beat him at his own game to show him who was the best. Even so, there would be no benefit to banging his head against the brick wall that was fist-fighting with Ken Masters and he was more than smart enough to realize that.

Utilizing a random jutsu would not help either. He needed something quick that wouldn't tip Ken off that he was about to attack. As he moved, constantly slipping out of range whenever Ken managed to get close, Sasuke noted the terrain of the battlefield. He analyzed anything around him that could be used to throw Ken off of his game to allow him to retake the advantage.

A quick movement of his hands to underneath his sleeves gave Sasuke two separate shuriken to throw Ken's way. It was a surprise, as those had been weapons that Naruto used, 'This guy uses ninja stars?' A quick look away from Sasuke to make sure that he had dodged the metal blades and his focus was right back on him.

With a straight path through the two missed shuriken, Ken darted forward before forming a fist as Sasuke still seemed to be drawing his hands back from throwing his weaponry. An opening.

With a hand covered in flames quickly followed by his entire body being shrouded in it, Ken rushed Sasuke and lifted off of the ground, planting his fist underneath his chin to carry Sasuke with him in the physically abusive specialty of his fighting style. The added spin to his attack caught both of them in a flaming vacuum of his own creation to put an end to his opponent.

It was an incredible sight for the audience, looking like the massive body of a dragon with its body coiled around the two of them, the head of it formed by Ken's fist that was firmly planted under Sasuke's jaw.

"Shinryuuken (Divine Dragon Fist)!" The victorious look on his face gave way to shock and pain when he felt a harsh burning feeling at his back and was knocked from the air a flaming wreck, 'What!?' Sasuke's midair body that had been fully engulfed in flames was gone as if it had never existed.

And indeed it hadn't.

After Ken had dodged the shuriken he looked back over to Sasuke to keep track of him. Well he had made a cardinal mistake that he hadn't made until then due to how he had been looking at Sasuke's body to track how he was going to move.

He looked into Sasuke's eyes, only for a second before he moved forward to attack him with the Shinryuuken, but that was enough.

There wasn't any time to weave any creative or well-thought out mind-screws, but he didn't need to. The illusion that Ken's next attack struck home would be all that he needed, and he'd seen what a properly landed Shoryuuken could do to an opponent, so he could create a fake scenario with it, thus he suggested using such a move. It wasn't hard to mentally persuade Ken to do so either because Shoryuuken was his go-to attack.

The fact that he went for the stylish victory in his ultra-devastating but more time-consuming Shinryuuken made it all the better.

From there it was a matter of practice to shoot him out of the air with a fireball.

"I'm in a good mood…" Sasuke said to himself, charging lightning chakra to his right hand before rushing toward the upside-down and falling Ken with his own signature move, "So I'll finish this in one shot! Chidori (One Thousand Birds)!"

The crowd gasped and shouted, cheering for Sasuke to put it all to an end, or for Ken to get up and survive somehow.

Ken's eyes had been closed on his fall down, cringing in pain at the fireball that had burned through his clothing and the skin on his back. Once again, the chirping electric noise of the Chidori forced him to pop his eyes open as Sasuke was incoming to finish the fight, "Hadoken (Surge Fist)!"

Just before Sasuke could reach him, Ken fired off his last chance to counter and it turned out to be a success as the blue ki ball struck Sasuke right in the chest, landing clean. It was pure luck that it had been such a clean shot, as while Sasuke had been pulling his arm back to thrust it forward for the final strike he had been wide open for a split second.

The resulting blast off of his body knocked Sasuke back across the ground, being propelled away by the Hadoken like a groundball that had resulted from a hit off of a sizzling fastball. Ken still hit the ground in a smoking heap though, and neither man was quick to stand.

Ken grabbed a fistful of dirt and pebbles, trying to pull himself up. His back was cooked, and he'd probably need a good haircut after it was all over because Sasuke had to have singed a good portion of it off, "Ahh…" He willfully pulled himself back up to his feet, the top of his gi slipping off down his highly muscular form due to its complete lack of a back to it. Before he could take too many breaths a grand and rolling cry of pain, "RAAAAHHH!"

From behind, still down on the ground on his back, Sasuke was propped up on one elbow with his other arm and hand extended, the last remnants of a previous jutsu streaking across his fingertips. On the big screen the cameras made a big show of the electricity around the end of the appendage.

"Just because I didn't hit the original Chidori doesn't mean I can't alter it." Sasuke said as Ken fell to his knees following the free shot at his back that Sasuke had taken, "I do more than shoot fireballs from a distance. You forgot about the Chidori Senbon (One Thousand Birds Senbon)." He concluded, standing up to begin walking over to his opponent, the buttons on his black top had been obliterated by the Hadoken, leaving the garment open.

It was a slow gait. Slower than anyone that had been watching him intently for the last two days expected him to move. By now Sasuke had realized that taking his time was not an unnecessary waste of his speed. Ken had shown himself to be frighteningly surprising, and rushing in, even with the Sharingan, led to him paying for it for assuming that he could handle himself in close because of it.

Finally reaching Ken, Sasuke carefully rolled him over with a foot, planting it on Ken's belly while still holding the Chidori, 'This took too much chakra to finish.' He thought to himself while keeping up a stoic countenance, "It's over. If I even feel a muscle twitch I'll finish you." As a show of force the Chidori seemed to solidify into a blade that he held down at Ken's chest, "I tried to murder my best friend. Killing you means absolutely nothing to me."

Ken just stared at the business end of Sasuke's shape transformation of his Chidori before shutting his eyes and sighing. He had a wife to worry about instead of possibly losing his life over some martial artist bravado. Even if he survived Sasuke's retaliation after he tried to get up again, even if he won that fight, it was a tournament match, and he'd already given enough of himself to it.

Come to think of it, he'd already gotten everything that he wanted out of the tournament. He defeated his friend and rival in Ryu. He'd proven that he was just as powerful a fighter as anyone else there. He was fine with the road ending there.

"Fine. This time I surrender." And just like that, Sasuke allowed the jutsu to fade and removed his chest from Ken's form as the crowd cheered at the impressive back-and-forth battle.

"_That was a war! The winner of the match is Sasuke Uchiha, and we have our finale set at long last! One more fight left, for the honor and prestige of being the best! In one hour it'll be Naruto vs. Sasuke! Sasuke vs. Naruto!"_

Sasuke turned his head to where he knew Naruto had been sitting in the crowd and the two simply stared at each other without surcease. At least until Sasuke heard Ken let out a slight chuckle from the ground. Craning his head over to where Ken was still lying, waiting on the doctor monks to arrive and treat him, Sasuke watched him grin despite the burn on his back that he was firmly planted on.

Looking up at the victorious young man, Ken let him in on the big reason he was laughing, "That's the best friend you almost killed? I thought you might have been bluffing about that at first when you said you tried, but now I get it. Some people are too tough to kill on the first try."

"Your point?"

"No, nothing." Ken said with a cough before he spat some bloody phlegm to the side, "It's just… I really don't want to miss this. I love a good fight."

Sasuke let out a 'hm' noise before walking away to catch some rest and recharge while he still had the hour to do so, "It won't really be much of a fight. In over ten years he's never beaten me once. No matter how strong he gets, I can stay one step ahead."

Ken just let him go as the doctors arrived and started getting him ready to be moved. Ignoring the pain in his wounds, Ken just stared up at the sky in thought, "One step ahead huh? Well that's great and all… but even if you stay one step ahead you can still get tripped up."

XxX

(Aohura City, Chigoku Region, Japan)

Seated on one of the couches in her living room, Sakura had to endure the rundown of the entire tournament and its highlights while the hour was ticking down for the final round to take place. Her little brother Tsukushi had been good company to watch the second semifinal match with since she was at home that day instead of out watching with her friends.

She had somehow managed to take off from school a bit early to make it home in time to see the tail end of the second fight of the day between Ken and Sasuke. The live start time of noon for the event in Thailand translated over to 2 p.m. for her and others in Japan, thus she was caught in school for Naruto's earlier match and had to stream it online to watch it there.

Her brother had already been plucked out of school that day by their mother for some reason, so he had already been watching when she flew through the door and bore witness to watching Sasuke inexplicably overcome Ken.

It was a good match. A great match actually, granted with a rather dubious finish that seemed strange on TV. But she wasn't able to enjoy it, and she found herself internally rooting for Ken in the second semifinal match more than she thought she would have.

All for naught as Sasuke somehow picked up the surprise victory.

And she didn't want that at all.

With a sigh she splayed herself out on the cushy chair, fishing her phone out of her skirt pocket and holding it up in the air just staring at it. Fortunately she was broken of her thoughts by a rather obnoxious horn blaring outside, "Oi, Sakura! Come outside! Come on!" Yeah, that was definitely Batsu, "Let's go, we're gonna miss the whole thing!"

'What whole thing?' Sakura thought to herself as she sat back up and walked to her front door, poking her head outside to see the wild-haired brawler hanging out of the top of his jeep as well as her close friend Hinata, with both still dressed in their school uniforms. So they actually spent the whole day in their school, 'I didn't expect Batsu of all people to stay in school the whole time on a day like this.'

Hinata poked her short brown-haired head over the passenger's side window as she fussed with the white headband on her head similar to Sakura's, "The big TV set up in the arcade district is playing the tournament and everyone in town that's into it is there to watch." That numbered basically everyone in Aohura City that could throw a punch halfway straight, which was actually a lot of people, "You're coming right?"

She didn't really need to ask. Sakura had already started putting on her shoes by the door to leave before she was finished with her statement, "Mom, Tsukushi, I'm going downtown, I'll be back later!" She yelled back into the house as she ran out and shut the door behind her. Without missing a beat she jumped from the front stoop and landed right in the back of Batsu's jeep that was parked a mere ten feet away.

"Hey! The shocks on this thing already suck, don't make it worse!" Batsu warned as he plopped back down in the driver's seat and shifted into drive, "Alright, gonna watch my bud win a world tournament! Whoo!"

Sending her boyfriend a smile at his exuberance for the coming event, Hinata looked into the backseat and was surprised to see that Sakura wasn't as high-spirited as she normally was, "What's the matter Sakura-chan? I would have figured you'd be just as excited as Batsu-kun."

"I should be shouldn't I?" She asked rhetorically, knowing that in other circumstances she'd be just as fired up as anyone, "It's just… I-." She didn't know how to explain it, "That guy. The Sasuke person, he can let people see his own memories with those eyes of him. I saw him fight Naruto five years ago when they were younger. It was terrible. Even when Naruto was using that nasty red energy, it didn't tip the balance in his favor enough to win."

"-And you're scared." Batsu finished, speaking for her as he kept his eyes on the road and navigated his way through traffic, "Look, I know the whole shoving his hand through teme's chest thing is kind of eerie, but we've seen worse than that." Hinata popped him on the shoulder to chide him for his blunt words, but he just rolled his eyes. He knew she knew he was right.

The Chidori through the shoulder thing wasn't the problem. Sakura had seen more screwed up crap happen to Naruto in fights right there in Aohura City, even though the Chidori still ranked up there as one of the most messed up things she'd ever seen happen to him.

"No." Sakura said, lowly, her gaze affixed to the floor, "You don't get it. Whatever happened to them at the end of the last time they fought, it ended up with them showing up in America, in our world." Neither of them knew just what happened or how their battle closed out. It was like God just scooped them up and spat them out here because they pissed him off by fighting, "They don't know what happened, and they're going to do it again, and they're _way_ stronger than they used to be."

"Is there a point to this or are you just suffering from Naruto-deprivation?" Another hit to the arm from Hinata for Batsu's picking on of Sakura, "If I crash this car you're both gonna be looking dumb."

"My point is…" Sakura gave a thankful glance to Hinata for trying to keep her man in check as best she could, "…No, nevermind. I probably am being silly. It's just, between the fight they've had before, the fact that bad things happen whenever they get together, and the whole tournament supposedly being a trap from Shadaloo, I'm feeling a bit skittish over the whole thing. The idea of something terrible happening just keeps sticking with me."

Hinata had to block letting out an audible 'aww' and instead tried to take the talk elsewhere, "Why don't you call him and tell him that then?" Let it be known that she was even more of a romantic than their friend Kei, and wondered fitfully why Sakura and Naruto had never been any closer than best friends. Batsu was not helpful on cracking that secret at all, "He's got his phone on him."

Sakura rolled her eyes and held up her phone again, "If I call him and say what I just said to you here's exactly what'll happen. He'll laugh first and make a stupid joke, then I'll get mad, then he'll realize I'm serious and he'll assure me that everything'll be fine, and even though I already knew that that's what'll happen I'll settle down about it."

"…And you're not calling him because?" Batsu asked with a raised eyebrow, because none of that seemed bad. The end result was that she would calm down, so what was the problem?

"I don't want to calm down." Sakura said grumpily, "To me, being scared means I care. Neither of you are scared, Karin's not scared, Ibuki's not scared. Somebody here needs to be afraid or worried about him, and it's me… because I'm the one that always cared when he was by himself here and didn't have anyone. It's a habit."

This time Batsu had to be the one to rebuke Hinata, as he used his hand to keep her from turning around to bombard Sakura with twenty straight junior matchmaker starter questions. Thus with a pout she had to stay in her seat and let the moment to strike pass as they all just rode deeper into the city, resigned to making small talk about who they'd probably see on the scene and whatnot.

None of it did anything to cast out the nagging little thought at the back of Sakura's mind, and she couldn't figure out just what it was that had her so unnerved.

* * *

><p><strong>One more match left and we'll see what goes down then. For now though, I'm done. If you enjoyed it I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait until the next time I drag my injured ass to a keyboard to punch something in for you to read. And if you didn't, well I'm still sorry about that, but whatever.<strong>

**Now I'm going to go get CoD: Black Ops II, and Assassin's Creed III because that's what I do when I have pocket change. Cheers.**

**Kenchi out.**


	38. One For the Road

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I'm going to put myself in a food-related coma so that maybe I can get a longer dream of either of these things becoming a reality.

I'll have to run it off tomorrow, but I was going to do that anyway so it'll all pan out.

Wait… tomorrow's Black Friday.

Quick, someone rich go buy me the rights to Naruto from Kishimoto and Shonen Jump, and while you're at it buy Street Fighter from Capcom! That'd be a fucking fantastic Christmas. A last hurrah for a man that ain't even getting a damn sock this year. I'm too old for gifts, or fun that doesn't involve someone nearby being inebriated.

Growing up~~~.

**Chapter 38: One For the Road**

* * *

><p>Sitting still didn't appeal to Naruto any longer. With fifteen minutes left until it was time for the final round he wasn't going to pack away any more significant chakra gains back into his body. A check of his gear and a few quick stretches to warm up and it only took two minutes.<p>

He had since left the stands, but he was not on his own. He had the company of Ryu, whom he had come across at the top of the courtyard grounds and Ryu had followed him around from that point forward. A bit of security was never a bad thing, he just wished he'd have gotten someone more talkative to go with to ease his mind. Hell even Guile or Cammy in that department would have worked better.

Guile would have acted like he didn't want to talk, but the airman would have spent the entire time Naruto wandered around trying to dole out advice on the coming battle. Cammy wouldn't have had much to say, she never really did, and she seemed to clam up even more in times of heightened tension, but the sweet little thing still would have been wonderful company.

"So…" Naruto said, trying to start some kind of ice-breaking conversation, "…Crazy two days right?" In all honesty Naruto had never been left alone to carry on any interaction with Ryu by himself before. For some reason he found the prospect somewhat daunting. Though that was probably just Ryu himself projecting that image.

"Indeed." Ryu said, still walking right along with him. Well at least he was talking in return. As mentioned before, Ryu wasn't mean by any stretch of the imagination, nor was he particularly anti-social. He just didn't know how to be social and didn't seem to have any desire to pick the necessary personality traits to do so up.

"Hey Ryu?"

"Yes?"

"We're friends right?"

"In a manner of speaking I would say yes."

Wow. In a manner of speaking he would say yes. No flat out yes or no. Naruto didn't know quite how to feel about that, so he just went to his default and nodded as if he understood, content to just go with it.

"Cool… cool." He didn't really know how else to converse with the man other than make small talk, and it was getting to him, "Alright look. I know you probably don't really respect me, but I do respect you." Something changed in Ryu's expression once Naruto said that and continued on, "You're a big deal to a lot of my friends and you're important to Sakura-chan, so I want us to-."

"-You think I don't respect you?" There was legitimately surprise on Ryu's face upon hearing Naruto say such a thing. So much so that he had to forego his usual manners and etiquette of listening to others all the way through to interrupt, "What in the world makes you think that? I have respect for you."

No way. The absolute last guy in the world that Naruto figured would see him like that actually thought he was worth a damn. Even other ninjas didn't think that. He knew. He'd hung out in the Glade of Ninjas long enough to know that Guy hadn't been the only one that didn't like the way he did things.

Thus Naruto started listing off things on his fingers, "Well I don't really fight fair. I'm told I can be a bit… what's a good word for 'annoying'? I try to use the 'dark power' in me that you fight at all costs, even when it gives your best friend an opportunity to knock you out. And there are other reasons too."

To Naruto's surprise, Ryu simply smiled, "True, your method of fighting isn't something I'm partial to, but as far as dirty fighters go, you could be far worse. The fact that you are at ease with the power within you and accept its presence in your life is something I envy honestly. I wish I could trust myself to train to harness it in such a manner."

"You probably can by the way." Naruto interjected matter-of-factly, "I'm just saying. If you really wanted to you could probably do something about that. But you were saying?"

Shoving that away for later thought, Ryu continued with his thought, "I really don't have anything else to add. We may not agree on many things, such as my capability to train others properly, but you're a fine young man… once you get past some personality faults, but we all have those." Naruto ignored the bluntness of that comment and accepted it as the compliment that it mostly was, "Sakura has very good instincts in picking her friends."

"Yeah she does. I'm-." Naruto said none too modestly with a grin on his face before it vanished just as quickly as it appeared, "Wait a minute…" His instincts, '…Oh, this is either going to be the best or the worst idea I've ever had.' "…I have to go to the bathroom." Naruto deadpanned, pointing in the nearby direction of the temple building where they had resided overnight.

Who would have guessed that a martial arts temple as old as this one would have had plumbing? Resourceful monks.

However the abrupt declaration came out of left field and threw Ryu off, "Now?" A nod from Naruto, "You fight in ten minutes. I have to get you back."

"It'll take two to pee." Naruto asserted, "Three if I take my gloves off and wash my hands." In return Ryu just stared at him blankly until Naruto pointed at the nonexistent watch on his wrist, "Either way we've got nine minutes now. I don't want to get punched so hard that I piss my pants. I heard that kind of thing can happen."

That was an entirely realistic possibility, as frightening a prospect as it was.

Ryu knew such a thing could happen, and he would never tell anyone how he knew it was possible, but he did know. Thus on second thought-, "…Go pee. And wash your hands too. It's respectful to your opponent."

XxX

(Aohura City, Chigoku Region, Japan – Downtown – Arcade District)

"Whew." Batsu led the two girls with him through the very crowded sidewalks of the city leisure area, "This place is more packed than I've ever seen it." It was a tough time just trying to work their way through the throng of humanity blocking their way. And Batsu was somewhat sore that he had to park his jeep a mile away because the roads were closed, "This is your fault Sakura. Why did you have to go home after your school let out? Everyone else from there came straight here."

It was easy to pick out because of all of the kids that wore the uniform of Sakura's high school visible. It was easy to see that there were students from every school out there. It seemed like anyone that had ever gone to the arcade district in their downtime was there just to take part in the festivities.

Batsu's griping aside, it was rather annoying having to squeeze through so many people from the perspective of Sakura and Hinata. Batsu was having less trouble since he was able to navigate through by basically just shoving folks that didn't keep the flow of traffic moving. What were they going to do? At best someone would do nothing but verbally rebuke him, and at worst someone would try to hit him. Even in the kind of testosterone-filled crowd that drew fight fans he wished a dummy would try to smack him one.

"Wow." Sakura said as they neared the square and saw it full of people, even in the streets, just looking up at the titanic screen situated atop one of the shopping areas, "I don't get it. What's with all of the people?" While they did have a much higher fighter ratio than most other cities in Japan, that still didn't make sense as to why everyone would be out there.

"You might not realize this because our group is pretty closely-knit and no one in this town seems to care about fighters fighting…" Batsu started to say as he quickly shimmied up a nearby streetlight to scope over the crowd to try and pinpoint something, "…But we're kind of famous here. You, me, Naruto, rich girl, pretty much everyone we hang out with."

"Including Dan?"

"Yes, including that idiot." Batsu said a bit disgruntled at having to admit such before he shook it off, "And Naruto's been from here for a long time. It's a big deal for someone from this town to be out there. It shows everyone that the fighters in this town aren't just a bunch of ki-trained street punks and are worth something."

And right on cue somewhere in the crowd a random fight broke out.

"Ugh…" Batsu palmed his forehead at his heartfelt explanation being shot down by some of the stupid kids their age that thought it would be prudent to get into a rumble at the massive gathering. Before he could bemoan his loss of looking cool, a shuriken struck the post just above his head. Instead of freaking out he merely followed the path of its trajectory and waved at who he saw, "Alright let's go."

Hopping down from the pole he led the way through the crowd again, with him, Sakura, and Hinata blatantly ignoring the low-level scruff that had broken out moments before. It seemed that everyone else in the crowd was too. Who cared about that when there was fighting with actual consequences behind it taking place on the TV?

Eventually, Batsu led them to the sight of Ibuki in her school uniform, crouching down on the back of a motorcycle. Even though the driver of the motorcycle was hidden behind the skull-emblazoned helmet and leather gear, by now all of them knew that it was Akira.

"Hey Ibuki-chan." Sakura said as the kunoichi dropped off of the back of the bike and gave her a quick hug, "Hello Kazama-san." Akira nodded her helmeted head in stiff acknowledgement of the greeting, "Where's Kei-chan and Kanzuki-san?"

"Kei-chan went home, but Karin said she wasn't going to stay down here standing in the crowd like some commoner." Ibuki said with a shrug, remembering how Karin had left about ten minutes ago with her aides to do who knew what, "She didn't go home though, because a limo didn't drive through the crowd right to her side to pick her up and a helicopter didn't drop from the sky to lift her out of here."

Hinata blinked in confusion as to what that implied. A helicopter couldn't just land in the square, even when it wasn't full of people, "But the street is closed. She has to walk to where there are parking spots like everyone else."

"No she doesn't." Everyone, including Akira, replied dryly, with Hinata just accepting their refusal of her statement.

Let it be known that she did not know Karin well enough to know the kind of person she was the way the rest of them did.

"Whatever. Whatever." Ibuki simply waved it all off cheerfully before shooting Akira a rather impish grin, "So Akira-chan~." She basically crooned the poor girl's name out, "Who do you have your heart set on winning this last match?"

As if she needed to ask. She was just messing with the teen motorist's head. To note, Akira had not been wearing her helmet the entire time they had been there. They had arrived to see Sasuke's entire battle with Ken, and only when Ibuki drew attention to how intently she was watching Sasuke did Akira put her helmet back on to keep anyone from seeing her face.

"I want Sasuke-ku-. I mean, Uchiha-san to win." Akira said, amending her sentence in the middle of it, "I still want to wrap a chain around Uzumaki's neck and drag his body down the street by the back of my bike." She finished rather menacingly.

Wow, that wasn't scary at all. While the other girls just stared at her strangely, wondering why wearing that damn biker outfit made such a docile girl like Akira so bold, Batsu just rolled his eyes, "Are you still mad about us beating up your brother's gang back in the day? We were all fourteen back then, and every high school's best fighters were kicking the crap out of each other."

"It humiliated him." Akira said with a bit of a pout, "…Losing to a school kid." Once again, everyone ignored the fact that they were still all classified as schoolchildren, so that meant absolutely nothing.

It was ignored because there was something entirely new to pay attention to.

The crowd had to move as a rather spacy three-tiered stage was pushed through the lot of them with an extremely comfortable-looking chair sitting atop it. Situated in the chair itself of course was Karin, looking around with a quite bored smirk on her face as her primary steward Shibazaki stood by her side attentively, "Thank you Ishizaki." She said to her very large butler that had pushed the eyesore of a stage into the vicinity as he bowed and went to stand similar to Shibazaki on the other side of her chair.

"Oh my God…" Sakura mumbled as she walked closer to the setup and looked up at the wealthy young girl with her hands sternly on her hips, "I don't believe you. You brought a chair and a platform from home, just because you didn't feel like standing in the crowd?"

"Of course not. Don't be absurd. Who in the world carries their own personal stage around?" Karin looked almost offended at the accusation, "I purchased both of these things moments ago on a whim." She concluded, as if that made it any better. Her eyes panned around to the general public looking to take a seat somewhere on one of the levels, "Sit on my platform and pay for it dearly."

The rather icy tone and the fact that most people knew full well that she could physically back such a thing up kept them from sitting down. It didn't work on everyone though, as both Sakura and Batsu quickly got up onto the level just below Karin's top part, much to her chagrin, but they ignored her attempts to glare holes in the backs of their skulls. And then Ibuki, Hinata, and Akira followed suit.

"Fine. You are acquaintances, thus I will not destroy you for such blatant disrespect."

"Oh thank you so much for sparing me." Sakura stated sarcastically as she temporarily refrained from sitting down in order to continued verbally sparring with Karin, "Because it's worked so well before in the past that you haven't tried it again in more than two yea-. OW!" A quick pain administered to her backside had her wheel around to see Batsu holding up the offending hand, "Did you just-?"

"Well Naruto isn't here to do it so I thought I'd cover for him." He explained, waving the fingers on the spanking hand before getting laid out with a punch to the face from both Sakura and Hinata. Not particularly the smartest thing he had ever done.

Having taken her own seat on the stage along with Akira, Ibuki merely sighed at the half brain-dead idea of Batsu's. Honestly, he couldn't have expected any other outcome for such an action, "Batsu should know better. The only one that can touch Sakura's butt and get away with it is…" She trailed off when she felt subtle killing intent coming from right behind her courtesy of Sakura. Good girl as she was, she was getting prodded quite a bit today, "…Oh look, Cammy's on the screen!"

It was a good save. And indeed Cammy was on the massive screen, seated with the others and wearing her civilian clothes with quite the uncomfortable expression on her face at having a camera more or less shoved into it.

Who knew? Out of all of the things that Cammy had been exposed to for months since losing her memory, the one thing that really made her uncomfortable was having a camera lens sent her way. She seemed to be holding herself back from either pointing the damn thing away from her or outright breaking it.

"Wow." Ibuki commented, "She'll run around in public in that leotard of hers no problem, but she can't take being filmed at all." No one would have ever pegged Cammy as one for being camera shy until she started winding up on TV.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Outside of Bangkok, Thailand – Martial Arts Temple)

A part of Chun-Li wanted to indulge Cammy and shoo the cameras away, but this was better. If something happened while the cameras were on them there was a better chance that Bison would pay for it later.

Still, it was rather funny to see Cammy stiffen up whenever she was aware that there was a camera on her. The girl just did not like the idea of being the center of attention at all.

"Here we have four of the fighters from the tournament that have remained behind to view the second day of competition." The event emcee was finally out of his broadcast booth and standing alongside the roving crowd camera that had found Chun-Li, Guile, E. Honda, and Cammy, "So what's the reason you've all remained behind? And why are people that were opponents in such intense matches sitting together now?"

E. Honda had no problem with the cameras and thus had no problems serving as the mouthpiece for the lot of them, "Heh, well we didn't fight each other did we? And what's wrong with that? Who else are we going to hang out with until this thing is over?"

That was actually a really good point. Who else were they going to spend any time around until the event was over?

Regaining his composure, the man went down the line to Guile only to think otherwise when he saw the no-nonsense look on Guile's face. It was basically an early-warning for them to leave him the hell alone, and it was a warning that was well received as the crew just outright skipped him altogether.

"Well let's get some expert analysis! How about you little miss?" Moving on down the line, the next up was the seemingly bashful Cammy, "Who do you have winning the final match? Sasuke Uchiha or the fighter you qualified out of Japan with in Naruto Uzumaki?" The moment he put the mic in her face to get her answer she grabbed his wrist and probably would have done something rather violent had Chun-Li not stopped her from doing so, "Uh…"

"Sorry about that." Chun-Li apologized for Cammy's sake, getting her to loosen the crippling grip the girl had on the announcer's arm, "She's not much for the media."

"…I can see that." Well the attempt to get the fighters to talk about the final fight certainly backfired. That was the charm and the risk that came with live TV though, and he had to roll with it to save some face, "The excitement of the coming battle must be getting to the poor thing, not that anyone can blame her! This is what we've all been waiting for!" His voice started to trail off as he got farther away down the row and out onto the stairs to leave.

A sigh of relief that Cammy didn't know she had been holding in escaped her as the camera moved away and the announcer man worked his way back to his post before the fighters could make their entrance. God she hated cameras… and microphones. Basically, she wasn't fond of anything that could capture proof of her existence in general.

"Thank you." She said to Chun-Li with an embarrassed look on her face, "I almost did the Blanka and Sagat thing again didn't I?" The spontaneous snaps of Special Forces brand violence. Only since she was aware of it she must have been getting better adjusting to her mindset.

Although that really meant she just hated the prospect of the media in her face if she was still willing to take someone's arm home with her even knowing that.

Even Guile had to take a touch of pity on the young girl, though he still sat with his arms folded over his chest like a hardass, "I know people say it's good to go with your instincts, but you've got to learn how to hold those little urges of yours back or you might kill someone. Someone that you weren't trying to kill."

"Be nice." Chun-Li chided, smacking Guile on the back of the neck and ignoring his warning growl.

"_And now it's time for the main event! This is why we're all here ladies and gentlemen; to determine the champion of the Second World Warrior Tournament! After two days of the best fighting you'll ever see anywhere we're finally down to two, and here comes participant number one now. Based around Hong Kong, he qualified out of the Eurasian region to earn his place here today! Posting three straight victories over Dee Jay, Dhalsim, and U.S. Champion Ken Masters to reach the final round, welcome Sasuke Uchiha!"_

Sasuke calmly walked back into the courtyard that he had last been in just around an hour ago, with fresh new clothes to replace what had been destroyed in his last fight against Ken. He didn't react to the announcement of his own name in any way whatsoever, much like every other time he'd been center stage during the tournament.

He just wanted the dobe out there so he could handle his business and get back to what he did best; Sasuke stuff.

Things like going back to Hong Kong for a spell and dealing with Yang and Yun marking out over how he won the whole thing, gauging his chances of killing that miserable old sack of shit Gen, and then he'd go back to Tokyo and continue running the restaurant there and taking assassination missions that would be way more lucrative with a world title to his name.

A nigh blinding shock of yellow at the crest of the hill led to the crowd buzzing as Naruto descended the hill with the hood to his outfit over his head and his headband undone to allow his yellow bangs to hang over his eyes. It got a raised eyebrow from Sasuke, but he quickly understood why he was doing it and it brought a smirk to his face quite early.

Someone had clearly learned something from the last round of fights. That was just fine with Sasuke. It was only natural. After all they'd had two days to watch each other do battle with a unique variety of opponents and there was no doubt that there had been nothing that could have torn their eyes away from the fights of the other short of a natural disaster.

"_Introducing next, competitor number two, qualifying out of the Pacific region, and coming to us from Aohura City, Japan. En route to the finals he overcame challenges from Fei Long, Chun-Li, and the legendary Sagat to stand before us now! This is Naruto Uzumaki!"_

Unlike normal competition matches that he had been a part of, Naruto didn't acknowledge the announcement, didn't raise a hand up or anything of the sort. He just stood punching into his palm with one of his gloved fists, eyes shaded by his hood and hair, "One more time?"

"One more time." Sasuke echoed in agreement, setting himself in an extremely disciplined stance, ready for the battle.

Naruto cracked his neck to the side before putting up his own dukes in a decidedly less sleek-looking posture, preparing himself for war so to speak, "Yo, you want to ring the bell Apollo?" Naruto disarmingly jested in a bad slurring accent.

In response, Sasuke just vanished in a Shunshin before reappearing on Naruto's right side, his hand poised for a deadly knife-hand strike, "Ding. Ding." Sasuke deadpanned as he lunged forward only to get his hand stopped by Naruto's forearm smashing against his own, "Hm."

"You're gonna be saying that a lot before I'm through with you today teme." Naruto said before he and Sasuke simultaneously pushed the other's arm down and began exchanging hand-based maneuvers.

Naruto's movements consisted of simple blocking and responding with various makes and types of punches that he had learned over the years, while Sasuke utilized more elaborate flowing hand moves to try and slip one through Naruto's guard to hurt him while parrying Naruto's own moves with pinpoint taps to sharp areas that diverted the direction of his attacks. Sasuke couldn't quite hit Naruto with his precise strikes that required clean hits to be effective, and Naruto's punches kept outright missing inside or outside because of Sasuke's technical defense.

Both Naruto and Sasuke shoved each other back with failed haymakers and banged shins with twin high kicks. The moment the offending legs from each fighter landed, Naruto leaned forward and caught Sasuke on the forehead with a lightning quick metal-plated headbutt to the forehead.

Really, he should have seen that outcome coming. He did remember who he was fighting didn't he?

If Sasuke could track his hands and feet so that he couldn't land anything with them, why not use his head?

A low growl rumbled from Sasuke's throat at getting caught by such a stupid brawling excuse of a technique before they sprang off in opposite directions, hurling shuriken at each other and missing.

Sasuke landed on his back foot and used it to jump back in Naruto's direction before breaking into a forward roll, moving until he was right at Naruto's feet where he bounced into a rising kick that Naruto had to lean back out of the way of to avoid. Shifting his body in midair, Sasuke swung his body into a twist to try a spin kick. It once again failed when Naruto blocked it and pushed him away.

Streaking forward, Naruto formed a Rasengan in one hand and thrust his arm forward with the nasty blue ball of condensed chakra for Sasuke to duck underneath it, 'Nice try.' Sasuke thought to himself, but he still saw a glow even though the Rasengan passed over his head, 'No…'

In Naruto's second hand he had formed another Rasengan and prepared to slam it downward to crush Sasuke into the ground, but Sasuke showed his speed advantage and made himself a ghost just as Naruto pulverized the rock beneath them, "Rasenrengan (Spiraling Serial Spheres)!"

Sasuke's red Sharingan eyes were wide in disbelief as he gave his own face a few pats to make sure that he was still in one piece, 'He can use that jutsu with more than one hand at a time?' Slowly a chuckle worked its way forward, "I like that. Now I've got one for you." Sasuke then quickly formed a Chidori in his right hand and moved his other hand toward it as if he were going to split it.

Naruto grit his teeth at the thought of risking a double duel of Rasengan vs. Chidori and rushed forward with both Rasengans in hand only to realize that he'd made a mistake when Sasuke dropped the second hand.

He figured that since he could make a Rasengan in both hands Sasuke could do the same with Chidori, under the old assumption that anything technical he could execute Sasuke could do better.

Wrong. There was no double Chidori coming. It was a feint to soften him up for the true move.

"Chidori Eiso (One Thousand Birds Sharp Spear)!"

Naruto had to lean his body just out of the way as the Chidori in Sasuke's hand expanded out at his chest, barely letting the jutsu miss past him. Naruto slowly craned his head back in Sasuke's direction to see his dark-haired former teammate smirking at him.

"You can dance can't you?"

"That's the gayest question you've ever asked me. Ever."

"…Die."

Simple flicks of Sasuke's wrist had the Chidori Eiso keeping Naruto in a dangerous situation. The speed at which he was moving his hand around had the extended Chidori blade rapidly trying to carve Naruto up, forcing him to do everything he could in order to avoid it. Several Kage Bunshin creations mixed with Kawarimi saved him from being sliced into at least two pieces until Sasuke somehow managed to hold Naruto up at blade point.

"Any last words dobe?" Sasuke threatened, figuring that Naruto wouldn't surrender and he'd have to basically impale him to win. He could live through getting his throat pierced couldn't he? They were about to find out.

Instead of feeling threatened, Naruto just held his hands up disarmingly with a wry smile on his face, "You do know that I haven't really been here this entire time we've been fighting, right?"

What the hell was he talking about, he wasn't there? He was standing right there in front of him. Unless…

No wonder he'd been fighting so conservatively. Outside of the Rasengan attempts it had been a markedly more reserved pace that Naruto had been fighting. Very uncharacteristic of him.

"No…" Sasuke said, his eyes temporarily snapping back to their normal onyx color out of disbelief, "You didn't. You son of a bitch, you're a-?" And as 'Naruto' nodded, he knew exactly what he was referring to now, "Where's the real you so I can butcher you?" He seethed in suppressed anger.

"Bathroom in the living quarters. Good luck with that by the way." The Naruto clone chuckled, not caring that it was one step away from getting a very violent conclusion to its short existence courtesy of a livid Uchiha Clan member.

He had been made to look like a fool, on live TV, with a worldwide audience watching him take on one solitary Naruto clone that would have been destroyed with one hit had he just realized that it wasn't real and he wouldn't have had to pick his spots the way he would have had to with the highly durable real Naruto. And he'd stooped low enough to show part of his repertoire to it over the course of a few minutes.

And somewhere inside of Sasuke, something snapped. Sharingan turning back on and spinning full blast he shouted out loud as the black marks of his Cursed Seal involuntarily spread across his body. He shouted loud enough for no one to mistake what he had said, "I WILL FUCKING MURDER YOU!" Hopefully the worldwide censors managed to get that.

"Heh, good luck with that too."

With that, the clone met quite the brutal end as Sasuke didn't waste any time immediately bolting for the stairs, much to the shock and confusion of the audience and the announcer, _"Err… where is Sasuke going? And where did Naruto go? What the hell's going on around here?"_ A minute or two later his answer came in the form of an explosion slightly in the distance in the direction of the main temple buildings, _"Get some goddamn cameras over there! We're not missing the best part of the final round!"_

In the crowd though, Naruto's friends were just as confused as anyone else in the arena. Guile was the first person brave enough to actually speak up about it, "What the hell just happened?"

It took a moment, but Ryu, who had joined them after he had returned with Naruto to the courtyard, eventually deduced just what had happened after backtracking in his mind and fought the urge to hit something inanimate, "…I think I know."

XxX

(Aohura City – Downtown – Arcade District)

The one that was the least familiar with Naruto and his techniques voiced her thoughts first once the courtyard wound up vacant and the cameras on the ground started rapidly running off somewhere else at the shout of the announcer, "What's happening?" Hinata asked, rubbing the back of her neck-length hair while tugging on Batsu's sleeve, "Where'd they both go?"

Ibuki had to focus to keep from giggling uncontrollably. Someone was really starting to fight with his head, "Oh, I like that. That Sasuke guy's going to try to kill him even more now, but that's just great. Ow!" She held her shin as Akira had given it a bit of a kick for getting a laugh or two out of the situation, seemingly at Sasuke's expense.

"Using his copies to bend the rules." Karin said to herself before a small and thoughtful smile formed on her face. She knew the advantages that the jutsu presented outside of creating a numbers advantage, "What a novel way to draw out a bit of experience in fighting his opponent without risking doing it himself."

Sakura had bit of concern in her eyes as the cameras quickly travelled toward the smoke rising from the main portion of the temple, "Why can they fight outside of the courtyard? That doesn't make any sense. No other fight went outside of it." Shouldn't the fight have been over? A disqualification or a count out or something?

She couldn't materialize why she wanted the match to end. It was guaranteed to be a great fight, so why couldn't she just enjoy it?

"Actually, yeah they did." Batsu interjected, "Naruto and Sagat started fighting at the stairs, in the crowd, and wound up at the top way outside of the arena before Sagat blew up that little building up there, and nobody even tried to get them back in the courtyard or threatened to stop the fight."

That was true. There could have been people in the building that Sagat blew up, and he could have killed them. Consequently, when Naruto jumped into the audience he could have hurt many people as well, especially if their fight had continued amongst them. And earlier in the tournament Balrog destroyed an entire section of wall with one punch that could have brought down an entire stand's worth of spectators.

"There's no referees in this thing, and no security aside from the martial arts monks that I really doubt could stop anyone in the tournament." Batsu continued to say once he saw that everyone had caught on to his point, "Who's going to stop them from doing whatever they want, and going wherever they want? I'm honestly surprised this didn't happen sooner."

Then again, to their knowledge no one else tried directly cheating like that before either. Everyone else was a direct kind of fighter, relying on direct martial arts more often than not to defeat their opponents in head-on conflicts.

But man, the smoke was pouring out of the true inner temple grounds. And that was why the actual fighting of the tournament had thought to be restricted to the front courtyard of the grounds, so that the entire place didn't get obliterated.

XxX

(A Few Minutes Earlier – Naruto vs. Sasuke – Outside of Bangkok, Thailand – Martial Arts Temple)

Sasuke could hear the blood pounding in his ear with every heartbeat he was so angry. The Cursed Seal had not receded back to its spawning point on his neck either. He was going to crush Naruto. He was going to make it quick, and he was going to make it oh so humiliating when he brought it to an end.

His footsteps smacked off of the stone floors of the temple interior, as he resisted the urge to shout out Naruto's name in rage to draw him out. No one else in the world was so insufferable that they could cause such a stirring of negative emotion.

Yang and Yun were annoying, but not enough that he'd ever contemplated beating their brains out with a blunt rock. Chun-Li was tenacious in her attempts to keep tabs on and limit his assassin movements in Hong Kong, but that was her job and even respect for Gen couldn't stop something like that. Even Gen himself couldn't evoke pure fury from Sasuke the way Naruto could.

They were former comrades yes, but they simply could not get along with each other on a consistent basis and it had always been that way. When it was needed they could get along. When it wasn't needed their relationship could range from simple off-key one-upsmanship to outright being at each others' throats.

Like now.

Sasuke stopped at the common bathroom for the entire sect and didn't bother making a plan before entering. He didn't really enter traditionally at all if his creation of hand-seals before he even stopped by the door was anything to go by. If Naruto was in there he was going to burn for it, "Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu)!"

Simultaneously kicking the door open as he launched a massive amount of fire from his puffed out cheeks, the sheer force of the jutsu was enhanced by the Cursed Seal pumping up the intensity of his chakra.

The resulting spray of fire from Sasuke covered the entire vast bathroom wall-to-wall, from the front door past the sinks, past the toilets, and touching the back wall in the showers before an explosion occurred within, actually rocking Sasuke out of his fireball-shooting posture.

Nothing in there survived. Not a chance. Any trap that Naruto would have set for him upon entering had to have been decimated, and hopefully Naruto as well if the idiot had been waiting inside. There were no rules, and Sasuke hadn't pulled his punches against any of his other opponents thus far. If he wasn't strong enough to live he'd die, simple as that.

Sasuke stood staring into the vile inferno that engulfed what was now an open-air bathroom with a touch of regret. Not because he had destroyed a significant part of the temple in his pursuit of victory/vengeance, as large as it was and as much work probably went into it in a place that didn't even have electricity it was just a room, but more because he had allowed himself to lose his temper.

Anyway, with the money the monks were making off of sponsoring the tournament they could build a bathroom in each of the monk's rooms separately.

Smoke billowing behind him, Sasuke walked away from the bathroom entrance, perusing the halls once more in search of his opponent, 'Come on dobe, you can't hide from me.' The sound of the flames masked the sound of a metal wire snapping, but Sasuke's eyes were able to see the trap coming in slow motion.

Several kunai-launching mechanisms sent an outrageous barrage of kunai at Sasuke, but he was able to evade volley after volley. There was no way he was carrying that much weaponry on him. He had a holster on his thigh and a pouch on the back of his hip. Unless he was packing several different scrolls on his person, and had them set up in advance as 'trap setup scrolls', he'd never have had that much.

And with great haste, Sasuke stormed toward Naruto's room. He didn't know where it was, but he definitely knew where it wasn't, and there were only so many rooms available for visitors to the temple.

A shock of yellow prompted him to stop on a dime in a doorway where he saw Naruto standing just inside, holding more wires to activate traps. Clone or not he was about to get it. The look of complete shock on Naruto's face gave Sasuke great satisfaction, though whether it was because Sasuke had been moving even faster than he had been outside or because he was doing that _and_ he was utilizing the Cursed Seal was a mystery.

Either way, Sasuke immediately shoved the soles of his shoe right into Naruto's belly, kicking him harder than he had ever kicked any other living thing in his entire life. Naruto's body flew out of the window opening and landed outside, rolling on the rough ground in a heap before coming to a stop facedown, his hood knocked off of his head, "Ow… goddamn it. I hate you so much."

Yeah, that was the real one for sure.

And Kami, that felt way better than it should have!

The cameras arrived just in time to catch Naruto flying out of the window as if he'd been launched from a slingshot. Many people from the stands surrounding the courtyard had also followed the production crews and kept themselves at what they thought was a safe distance to see the action up close and personal instead of over a screen. Sitting on top of and hiding behind large stone walls, hanging through stone wall openings to catch sight of everything.

"_It looks like we've caught up with our fighters, and Naruto Uzumaki is down and dripping blood on the ground from his mouth! Internal injuries anyone?"_

"Shut. Up." Naruto grounded out before spitting a glob of blood onto the hard ground. His body was still out of sorts from the fights he had yesterday, the fight against Sagat an hour earlier, and the joyride his darkside had taken in it the previous night. He could swear that he could hear a voice in the back of his mind that he hadn't heard in quite some time.

"**And I thought you were getting your ass kicked last round. You **_**can**_** start calling on me whenever you want you know. I am awake now."**

It could have just been a reaction to getting hit with the battering ram that was Cursed Seal Sasuke's foot, but he didn't have time to dwell on it. Sasuke was coming for blood, and hallucinations due to a swimming head had nothing to do with helping him out.

This was so rich from Sasuke's perspective that it had to be fattening. Holding onto the doorframe of the room still inside of the temple he planned to vault out of the window and land in a nasty stomp or a knee smash right on Naruto's back, looking cool for the cameras as was his prerogative. Although that didn't necessarily work out either when he slipped on the floor and crashed into the bed hard enough to overturn it.

"Gah! What the fuck! Why is there a shine on the floor?"

Outside as he was given time to pick himself back up due to Sasuke's accident, Naruto chuckled painfully while holding his ribs, "Ahahaha… ow." If this hadn't been a damn deathmatch he would have gotten a few more laughs off of that one. Naruto let go of himself and started making hand-seals, "Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire)!"

From Naruto's mouth flew one volatile ball of blue chakra right at the sight of Sasuke that he saw getting up through the window, causing a blast on the inside of what used to be his room. Sasuke managed to jump through the window just before Naruto's jutsu flew inside, with the explosion catching the back end of his clothes.

Feeling the burn from latent flames, Sasuke hurriedly put them out with a few pats but wound up taking a series of rapid punches to the stomach before taking a heavy blow right to the face that knocked him back against the temple wall with a thump, splitting his lip but still eliciting a smirk from him, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"

This was all Sharingan illusion, as Naruto had indeed looked into Sasuke's eyes as he launched the attack even though it had landed. In reality, Sasuke was saying this, but was doing so while holding back the cough that he wanted to let out due to the body shots, but it did its job in making Naruto second-guess how hard he hit him.

'What the hell? I know I drilled him with that last punch!' Before Naruto could begin attacking anew, Sasuke dodged whatever he might have tried going for and somehow wound up right above Naruto, dropping with an axe kick that busted the stone ground when Naruto managed to avoid it, 'Crap!'

Still stuck in Sasuke's Sharingan genjutsu and its subtle bewitching, he might have moved, but he moved in the direction that Sasuke suggested him to move in, thus Sasuke was upon him without even having to really track his movements.

Nonplussed by Naruto's speedy avoidance, Sasuke lunged right at him and battered him with several rapid-fire punches to the face before planting his foot off of the exact same surface, kicking Naruto harshly to the ground, "What's wrong? Lost your mojo?"

"Shut up." Naruto said, scrambling back on his hands to keep from staying down on the ground. He stood up and looked ready to fight again even with multiple new cuts opened on his face, "You're still using that stupid seal, even after I told you what it'll do to your body and mind all of those years ago?"

"I'm still standing." Sasuke said in mocking defense of his actions, "And what about you, with that red chakra that turns you into a crazed monster? I saw you fight Akuma with it back in Tokyo just before we both nearly died. If that's what happens to you, I don't want to hear you say a damn thing about what the Cursed Seal can do to me."

"It's the Kyuubi's chakra inside of me!" Naruto snapped, finally having shrugged off the temporary genjutsu haze he'd been caught in with the help of a little blunt skull trauma courtesy of Sasuke to knock it out of his skull, "That's what the red chakra is! It's not some curse some sick old snake man slapped on me in the woods!"

"I don't care." Sasuke just seemed to shake it off as if it weren't important. Or maybe that was just the heat of the moment? "It's not like whatever's got… the Kyuubi you say? Well whatever's got it stuck inside of you, it's just some curse some other idiot prick slapped on you to make you some kind of beast or a monster. So whether it worked or not, what's the difference?"

Either way, hearing that 'monster' comment struck a chord with someone within earshot of the remark as Sasuke again moved faster than he believed Naruto could keep up with. A sudden rush abruptly filled Naruto's body, initially shocking him, but the sudden revitalization of chakra and stamina allowed him to bat Sasuke away before he could truly attack him

The right side of Sasuke's face suffered a nasty mark from the strike that Naruto lashed out with instinctively. That hadn't been a punch, and it hadn't been a kick. Matting blood against his hand he looked over at Naruto and saw what had been the cause of the surprise retaliation, "Hm. Really, the Kyuubi huh?" Interesting. He always knew that it was something strange, "About time you kicked it in. Bring it on."

It took a second for Naruto to realize just what had happened, as he hadn't felt the chakra in over six months. He hadn't trained with it, nor fought with it, but the red highlight that he now saw the world with he quickly picked up on just what was going on, especially when he felt something of a fifth appendage at his back that wasn't physically attached to him.

In order to test this out, Naruto used his memory of how to utilize it and sent a red chakra tail shooting off at Sasuke with the intent to pummel him into mash.

"I hate that thing!" Sasuke shouted, jumping over the faux-tail that had been hurled his way before flashing through hand-seals, "Katon: Housenka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Phoenix Flower Jutsu)!" Sasuke launched a volley of smaller fireballs from his mouth at Naruto only to scoff when Naruto blurred out of existence in dodging them.

Posting himself on his hands in an evasive handstand, he avoided Naruto going for a rabbit punch from hell that would have probably done more than finished the fight. From his handstand though, he mule-kicked Naruto right in the stomach. Damn, he was no-sight aiming for the head.

Still though, it knocked Naruto back until his chakra tail dragged a trail through the ground to stop him before launching him right back at Sasuke as if he were shot out of a catapult, and in one hand he had a Rasengan formed with a red shell around its exterior, "Shui Rasengan (Vermillion Rasengan)!"

'No, no, no, no, no, no, no!' Sasuke thought to himself as Naruto hurtled his way, Rasengan leading like the warhead of a missile. Thus he stepped it up solely for the purpose of outright avoiding the Rasengan. There was too much horizontal space that the jutsu plus Naruto's chakra cloak covered for him to dodge it traditionally.

The black marks quickly spread across his body to gray his skin as his hair lengthened and grayed as well. A black star mark formed on the middle of his face and webbed hand-like wings sprouted from his back, punching through his shirt that lifted him off of the ground in one mighty flap to take him out of Naruto's trajectory.

Therefore the earthbound Naruto missed, and he along with his highly destructive jutsu found itself sent into the side of a temple wall.

With a mighty rumbling explosion of dust and stone debris, Naruto's Rasengan obliterated the entire western wall of the main temple building where the monks spent most of their time during the day. Where they ate, trained, and meditated indoors en masse.

A lot of the tournament hosting money was going to have to go to rebuilding that wall.

From his view above the battlefield, Sasuke looked down at the place that Naruto had just annihilated upon his missed attack. He could see the smoke and fire from where he had set an entire community bathroom ablaze, and the trail of destruction they had wrought since leaving that place.

No time to dwell on that. His life was far more important than some stupid temple full of fighting monks.

From the interior of the temple, Sasuke could see multiple Narutos rising from the debris like the undead and he decided that they had not been too destructive. As far as he was concerned, if one of them was getting back up they weren't being destructive enough, "I forgot how annoyingly tough you were." Sasuke said to himself as he formed a black Chidori in his hand, "Habataku Chidori Senbon (Flapping One Thousand Birds Senbon)!"

From his hand, the sound of wings flapping sped up and eventually sounded like the buzzing of a Vulcan firing. From the original dark Chidori in his hand, Sasuke held his arm out and fired off long, thin black electric needles with the volume of rain falling from the sky, pulverizing everything that they hit.

Sasuke didn't risk just aiming at the clones that popped into smoke once they were destroyed by his widespread attack. He chose to take away any possibility of Naruto hiding more in waiting, and he shot at the ceiling of the already devastated temple building, causing it to cave in.

His eyes were cold and showed no regret, no remorse for what he was destroying. Why should he have? There was only one person in there at risk of being harmed.

And there were no rules.

XxX

(Aohura City – Downtown – Arcade District)

For the first time since the battle began everyone standing in the plaza watching on the massive screen above found themselves stunned into quiet. Seeing Naruto's red chakra and Sasuke's transformation got them buzzing, but watching the sudden violent turn of the battle, and the degree of their conflict escalating before their eyes, no one had anything to say.

There wasn't anything to cheer about. Most of them had never seen anything so destructive come from two people that were more like living weapons than human beings. A formerly strong and noble-looking temple of the combat arts was being reduced to rubble in the wake of their battle, and a lot of it was coming from the man in the sky.

The brave cameramen kept things rolling, getting shots all over the area of Naruto's clones fleeing and trying to get some kind of attack off on Sasuke whom they couldn't reach with anything in their repertoire fast enough to keep him from gunning them down. From where he was he had a bird's eye view, and with the Sharingan he didn't miss a single movement.

The camera microphones picked up the people freaking out and panicking at the wanton destruction as they started fleeing, running past and in front of the cameramen as fast as they could to get away from the frightening scene. What the hell had happened?

"_This is absolutely staggering! Who can stand up to anything of this magnitude? All of Naruto Uzumaki's copies are being systematically decimated by… whatever the technique Sasuke Uchiha is using against them! Everything has spiraled out of complete control!"_

As the announcer kept shouting for the benefit of the play-by-play for the people at home and the cameras picked up Sasuke turning all over while firing his seemingly never-ending jutsu, the feed abruptly cut out and the screen projected nothing but black, dead silence, and a technical difficulties sign.

Ibuki waved her own hand in front of her face before keeping her eyes peeled on the screen, as if she were trying to soak in everything she'd just seen, "Okay. There's no kill quite like overkill I guess." She tried to joke about the situation only for it to fall flat. She was really starting to see just how they had leveled an entire arena in Tokyo if that was the kind of firepower that Sasuke alone was packing.

"What the hell was that attack supposed to be intended for?" Batsu asked, a bit disbelieving at the last move Sasuke had used, "I don't think I could stand up to that and take a hit from it, even if I used the Burning Vigor technique." Those black energy needles were an army-killer of a maneuver.

"I don't care…" Sakura said under her breath, quiet enough that no one could hear her speak, "I just want it to stop before..." She had a very unsettling feeling in her chest, and it had only gotten worse watching Naruto and Sasuke fight, 'That was the way they looked back during the first time when they fought.'

The crowd started murmuring and outright jeering at the loss of the live feed. As scary as all of that was to see happening, it was still awesome, and as far as they knew one hell of a fight was still going on far, far away. And their only portal to seeing it had been cut off. No one could pick it up on their phones either. Every method of obtaining the tournament was completely out.

Whatever had happened screwed up every bit of outward broadcasting.

"Do they really hate each other that badly?" Karin had to speculate. It had been a physical encounter from outset, and it had only escalated from there. She had never seen such an aggressive conflict before, "I don't know what to make of what we just saw. I do not believe I've ever personally seen him in so ferocious a battle."

By now Sakura had pulled her cell phone out and had dialed a number in her contacts rapidly. Long-distance call or not, it didn't matter, "Pick up, pick up, pick up…" She muttered frantically.

"_Sakura this is really not a good time!" _Chun-Li's voice stated over the receiver on the other end with loud rumbling in the background, _"Why are those two so pissed off at each other? God, these two aren't as strong as Sagat or Bison, so why are they doing so much damage to _everything_?"_

"What the hell's happening?" Sakura snapped, finally having had enough of not knowing what was going on. And Sakura never openly cursed, cueing stunned looks from all of her friends around her.

XxX

(Outside of Bangkok, Thailand – Martial Arts Temple)

In no other situation would he have tolerated the thought of anyone moving past him and ignoring his presence. In any other place or setting, had so many of the worthless peons populating the stands of his tournament ran past him without recognizing his presence he would have slain a handful of them just because. Just for being so weak.

The fools. The cowards. They couldn't even be bothered to risk their necks in the slightest to stick around and watch such a brilliant display of destruction from his two finalists. He had put together such a wonderful exhibition of strength, and they weren't even recognizing how incredible it was.

Even the announcer he'd hired was heading for the hills. Even the monks! It didn't seem as if anyone wanted to risk their necks, even if they would have seen something amazing. The philistines.

But he knew just what he was seeing, "…This is delicious." Bison said to himself as he walked through the throng of fleeing people, going in the exact opposite direction that they were all running from, "I can't wait."

It was just about time for him to drop in and make his presence known. Killing both of the finalists in one fell swoop would certainly send the message that he intended to. What a banner day this was turning out to be.

"First Sagat-." Bison said, pausing to teleport himself up onto a still intact rooftop to get a better look at Sasuke wreaking havoc over the temple grounds from above with his attack, "-And now these two. All of this before sundown. I must be on some sort of roll."

He began channeling his Psycho Power around his entire form, far past any battle-ready technique he would use on a whim in a battle. This was going to be a massacre. It was going to be quick, and with Sasuke seemingly unaware and making such a lovely target for him he would be the first to die. Killed in one shot, his technique overpowered by Bison's incomparable strength.

Just lovely.

His entire body began to glow blue as the ceiling of the building he was standing on collapsed in on itself with nothing more than the initial release of his power, "Final…" He started to say, hovering in the air and bending his knees as he charged up everything he had for one attack and prepared for takeoff, "Psycho… Cr-!"

All the while he never noticed a shadow that had been watching him and the entire tournament from its outset. And this person was not about to allow Bison to interrupt a battle between two fighters with such potential to grow, not to feed his own insatiable ego. Not when he wanted to kill the brightest of the two of them in fair combat himself, something that Bison's craven actions would never allow.

Which meant quite simply that Bison had to be removed from the equation altogether.

"Shin Shun Goku Satsu (True Instant Hell Murder)!"

Bison never saw it coming. And his screams of pain from the blindside attack went unheard over the chaos of the pressing battle that had everyone's attention stolen. It was over in an instant, and no one would ever know.

"With the unabashed evil in your soul you never had a chance against even the Shun Goku Satsu…" Akuma said as he stood on the empty, soulless husk of melting flesh that used to be Bison's body with one sandaled foot, "…But trash such as yourself deserves nothing less than the absolute worst. You are weak for not relying solely on your fists, and now suffer and burn for the past sins you have committed."

Bison used machines and science to enhance his own already incredible powers and sustain it. He feared death and cheated it with his technology and contingency plan after contingency plan. Such a pitiful mindset. The true fighter did not fear death. They stared it in the face and lashed out at it!

As far as he was concerned, Bison was a slave to his own evil powers. Not worth being referred to as the strongest, no matter how formidable he was in battle. Human garbage, if he thought himself important enough to warrant the right to interrupt a pure display of martial spirit the likes of which his eyes were currently affixed to.

This tournament was not the waste of time he originally figured it would have been. It had played host to many unique fighters, though lesser they were, but he saw several diamonds in the rough that with the right coaxing could one day give him the true battle to the death that he wished for.

Ryu's Satsui no Hadou had shown itself to take great strides… all he needed to do was embrace the will to win at any and all costs, and he would be the perfect challenge.

And then there were two other quite interesting eggs, one of whom he could have sworn he'd killed months ago for resorting to insolent barbarism when he let his furious power take control of his senses. He survived the Shun Goku Satsu. How intriguing.

Akuma quickly faded away back into the shadows just as quickly as he had emerged from them. He needed to find a better place to see them fight. This was to be fascinating.

XxX

"I don't want to be 'that guy' or anything, but should we stop this?" E. Honda asked from where he was taking cover a safe distance away along with everyone else, even Ken as he had been rudely interrupted from his healing session by the systematic obliteration of the temple, "This is awesome and everything, but these two are fighting like they've got some kind of a-."

"-Blood feud?" Chun-Li offered as a label for whatever was up with Naruto and Sasuke. She was still on the phone with Sakura and the other kids in Japan calling her due to the dead feed, "They destroyed the power supply that ran all of the equipment, and half of the buildings in this place. What did they do to each other to start this?"

Ryu had a feeling that if he had gotten to fight Sagat it probably would have ended up like this as well, but even so, it was an impressive sight. He so very much wished that he had managed to advance so that he could have a real battle against one of them, especially after seeing what he was seeing now.

'It would have been a grand challenge.' He thought to himself before another portion of building collapsed, exposing several Naruto clones that tried to attack Sasuke in vain, 'I have to have a match with one of them.'

"_Who's winning?"_ A voice over the phone in Chun-Li's hand droned irritably in Batsu's voice due to it being on speaker, _"All we can hear is popping and crackling and you guys yelling."_

"Should we stop this?" Cammy asked aloud, hiding behind a wall near Guile, "Do something?"

"_Yes!"_ Sakura's voice sounded out over the phone, _"It sounds like a warzone over there!"_

Guile scoffed and pulled himself to stand on top of the fragmented wall to get a better view. Now this was something he could get into. What a fight, "Girl, get real. This is man business. If any of us tried to stop this, one of them or both of them would probably turn on all of us and then get back to tearing each other apart."

Looking up at Guile, standing fearlessly atop the wall looking like a war hero, Cammy climbed up part way to tug on his pant leg for attention, "Do you really think they hate each other that much?" Upon utterance of her question, Ken, Guile, E. Honda, and even Ryu smirked and all but Ryu let out a scoff of sorts.

"This isn't about hate." Ken said, limping gingerly while holding his thickly bandaged body protectively, "You girls aren't getting it. Look at that!" He gestured out to Naruto's clones taking cover and trying to retaliate as best they could as if they were pinned down soldiers on a beach, "They're not doing this to each other because they want each other dead."

That might have wound up being the ending, but that wasn't the goal.

"Well that's what it looks like." Chun-Li contested, "So tell me oh enlightened one..." She snapped sarcastically, "…Why is this happening then? What's the point of going this far?"

Ken opened his mouth to answer but something about her tone didn't rub him the right way, thus he chose to outright shut her down by not saying anything, "You know what? No. Watch. If you don't know what I'm talking about without me telling you, saying anything about it won't help… freaking chicks."

XxX

(Naruto vs. Sasuke)

Sasuke kept on firing Chidori Senbon, as more clones kept taking their chance on coming out of their few remaining pitiful hiding places to try their hand at attacking him. Where was the real one? This was getting old.

Before he could keep attacking, all of the remaining Kage Bunshin all dispelled of their own volition, confusing Sasuke until he heard a sharp whistle and turned around toward the ground to see a bloody, grime-covered two-tailed Naruto standing in a place that had formerly had spectators until they had all headed for the hills, "So stupid."

"Isseishageki Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire Volley)!"

Sasuke prepared to fly evasively when he saw Naruto begin to shoot two dozen blue chakra projectiles with red tinting from his mouth, but stopped himself when they all halted in the air before they could ever reach the range to do any kind of damage to him.

"What's the matter?" Sasuke taunted from above, "Does your little long-range jutsu have a limit to how far they can go?" As a show of superiority he charged a Chidori up in his right hand once more, preparing to rain down hell onto the original Naruto this time, "Mine doesn't."

Instead of moving or panicking at his failed attack the way one would have expected him to, Naruto just rolled his red eyes and pointed up, indicating to Sasuke that he should look up.

Curiously, Sasuke did just that and could have sworn that he'd seen the shadow of hell hovering above him.

Hanging in the air above his head, there were oh so many more spitfire orbs holding just as still as the ones that Naruto had fired right in front of his eyes. He was surrounded.

When did he find the time to-? Of course. When Sasuke was committing Kage Bunshin genocide.

When Sasuke was taking them all out he wasn't looking up, he was looking down. Why would he have looked above him at all? Naruto had to have used his clones' valiant efforts in battle and subsequent destruction as cover to carefully slip into Sasuke's blindspots, filling the air above him with those damned mini-bombs. Who would look up when one could fly and everything of importance was below them? No one would have seen this coming.

As he counted them, numbering them in the multiple dozens, Sasuke had to couple that together with the amount of clones he killed on the ground numbering even higher than the chakra balls in the sky and came to the conclusion that this was Naruto's checkmate. The sheer amount of chakra he had to burn through to do this had to drain even him.

Naruto stopped the last ones right in front of him on purpose to shut the door on the trap.

No way. That was impossible. Naruto's chakra control was complete shit. Always had been and always would be. There was no way he could do anything that elaborate!

Not a chance.

Not Naruto.

No way.

They were just midair mines, 'They have to be.' Sasuke told himself as he tried to deduce an escape route out, 'Naruto can't control all of these. It's impossible.'

"Karin's really smart." Naruto said out loud from his place on the ground as Sasuke remained in the sky, slowly panicking at what was around him. Even with two tails he was still coherent enough to speak normally, "Yeah, I started coming up with this after we busted up Shadaloo in Thailand and before you showed up in Japan. I was working on this, but no matter what the spitfires would just explode or vanish before they could be useful."

"What's the point, or are you just going to bore me to death instead of try to beat me?"

"The point IS…" Naruto got around to it, waving his chakra tails, "During one of my bodyguard jobs for her I told Karin stuff about how sometimes using enough of the Kyuubi's chakra can enhance some of my jutsu by layering my chakra with its chakra, and she asked why I didn't just try to do that with this. I said it was usually instinctual, and she said to train with it. So I went to my junkyard where I do my serious training and I did... until Akuma wiped the floor with us."

Sasuke just stared down at Naruto, life or death situation notwithstanding, "You are an IDIOT! If I die these are my last words: you're fucking retarded."

"Yeah, I'd agree with you this time actually…" Naruto said, chakra tails still swishing as he snapped off a series of hand-seals and held the last one, "…If using the Kyuubi's chakra and staying in control didn't take a ton of focus to begin with, and I didn't come up with this second part and how it's supposed to work all on my own." The spitfires began to move around in the air, much to Sasuke's complete horror, "Apparently the Kyuubi's chakra is really reactive to the source when it's outside of my body. The fight with Vega showed me that, and my mind is crystal clear right now. My focus is all on the jutsu, so guess what I can do with the tails?"

"I. Hate. You."

"I know. And I'm gonna pretend I care for about three more seconds. Shinkoshoku no Hanabi (Crimson Fireworks)!"

Sasuke shouted in anger at getting caught as the swirling chakra balls imploded toward him at the behest of the direction of Naruto's chakra tails and exploded in the air in a torrent of blasts that crackled off one after another.

Naruto's red eyes didn't turn away from the aerial bombardment at all, as he panted softly in a bit of fatigue at expending so much energy. He'd split his chakra between so many clones even before he'd began setting his trap, and then there'd been the chakra he poured into the trap itself. But as he looked at the attack itself he had to think of one thing.

'Worth it.'

Sure it had taken a lot of time, effort, chakra, and a ton of his own bodies, but he'd managed to avoid the only thing Sasuke had in his arsenal that could have decimated him without him having a fighting chance and subsequently turned the tables on him. It was actually easier to trap him because he flew. He would have never expected an attack he could never see coming from above him.

'I am never going to set that up as good as I just did ever again.' Naruto thought to himself. Talk about the perfect storm, 'I could never keep control long enough to make even half that many. Why can I control myself better now?'

"**Don't get used to it. I repay my debts. You more or less saved my ass last night, just like you said you would. One hassle-free power-up of this magnitude is the least I can do, and it's the most you're getting."**

'Kyuubi? You really are awake. And thanks. It's still starting to hurt a bit though.'

"**Of course. Do you have any idea how much of your own chakra you pumped into the last series of moves you made? You used most of yours, and it's getting replenished with my own. And it hurts like hell doesn't it?"**

'…Yes.'

"**Welcome to my world for the last six months. But we can banter later if I feel like it then. For now you've got a blasted Uchiha to finish off."**

Sasuke's body descended rapidly from the sky but did not culminate in a crash, despite his tumultuous fall that resulted in him landing on his feet diagonally in a slide. Blood from his various wounds dripped freely onto the ground, most notable of which being that one of his wings had been blown clean off and the other one seemed to be barely hanging on to his body.

What was left of the appendage that was a hallmark of his second-stage transformation twitched involuntarily. Whatever was left of the remaining wing's muscle control was lost after he had landed, and at this point it hurt him far more to have it attached than to just rip it off, which he did. Gross.

"You're still standing?" Naruto commented, still breathing somewhat heavily, "No, you're still in one piece?" Well, not in one piece, because both of his wings were gone.

"It could have been worse." Sasuke said, voice masking the obscene amount of physical agony he was in, "I could have not had the wings, and then I would have had to take all of that myself."

The moment all of the hanging spitfires closed in on him and started detonating one after the other he curled his body up inside of his wings and used them to absorb the brunt of the damage. Not without casualties of course, as his wings no longer existed. Of course if he'd never had the wings, none of that would have ever happened to begin with.

Even so, after everything that had happened, and everything that they had subjected each other to, despite how much pain both of them were feeling. Sasuke had a smile on his face.

As did Naruto.

Neither of them wanted anything more out of the fight than proving without a shadow of a doubt that they were superior to the other. There wasn't any grand reasoning or overbearing purpose behind their respective reasons to fight. And the threat of Bison possibly attacking him at any time couldn't have been farther from Naruto's mind.

It wasn't about good or evil, or protecting anyone, or even earning or losing anything as a result of a victory or defeat. It was bragging rights, and a sentiment of 'I'm better than you and everyone knows it' that they'd never had and probably never would have again.

They didn't want to kill each other, though if it happened it happened, and if one died they knew that the deceased would understand that while there was nothing personal… it was all personal. It was completely personal.

'He's got to be running on fumes. I know I am.' Naruto thought to himself, subtly flexing out his right hand, 'It's time to finish this once and for all. I've got to keep him from backing off and using another long-range ninjutsu. I don't think I can take another one.'

In the same vein, Sasuke was doing the same thing, and neither was looking away from the other, 'Kami I'm so tired… but no more ranged attacks. If I lose sight of him again I'm finished. I've got to put him down with one good move.'

'A good gust of wind'll knock him over… I just have to make sure this jutsu hits.'

'I'm faster. I've always been faster. And I can see everything. No matter what he tries, I'll strike first. I know I will.'

'The time it'll take to make a clone'll have him on me before I can start charging the big guns. I'll just blow him away in one shot with what I've got! '

'If he tries that double-handed crap like earlier I'll charge up a second one myself and punch it through his skull!

Neither was surprised when a Rasengan and a Chidori fired up in their respective right hands, nor when a second of each appeared in the left hand of both of them. Though both raised an eyebrow, neither of them said anything about it. They expected as much, but they were both still smiling.

"See you in hell Sasuke-teme."

"You bet dobe."

Sasuke launched himself at Naruto while his blond counterpart did the same. No more tricks or sleight of hand. No backing up any longer. In the minds of both it was either one of them or the other.

Why the hell was this so familiar?

With a booming ripping and tearing noise, they clashed Chidori with Rasengan in both hands, trying to strike at the core of the other and simultaneously engaging the opposite jutsu. But the moment they got in proximity to collide, the dual twin attacks formed a titanic dome of rejecting energy that centered around the two and carved out a deep bowl in the ground.

It wasn't bright and flashing. It was dull in a black color, but thick and opaque, almost as if it were solid.

And no one had any idea what was happening inside.

XxX

"…Should we stop the fight now?" E. Honda asked, not knowing just what he was seeing. One minute they were in the middle of an old-school standoff, and the next moment they were covered in that black dome, "Is that a technique that one of them came up with?"

Ryu was now over the novelty of a good fight. Yeah, he got over it right when a gigantic dome formed out of absolutely nowhere. And the energy signature was strange. He'd never felt anything like that before.

Wait… a dome with an odd energy signature out of nowhere that covered Naruto in the middle of a vulnerable moment.

Crap.

With no time to lose, Ryu sprinted out from where everyone had been safely taking cover to watch the fight, "This could be it! This could be part of Bison's plot! This isn't Naruto or Sasuke! I can't tell you what it is or what it's for!"

He didn't need to say another word before everyone else leapt into action from where they had been hiding and followed his lead, even the recently injured Ken.

"Shinkuu Hadoken (Vacuum Surge Fist)!"

"Sonic Hurricane!"

"Kikoshou (Spirit Energy Blast)!"

Everyone with a ki blast in their arsenal fired their best shots at the orb, even the wounded Ken with a far weaker Shinkuu Hadoken than Ryu's powerful blue beam variation, and did so at the closest range possible/neccesary, but it just seemed to absorb it and continued to expand, ripping away more ground with it, forcing them to all get their distance lest they meet a similar fate.

"It didn't do anything!" Cammy told them all, having seen it all happen a ways away along with E. Honda who had also refrained from physically attacking it, "Nothing worked! How are we going to get Naruto out?" What was that thing made of?

The orb didn't seem like anything from that world. And they couldn't break it open to get to their embattled comrade and his rival.

"**Messatsu Gou Hadou (Anniilator Great Surge)****!**"

A purple ki beam that completely dwarfed everything that everyone else had thrown at the orb combined rocketed out of the side of one of the remaining temple buildings and punched straight through the orb on both sides, forcing it to violently explode in fractured black disks of energy, white on the insides that dissipated into the air, leaving nothing behind.

Everyone had been knocked away by the orb bursting and directing all of its pure pressurized force outward. Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Cammy, Guile, and E. Honda all went flying with enough force to knock them unconscious, and all was still.

XxX

Akuma lowered his hands from the Hadoken posture, palms smoking from the sheer intensity of the ki he had just fired and stared at the massive scar in the ground that had been cut into it by the otherworldly orb.

He had no clue as to the origin of the blasted thing, but he knew one thing. He could not feel Naruto and Sasuke's energy within it, and that simply would not do. Whatever it was, one way or another it was going to take them away.

To where he had no idea, but he felt he could see inside for a split-second, and he knew what he saw. A setting entirely foreign from any place in the world he had seen in his travels. Another land entirely. And it meant to take them.

No, he would not be relinquished of his potential challenges. Even by an unseen force that he could not describe. He had no patience for anything that would snatch his sources of interest away from him.

"If even God apparently believes that he will stand in the way of my goal of battling and destroying the strongest warriors in existence…" Akuma muttered to himself as he disappeared from the scene altogether, "…He will find himself struck down by my hand as well."

XxX

The sudden cataclysmic shot of ki melted the borders of the crater that had been formed by the orb, and the ground was still sizzling in the open air.

Chun-Li's closed eyes stirred and twitched to the sounds of the wind crying and the sound of her phone ringing. Slowly she opened them and sat up on the ground to see her party of fellow fighters strewn all about in similar straits, 'What the hell just happened?' She thought to herself as she crawled over to her nearby phone and picked it up to answer it, "Hello?"

"_What happened? You just hung up all of a sudden."_

Chun-Li blinked in confusion and looked around before holding her head in pain, "Ah… I don't remember? Seriously, the last thing I remember is seeing Naruto and Sasuke run at each other and that's it."

"…_Is it over then?"_ Sakura sounded very concerned through the phone.

She couldn't hear anymore fighting, nor did she see anything other than a big-ass crater in the ground thirty yards away, "Uh… maybe. Normally big craters the size of a football field mean that something's over. At least the last one I remember seeing did."

"Ow…" E. Honda droned as he rolled over onto his rotund belly to push himself up, "I think I broke my arms again. What just kicked our asses? And why is there a big pit in the ground?"

"Dunno." Chun-Li said as she moved to the others and started rousing them from their forced 'sleep', "Where are the boys?"

"_Murphy says: if there's a huge crater, they're probably in the crater. Just sayin'."_ Thank you Batsu. Because that wasn't the first place anyone thought of looking. It was worst-case scenario, which was why nobody brought it up, _"OW! I don't need all of you hitting me!"_ All of the girls probably let him have it for stating the obvious as well.

Ryu helped Ken stand up and assisted him in walking over to the edge of the crater so the two of them could look down. Ken let out an impressed whistle, "Okay. I don't get how this happened. I remember they were about to slam two attacks into each other and then everything's blank, which doesn't make any sense."

"Agreed." Ryu tried to dredge up just what had happened, but his memory of what happened stopped right where Ken's did, "The Rasengan and Chidori were powerful, and they were using them in both hands, but I cannot see those two things causing something like this. Do you see them?"

"I do." Guile said, his voice echoing out as he chose to slide down into the deep crater to locate Naruto and Sasuke, "…Jesus." He muttered once his feet touched the bottom and he started digging through the rubble where he saw something orange, "There we go kid." He said as he grabbed Naruto's arm and pulled him free.

Covered from head-to-toe in his own blood, his own sweat, and the dirt from his surroundings, Naruto's entire suit was shredded to tatters, the top half above the belt torn down to hang down over the garment piece to expose his body to the elements. His hair was stained brown and dirty red. He was out cold and his red energy was gone, but he was still alive. From the looks of him he'd need time to recover like no one's business. Luckily he would get it.

And Guile figured he might as well fish Sasuke out as well. It wasn't hard to find him, as he was buried similar to Naruto only a matter of feet away. He had two rather brutal wounds on his back where his wings had been torn off and there was a possibility that they were going to scar, but his skin and hair colors were back to normal. He too, much like Naruto, found himself in the embrace of unconsciousness, though still amongst the living.

"Nobody's dead!" Guile shouted up from within the crater as he tried to figure how he was going to carry the both of them out at the same time.

"…"

It took him a minute or two to get them situated safely on his back, and in that span of time no one had responded to what he'd told them, either positively or not. It was easy to irritate Guile, and being ignored took near the top of the list in ways to piss him off.

"Hey!" Guile yelled as he climbed out of the hole with the two beaten and broken teenagers on his back, "Are you all deaf, or does that crater just have really shitty acoustics?" His barb fired, once he reached the top he realized what had everyone's attention.

On the ground lay Sagat with a massive hole punched through his chest. Standing crouched down next to him was Blanka who had been somewhere in the jungle around the temple since the fight with Naruto's dark side ended the night before.

Ryu just shook his head with a touch of regret in his eyes, "Blanka found him. Not too long ago. He just brought him here."

"Didn't know what to do." Blanka said quietly. No one else amongst them spoke Portuguese, so he had to use another language. He spoke better Japanese than the rough English he needed to use to communicate with everyone there though. He shook Sagat's shoulder all the while though he knew it was useless. The man was never going to wake up, "Tried to shock him back… but Sagat… heart gone. Can't restart what not there. Lots of organs gone. Scary man in uniform kill him. Sagat fight him to death. Sagat lost."

Cammy kneeled down and picked up Sagat's large motionless hand, holding no malice for the beating he had given her only twenty-four hours prior. The man was dead, and he died trying to take down the evil man that truly tried to hurt her and her loved ones.

They were square as far as she was concerned. Death evened up all scores between them.

"_You guys… tell me. Is Naruto alright?"_ They forgot that the phone conversation was still going the entire time. So they all knew that Sagat was dead. What a disaster of a day. Things just escalated higher and higher during the two days, _"Um… I'm sorry, but it's just that everything cut out so no one can see what happened, and the phone call cut out after some big boom, and now you're saying Sagat was killed. God, Sagat of all people is dead! Just tell me something! Anything!"_

Ryu walked over to Naruto and placed his hand on Naruto's neck and then Sasuke's to find pulses for the both of them. Steady, if not a bit weak, but that was to be expected, "He's fine Sakura." He told her, "Just fine. Despite no lack of trying, neither Naruto nor Sasuke killed the other. We'll get him to a hospital and they'll see to him."

They had to give Sagat's body over to a coroner as well. He deserved to be buried. He deserved to be treated as the man he was; as the hero of Thailand, that taught the people to fight for their honor. Because no matter how he lived in his later days that was how he died, whether anyone else would ever know of the dark parts or not, it didn't matter.

But there was still one question left to ask. One that no one had figured to bring up with all that surrounded them.

"_So hey."_ Batsu said, apparently hijacking Sakura's cell phone again to speak to them, _"We're not really the only ones that can hear this. There are hundreds of people all around us right now, totally eavesdropping, and we're not scaring them all away right now because it wouldn't be fair, 'cause all kind of want to know… just who won?"_

"Who won?" Chun-Li repeated with a raised eyebrow. She could almost see the ruffian youngster holding back Sakura with one hand for as long as he could until she finally got fed up and hit him before taking the phone back.

"_Yeah. Who won the final round? Who won the tournament? We didn't see it. It cut out and nobody could pick up a feed anywhere to tell us what was happening."_

All everyone on the field of battle had to do was look around for just a second to come up with an answer. The formerly beautiful grounds of a proud martial arts temple had been turned into modern ruins, with pieced apart buildings that used to stand strong and solemn, a devastated front courtyard with a destroyed entrance archway that used to be grand, a garden that had been transformed into a torn up grassy lot, and a section of jungle outside of it that would be marked as the land where Sagat made his final stand.

Two days had resulted in all of this.

At this point no one even cared about Bison anymore. Everyone that had a set place to return to just wanted to leave and return to where they belonged.

"Nobody won." Guile eventually said, handing off Naruto to E. Honda to carry and shifting Sasuke to distribute his weight on his own shoulders. It was time to get to the rental cars if they were still around and start back on the road to Bangkok, "Nobody won at all. Let's all go to the hospital and then go home. I've been acting like an ass for nine months and I've got a wife and daughter to apologize to."

* * *

><p><strong>Thanksgiving! Damn it, now I'll have awesome leftovers for weeks!<strong>

**Ahem. I feel I may have lost some people with that one.**

**For those of you that aren't American, Thanksgiving is basically to celebrate something that happened roughly 370 years when a bunch of English people came over here somewhere in Massachusetts and spent the next two years starving their asses off until they friggin learned how to farm and had a good harvest, deciding that hey since they had the food, why not party a bit?**

**That's the portion of it that they waste the whole week pimping on you in elementary school anyway. As a history buff I know quite a bit more, but taht'd just bore you.  
><strong>

**And when you're five years old in kindergarten, which is the age where the most stress I've ever seen is given about the damn holiday, school they'll tell you a bunch of stuff about Native Americans and settlers getting on like best buddies and helping, and they'll have you draw hand turkeys and make racist-ass construction paper Native American headbands and put on shitty plays that your parents have to sit through.**

**So that's the gist of it. Either way, for most people it's about eating, making sure other people get good stuff to eat, and football. Since I'm still addressing an international audience here I should specify that I'm talking about American Football. The football that only really has a foot interact with a ball about 5% of the time.**

**And since I'm 21 I can legally get drunk and do these things with my older relatives for once. (And it will only be once, because I do not like drinking that much. But it's still something you've got to do if only once.)**

**Anyway, the tournament is over. Everyone will be going home, and life will go on. Tragedies were averted, tragedies were had, gains were obtained, things were lost, a lot of things were blown up and outright destroyed over the course of two days, and people were killed.**

**What could possibly be next?**


	39. Hiding in Plain Sight

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. You have until December 25th, Christmas to procure the rights to one of these things for me… if there is indeed a Santa Claus that is.

You're on the clock holmes.

**Chapter 39: Hiding in Plain Sight**

* * *

><p>The lifestyle of a ninja, roving martial artist, or general travelling warrior is charmingly ridiculous.<p>

For example, one could go all the way to the final round of a heavily promoted, worldwide sponsored tournament, fight their heart out against their greatest frienemy, forget everything that transpired in the final moments of the battle, and wake up in the back of a piece of crap rental car with the press and fans mobbing your car at stoplights to try and get a word from you.

You're on a cloud, or maybe that's the endorphins from the amount of sheer agony your body is supposed to be in. For the record this is the charming portion of the explanation. The ridiculous part is yet to come.

Then the press leaves and the fans are gone, because word broke about Sagat's death and the whole country is in mourning. And you realize that the fact that there's no ambulance for you is making your trip to the hospital the most painful and miserable ride of your life. And you're going to miss your flight home out of Bangkok. And you left most of your money and gear in the temple that fell apart during your fight. And you've now got to find a new way home where by the time you get there the novelty of your awesome achievement will have worn off.

Let it be known that Aohura City, Japan with all of its weirdness was a very 'what have you done for me lately' kind of town. It had to be in order to adjust to all of the crazy things that happened there.

All of that, and not a yen's worth of prize money gained in his name.

Even with all of that, Uzumaki Naruto took it in stride, and within a matter of four weeks after his return life fell back into its normal paces. Normal by his standards and the standards of the extraordinary people that surrounded his life at least.

'Normal' meant that he was back in school for most days, which leads to his current situation.

"How do you not know if you won or not?"

"Leave it alone man."

"No, really teme, I want to know."

"Batsu. I got picked out of a crater that I can't remember how I even made, or if I even made it."

Back in his normal life the hero can be found, fresh out of school for the day, hanging out with Batsu because the latter was bored.

"You healed up pretty nicely from that by the way." Batsu pointed out as he sat in the driver's seat of his jeep with Naruto lazing about in the back, "What about ol' what's-his-face, Sasuke?"

"He's running that Genhanten restaurant on the other side of town again." Naruto said, wishing that it wasn't too cold out for Batsu to have his ragtop down. He really wanted to look at the sky. Southern Japan's mild winters sucked, "He doesn't know what happened either. That or he knows he lost and he's covering it up, but that's not really him. If I'd have won he'd have said so."

Yeah he would have, and Batsu could acknowledge that. Whereas Naruto and Batsu were legitimate friends based off of similarities and camaraderie forged in the days when there were tons of kidnappings of middle and high school kids in the city, Naruto and Sasuke had some kind of weird begrudging respect based on mutual hatred that had been established years before Batsu, Sakura, or any of them had ever met Naruto.

In other words, Naruto and Sasuke knew each other like they were close friends, but they really just wanted to punch the other in the face. There were times when Naruto and Batsu wanted to violently maul each other, but never to such an extreme that it was a detriment to their hanging out.

"Where's your class school trip before summer vacation going?" Batsu inquired to spark some idle conversation. Naruto was probably getting the feedback from the clones he'd sent out to do odd jobs while he'd been at home training, "We're going to Okinawa. It's gonna be awesome."

"Lucky bastard." Naruto replied, wondering why Batsu was even asking that question. It was the middle of January. Why was he talking about the summer? "We don't know where we're going yet. We won't know for sure until a few weeks before Golden Week. I might just skip it like I do every year."

"Pssht. Lame." Batsu openly lambasted Naruto while turning the wheel to take a corner, "I can't think of anything better than hanging out with Hina-chan on the beach for a few days."

In return, Naruto just sat up and deadpanned into the rearview mirror that he knew Batsu could see him through, "I just came back from Thailand, where I destroyed most of a temple and had a chance to win a world-recognized tournament. I'm looking forward to hearing your next travelling story that I'm not involved in."

"Yeah, but while you were in Thailand you didn't see scantily clad boobs." Batsu pointed out smugly, "Unlike you, I will be seeing boobs, and probably touching them depending on the nature of the rooms we get." He waited for a heated response, but received none in return, "…No rebuttal bud?"

"No. What do you want me to say?"

And Batsu immediately slammed on the brakes, traffic be damned. That was a big red flag there! Naruto _always_ had something to say, especially when someone was obviously messing with him, and always whenever someone brought up something sex-related to make fun of him.

Fortunately, Batsu had the intelligence to quickly pull off into a parking spot where he immediately turned the car off and turned around in his seat. It was better than remaining stopped in the road.

"What did you do when you were gone?" He immediately began grilling Naruto to find out what the disturbance of the force was that had caused such a thing to occur, "You were supposed to freak out and verbally snap on me, not turtle up. Now eye contact!"

"What?"

"Eye! Contact!"

At Batsu's rather forceful behest, Naruto did as he asked and gave him eye contact. All the while Batsu was backtracking through their conversation while searching Naruto's soul for what set him off. Needless to say it didn't take long, "You saw a girl naked. Don't you lie to me boy."

"So what if I did? I live with an immodest girl." Naruto said with a scoff trying to blow it all off, "You know I've seen Cam naked before." Hell, Batsu had seen Cam topless before. Inside of Naruto's apartment as a matter of fact.

"No one said anything about Cammy." Batsu pointed out while continuing to search Naruto's eyes, "You didn't." He finally said before a grin slowly broke out across his face, "You did. Why Naruto, I do believe you've taken it upon yourself to make Cammy a woman."

"You want me to be all timid about it?" Naruto's cheeks blazed red for a moment, grateful that they were the only two having that conversation at the moment, "Honestly… I'm just grateful that you didn't turn that around and make a joke about Cam making me a man."

Now that caught Batsu off-guard as well. Naruto was actually admitting it without a fight of denial. Well that kept it from being as fun as it should have been for him, "Either way, bravo. Took you long enough too. But the girls are going to go on the warpath when they find out you're dating Cammy."

Naruto had to palm his face and smooth his hair back to settle down, "I'm not dating Cam."

"Huh?"

"Cammy doesn't even know what dating is about." Naruto said, leaning his head back in his seat with a sigh, "She just didn't want to be alone that night. We were both hurt, tired, messed up in the head, and one thing led to another."

Batsu just stared long and hard at him before shrugging and starting the car once more, "Alright, I understand."

"You do?"

"Yeah. Cammy might like the rest of us, but she has complete trust in you." The car was directed out of the parking lot at Batsu's behest, "Getting her body taken over the way you guys told us hers was would have had to have freaked her out." Everyone felt vulnerable sometime, even if someone like Cammy didn't show it very well, "You comforted her. It just so happens that you did it the fun way."

Yes. It was extremely fun. It was almost worth getting next to no sleep and getting nearly torched by his opponents countless times in the next two rounds the next day.

Batsu understood completely. That still didn't stop him from reaching back and thumping Naruto on the forehead with one of his knuckles, "Oi! What was that for? You said you understood!"

"I do." Batsu said, not phased at all from feeling the need to hit Naruto, "But _you_ need to understand. You've got to date one of these girls, if only to give it a shot. The only reason I can think of as to why you haven't yet is the same conclusion I keep coming back to."

"And that would be?"

"Sakura."

And just like that, Naruto let out a loud and annoyed groan, "Let it go. You've been barking up that tree for two years. Let it die already!"

"I can't let it die, because I really can't think of anything else!" Batsu complained, "I've wracked my brain, and I can't think of any other reason as to why you keep trying to sabotage a relationship with the girls you know. Ibuki is cute, and everyone can see she's into you. Karin is scary, but she's hot, and you know full well she digs you too."

Naruto was not daft. Not _that_ daft anyway. He'd spent more than enough time around women his age to know better than to assume that they didn't feel something for him. He'd known better, ever since he'd had that date with Ibuki a while back and since he'd spent that time with her in her village while he'd been healing after waking up from the run-in with Akuma. He'd known better since the final battle against Mad Gear and what had occurred with Karin. He'd even had a date or two with her as well.

And then there was Cammy. She might have been the one with whom the relationship had gotten a touch 'physical', but Cammy's own mind was still a haze of mystery and confusion. The only thing that was certain for sure though was that she saw Naruto as important enough to give herself to. In Naruto's own words in the not-too-distant past, trying to mess around with one of the Dolls would probably get your junk ripped off.

But he just would not make a move. It was maddening for the people that surrounded him and could point this out. The adults in their lives such as E. Honda or Chun-Li were well aware of this also to a certain extent.

"Your point?" Naruto slapped Batsu in the back of the head for bringing this up, but it did not deter his senior of sorts.

"I'm making it." He replied as he shook his spiky black head after the slap, "Then there's the weird shit with you and Sakura and how you both keep dancing around each other. You've got commitment issues for some reason brother. What's up in that head of yours?"

Sakura was his true best friend. It was kind of surprising to think that Naruto hadn't told even her about what he'd done with Cammy. They already talked about everything else anyway and there probably wasn't anyone else in the world that knew more about one of them than the other.

Really, if one didn't know better at first glance one would believe that Naruto and Sakura were on the verge of establishing something intimate. But they'd been barking up that tree for years and to no avail apparently as nothing seemed to move forward with them.

Batsu couldn't put his finger on what it was. It wasn't the whole aspect of Naruto being awkward with the idea of having a relationship with a friend, because when Batsu had first divulged that he'd wound up with close friend and former comrade Wakaba Hinata, Naruto did nothing but pat him on the back and congratulate him. He didn't subtly try to steer him away from the prospect or anything. He was ecstatic about it for him.

"Some other time." Naruto said, leaning against the side of the jeep as he looked out the window, "It's not really fun to bring up, and you'll think it's stupid when I talk about it." Batsu sorely felt like Naruto was underestimating his capacity for empathy, but a bummed out Naruto was unnatural.

For the sake of not psyching him out he let it drop. For now anyway.

XxX

(Downtown Aohura City – Town Plaza)

School had been pretty uneventful despite the primary perpetrator of the troubles that went on there having returned. For the most part, Naruto just amicably slept through every single class all day long due to the lack of actual classwork. He even slept through gym class.

…How many clones did he make to do his work and train his techniques that day?

Ever since his return from the tournament and the reactivation of his prepaid phones, business for Uzumaki Naruto had been basically booming. It was a pretty good time to be the freelance mercenary ninja if one enjoyed money and the pursuit of it. On the other hand it was a bad time if one had the propensity to be overrun by the workload.

It was also a bad time if one were indirectly connected with the freelance mercenary ninja and the workload that had the chance to begin overrunning him, because the clients had to get into contact with him somehow to request work.

For what seemed to her like the hundredth time that day, Karin's phone went off, beckoning her to answer it in an almost snappish manner, "Yes?" She asked, waiting for the caller to give their reason for calling. After hearing it she rolled her eyes, "No." She stated before ending the call and shoving the device back into a pocket on her fur-rimmed jacket, "I should have known that this would happen."

"What's the matter?" Sakura asked, as Karin had been in something of a touchy mood for most of the afternoon. Not a fun way to spend a rare day off from school in the middle of the week, "What's got you upset."

Karin sent a look to her chief rival before her face softened. It wasn't her fault it was happening. That distinction belonged to someone that wasn't present, "Naruto-san has something of an addiction to using disposable cellular phones for anything involving possible business."

"Yes. We knew that already. What's the problem?"

"The problem is that he oftentimes finds it tedious to empty his voicemails for space, and he's used my personal cell phone to forward calls to in the instance that it fills up."

"Ooh…"

"Yes. Exactly. Clearly he never envisioned himself being bombarded with enough calls for that to actually happen."

"Me too. That's why I have a disposable to go with my real one."

In other words, Naruto was getting an absurd amount of requests for work and other things, things that he was never going to accept due to the fact that many of the jobs were things that he was not going to be able to get to in a timely manner, even with the system of clones he had working around the clock to procure his income.

So much so that Karin's phone had recently been bombarded by the calls of the common folk, something that she was not fond of whatsoever.

"Why does Naruto have so many missed calls?" Ibuki asked, taking some time with her friends in town. The leaders in her village were giving her more and more wiggle room to stay outside of the village. Whatever had done such a thing, she was grateful for it for certain, "He's definitely working. He's got clones all over the place. I saw four on the way into town this morning."

Sakura smiled slightly and held up seven fingers, "He's got seven phones because of the low memory, not counting his personal one. He's got a thing for burners. Sometimes he'll get sick of one phone in particular getting 'blown up' all the time and he'll just toss it and buy a new one." She let out a giggle at the memory of actually watching him chuck one prior to the tournament, "He needs a landline secretary or something."

"What about Cammy?"

"Cammy is not really secretary material." Sakura replied, still grinning a bit, "Naruto actually has her taking a good chunk of his missions to earn her own money during the day while we're at school. She'll work certain missions with his clones or go it alone on some of the others that she can do herself."

"Mmm…" Ibuki said with a smirk and half-lidded eyes of her own as she played with the zipper on her jacket, "I still think she'd be a really good secretary though. Think about it. She's cute; I think she'd look good in business clothes, she looks at everything professionally already, and she's infinitely more organized than Naruto is. What's his business plan?"

"The only reason he started it was to pay his bills. It used to be way more bare-bones than it is now." Sakura answered with a shrug, "But he always kept a really good ledger. It's pretty complete. He puts everything he earns and spends in it. Even little stuff."

"I finally convinced him to actually store his money somewhere secure." Karin informed them, sounding rather proud at that fact, "Do you know he kept his savings in a trick space underneath his bed before now?"

Oh yes, the hidey-hole where he kept mementos, money, and now weapons since the armory was now Cammy's room. Sakura watched him hollow that out underneath the floorboards in his bedroom years ago when they were twelve. She had to run lookout in case the landlord started banging on his door from the noise complaints. Good times.

She liked that and was sort of sad to hear that it had outlived its original usage. It had been cute to watch him fish stacks of money out of there whenever he went to count it all up.

He'd been very busy since returning from the tournament two weeks ago, and Sakura hadn't gotten any much to sit down with him and talk about how he was feeling. After the experiences he had been through over the course of two days, many of which were televised, he probably had a load to get off of his chest. But he was really forced to launch back into his work first thing after coming home.

He'd never had so many contracts for things before and to not strike while the iron was hot and provide himself with some monetary padding would have been foolish. He had to get while the getting was good, even if he hadn't yet had time to come down emotionally from the tiring experience of over 48 nonstop hours of hell on Earth.

Also on the topic of him, Naruto hadn't even gotten the time to wake up during the walk home from school before Batsu pulled up out of nowhere and basically pulled a snatch-and-grab on the spot to basically abduct him. It was actually amazing to see considering who his target was and taking note of the fact that he never even stopped his vehicle to pull it off.

The purpose of their sitting around in a quite public place in town was due to the fact that Cammy had finished the last touches of her work for the day, thus they were all waiting on her to spend some time before Ibuki had to go home to her the Glade of Ninjas. It was only fair, and it was good of Naruto to give Cammy something to do during the day. She didn't go to school, and all she did the rest of the time was train, so doing some of his jobs during the current time of overflow for her own money as a partner was a great idea.

It was apparently working out as well, because word was spreading that Naruto's little rent-a-merc service had her as an option to hire, and already she was incredibly popular in certain circles (*cough* guys *cough*).

Speaking of the devil, or angel depending on one's gender and/or personal persuasion, it didn't take that much longer for Cammy to make her arrival. Due to it being winter she wore a fur-rimmed grey coat, and a grey leotard beneath it. She didn't even bother wearing leggings of some sort with her bare legs to keep from catching cold. Strange girl, but apparently she could deal with it well enough to wear it out, so no one said anything.

It wasn't like they were in Siberia though. They were on the southern end of Japan. So their winters weren't really that cold even compared to a northern region like Hokkaido.

"Hello." Cammy greeted, holding a very large fold of paper money in her hands as she was seemingly counting it on the spot and had been for most of the way there. Didn't she walk from the site of her last job, "I think I may have underestimated how rude this town is. I believe there were a few people who tried to mug me on the way here."

With the big wad of money she had, and in a town like that it was probably very likely that they felt lucky enough to take a shot, even if they did happen to know who she was. The poor, poor bastards.

"How much is that by the way?" Sakura asked as she moved a bit to the side and let Cammy take a seat between herself and Ibuki.

"Roughly 33200 yen at my count."

"Yikes. Naruto's workload must really be backed up if that's what you got in one day."

"Yes. I'm sure this will pay for quite a few of my own expenses without having to resort to relying on Naruto as much." For those that knew enough to tell the slight disparity in the pitch of her normal speaking voice, Cammy sounded rather happy about this, "I want to help all of you, not be a burden."

All of the other girls looked at each other with a similar look shared between them. Cammy was anything but a burden.

There was a reason why in spring Naruto had so readily accepted her living with him despite the loss of his budding armory room to do so. The loss of space meant nothing to him when he had lived by himself for well over a decade beforehand, thus any space in his house besides what he needed in his fairly Spartan existence was all extra. Or at least it had been until he'd gotten a roommate.

"If you want to help…" Ibuki said, sidling up to Cammy so closely that they were touching, "…You live with Naruto. So you've got to know all kinds of secret things. Useful things that could help a girl maybe win him over, if that was one's intent of course. Care to share?"

'Oh God…' Sakura palmed her forehead and was grateful about the white headband around it because she was certain that it had left a red mark underneath, 'You could just ask him questions like that yourself!' She thought to herself loudly before turning to Karin who didn't seem to care about the turn in the conversation, much to Sakura's surprise, "You don't have any interest in this?"

"Not particularly." Karin admitted while tapping away on her smart phone, "Any personal information that I felt would be helpful to know about Naruto-san I dispatched Shibazaki to obtain before I ever began hiring him." Why did she have to sound so proud of it? Did the woman have no shame? Sakura really didn't need an answer to that question, "I believe that anything our former assassin of a friend can tell us would only be retread intelligence for me."

"Secret things…" Cammy said to herself, trying to think of something that she was sure Naruto wouldn't get sore over her talking about. They were all friends there after all. Oh wait. There was that one thing that involved her too. She could share something that was hers to tell as well, "Well during the tournament, he and I had sex."

Dead silence.

It seemed like even traffic in the streets in sight of the plaza vanished and the people around disappeared.

"…Ah no, you asked for something that would help you win him over. I'm sorry. Let me try again."

XxX

(With Naruto and Batsu – Aohura City Downtown Back Alley)

Naruto's hand shot to his chest and clutched at his heart out of absolutely nowhere, looking around suspiciously as if he were about to be ambushed. Appropriate given his surroundings, but then again it wasn't that. Sure, the people he currently found himself around were shifty, but that was like the pot calling the kettle black.

No, his instincts could feel it. There had been a disturbance in the Force… or whatever it was that ninjas felt around them in place of the Force.

"Damn it Naruto, you missed! I have money on you! Shape up!"

Oh. Right. He'd been in the middle of something when he'd felt the pressure of the world punch him in the stomach. Turning to his left, Naruto saw his current opponent standing with a hang-tongue smirk on his face. Man he wanted to cut that blond eraser-top right off of that purple uniform-clad young man's head.

"Well you lose." Gedo High School's resident knife-thrower extraordinaire 'Edge' said cockily, pointing at the set up bullseye at the end of the alley that was the usual hangout spot for Gedo High's resident gang, "You couldn't have screwed up that last throw any worse than you did. It's those ninja weapons you use. Shuriken aren't reliable and kunai are shaped weird. Not like my sleek and awesome army knives."

Taking his turn to throw, Edge lined up the necessary points on the board and pegged them all before bowing with a flourish and turning to get cheered by the no-name members of the gang in the hangout.

"Fine, you win this time." Naruto said as he dug into his pocket and handed over a wad of bills to the victor. He would have thrown better if his senses didn't go all wacky on him, "…Can still kick your ass though."

"Not saying you can't." Edge jibed at Naruto's expense, "But this ain't a fight. This is just a good ol' game of 301. It looks like you're a runner-up in more than just fighting." Naruto looked at his own hands and mulled over the consequences of trying to strangle him on his own turf, but the strong voice of the Gedo High leader chided Edge before Naruto could try and throttle him.

"You shouldn't postulate like that Edge."

Off in the background, Batsu frowned and proceeded to pay Kazama Daigo and Isurugi Gan for betting on the wrong horse in that race. The massive Gan was basically in good health, as was Daigo, though he still had to use a crutch to help him get around after the entire episode with Mad Gear, "It's a mystery whether or not he won or lost." Level-headed Daigo said as he counted up his winnings from Batsu, "I have my problems with the kid, but I can't make an assumption when no one knows the answer. And even if he did lose, would you have even qualified for it?"

Edge turned away from his leader and grabbed at the collar of his own uniform as he went to retrieve his thrown knives from the targets, "…I don't know." He muttered under his breath.

"But Akira says there's no chance that Uzumaki beat the Uchiha guy." Gan said, scratching his head as he didn't bother to count his money before pocketing it, "Shouldn't we take her word for it?" A snicker from Batsu reminded everyone that he was still there, "What's that about?"

Batsu stopped mentally amusing himself long enough to share why, "Akira's got it bad for that guy, and she hates Naruto. So her word is a bit biased. She saw just as much as the rest of us did of the ending; which was nothing."

"I see." Daigo said, narrowing his eyes at hearing that his little sister had a crush on someone. It was a good thing she wasn't there to dispute what Batsu was saying. He was rude and blunt, but he was not a liar, "It's unfortunate that I can't find this Uchiha Sasuke then. I would like to observe what kind of person he is."

Gang leader or not, he was still an older brother. Aside from that, as far as delinquent gangsters went, Daigo was vastly more honorable than any of the others. He was pretty big on that.

A lightbulb went off in the head of both Naruto and Batsu at that exact moment, "Um…" Naruto started to say helpfully, "He owns a restaurant in town. And he's probably there now because he lives on the second floor."

"So if you really wanted to go, Akira might be there right now too." Batsu added on, a grin slowly spreading across his face, "She's really into hanging out around that place. They get along pretty well."

Because when her face-concealing motorcycle helmet was off she was quiet, and unlike most other girls she wasn't annoying to Sasuke. Due to the fact that most things in the world did this, when things didn't annoy him he tended to treat them better than normal.

Basically the dynamic that comprised what existed of their relationship was the fact that they got along because Akira didn't talk and Sasuke was just fine with that. He was actually quite happy with it as a matter of fact. He seemed to prefer communicating via enigmatic grunts and angry facial expressions anyway.

Daigo had taken a minute or two to contemplate deeply before coming to a decision. Yes he would definitely like to meet this young man, "…Directions?"

"The restaurant's called Genhanten." Batsu said before shrugging and pointing at the end of the alley for them to depart, "I'm not your GPS. Google Maps dude."

Daigo growled lowly and bent his tall frame enough to get eye-to-eye with Batsu, "When my leg heals I'm gonna crack your skull, just like old times. But for now…" And with that he gestured to the rest of his gang for them to leave the alley to accompany him in finding Genhanten, "Let's keep this civil men!"

"Yep, civil!" Edge shouted, before chuckling to himself. He followed behind his larger leader and even larger partner in Gan, adjusting his collar and shoving his hands into his pockets afterwards, "Come on Daigo, you know I'm as civil as they get."

They made themselves scarce while Naruto and Batsu watched them leave. They watched them all completely vanish around the corner before they started heading out themselves. Batsu bumped an elbow into Naruto's ribs to get his attention, "Sasuke's gonna murder those guys isn't he?"

He didn't know Sasuke very well, but he'd seen Sasuke fight both in person and on TV on separate occasions, and even if Daigo had been healthy he'd have put him down no questions asked. No one else in that gang was above the level of regional threat other than Daigo, and that didn't bode well in the case of a fight.

"He's not gonna kill them." Naruto responded, throwing his hands up behind his neck, "He might put Edge and a lot of the weak ones in the hospital, but he won't attack Daigo, and he won't kill any of them."

"Why Edge in particular?"

"He's blond. He's loud and stupid. He's cocky. He's annoying."

"So it's because he's you, only cranked up to eleven on all of the negative traits and then some, and he's not even close to being as strong to compensate?"

"Basically."

"Wanna go watch?"

"I don't think we'll make it."

"What? They're on foot. We have a car. We'll beat them there and have time to order something before they catch up."

"No we won't. I think I heard Edge slashing your tires on the way out."

That momentarily stopped Batsu in his tracks before he sprinted for the outlet of the alley and turned to look at his jeep. Lo and behold, the front and back right tires were flat. And the Gedo High School Gang was gone, so no retaliatory rumble in the street would be happening today.

It was just as well. Neither Naruto nor Batsu were much up for fighting that day anyway.

Naruto just walked out and stood beside Batsu as both of them stared at the helplessly flat tires. How close was it to the nearest tire place?

There wasn't even anger on Batsu's face, nor astonishment. Really, they should have seen something like that coming. That was what they got for hanging out with delinquents that they'd spent years feuding on and off with.

"Man… most of our guy friends suck." Batsu said, staring at his tire as if it would re-inflate if he focused hard enough on it.

"We're friends with them?" Naruto asked incredulously. Honestly, Hibiki Dan was more of a friend than they were. He'd only fought Dan the one time. He'd fought the Gedo High gang dozens of times over the years, and some of them were admittedly bitter affairs, "I thought we just came here to hustle them in darts."

That was a good point put in the form of a question. They weren't really friends. It was just that an unofficial cease-fire of sorts had been established during the whole Mad Gear fiasco, and it had never been taken down.

The reason for that being because Batsu, Naruto, Sasuke, and women that accompanied them fought alongside them had indirectly asserted that their group was way better than Gedo's.

Winning a steel cage match against the giant of a man that had slaughtered a ton of them singlehandedly and taking out an attack helicopter on foot would tend to prove that quite nicely.

Naruto and Batsu hadn't fought with them in around six months. For most other people they were just not worth the trouble of messing with anymore after crushing the structure of an organization that had decimated all of theirs, "And to think," Batsu said, "I almost felt bad about what we just got them to go do."

Naruto nodded before patting himself on the chest idly, "I _still_ feel bad. But I don't think it's because of that. It wasn't a karma slap." Or was it?

Something in his head told him to stay out for a few more hours. It was a good thing that they weren't going anywhere until that jeep got its tires changed.

XxX

(Elsewhere in Aohura City – Naruto and Sakura's Neighborhood)

"You and Naruto-."

"Yes."

"…Really?"

"I don't know how many more ways I can confirm what I've told you. Do you want me to be more descriptive?"

"No thank you. Ah, maybe later?"

After the bit of a bombshell that had been dropped in the plaza, the gathering remained behind without splitting off for various reasons. Karin had remained quiet and thoughtful with an unreadable look on her face. Sakura had been almost catatonic and basically blanked out at being left alone with her own imagination. Ibuki had been the only one that remained animated, instead asking Cammy dozens and dozens of questions.

All of them of course pertaining to her intimate moment with Naruto. After the initial shock of hearing about it wore off for her, which actually took five minutes to do, she seemed extremely intrigued and bombarded Cammy with more questions than a middle school sex ed. student.

That was contrary to Sakura's line of questioning, which was less of a bombardment and more of a circular conversation, as she really only asked two different questions in different ways each go-around.

It was a testament to Cammy's unnatural and nigh-saintly patience that she hadn't tried to make her stop, as they had been walking home for quite some time by the time they had reached their neck of the woods so to speak.

Finally Sakura had fallen into silence for a moment, hands in her jacket pockets as she contemplated the whole thing, "Wow." She said, sounding as if she had finally wrapped her head all the way around it, "And you said it was good?" A nod in response, "I didn't know Naruto would be a natural at something like that." She said with a blush on her cheeks.

A natural? Cammy blinked in confusion before turning her head to Sakura with a curious tilt, "So before he and I did it, you and he never did?" She would have figured that Naruto had experienced some sort of practice or familiarity with the female body in the past since he didn't fumble around with her much at all. She had yet to bear witness to Oiroke no Jutsu, "Not one time did you ever practice or-?"

"N-No!" Sakura sputtered loudly, "We've been close for a long time, but we never did anything like that!" Even looking to the side at her nigh shameless friend got Sakura's cheeks to flare fire engine red.

Really, they'd been friends for years. Best friends actually. And indeed, there had been a time before things in their life got crazy on an international scale where they'd spent the _vast_ majority of their waking hours together. They were still basically inseparable for the most part, but they weren't almost joined at the hip like they used to be.

He loved her and she loved him. This much either would readily acknowledge to the other's face, but it just didn't go deep enough to manifest in a way that they would... well, copulate.

Once again, Cammy just stared at her before frowning and turning back to look down the sidewalk, "Well I don't see why you wouldn't have. You clearly trust him at least as much as I do and you care for him, so why not have a first experience like that be with someone you trust and care about?"

Sometimes things with Cammy were just that simple. From how she had ingratiated herself from being an amnesiac assassin into being an everyday staple of their lives it was hard to remember that Cammy had really only existed in society for less than a year.

She had literally been born and lived for sixteen years with the sole intent of being an artificially created killer. Emotionless, with no thoughts of her own, to eventually become Bison's replacement body. There wasn't a need for her to have free will, or to understand the people in the world around her past what it would take for her to kill them easier and accomplish her missions.

Therefore there were still quite a few things that she didn't see the way most other people did. This was one of those things.

She also didn't see that this was quite embarrassing to talk about while walking down the street. So it was up to Sakura to bear the brunt of that embarrassment, "Hah… it's not as simple as that. It's kind of complicated."

That wasn't to say that she'd never thought about it. There was no way she could spend every single day with someone that she liked that much without the thought of dating him flitting through her head... or more than just dating.

Many a stray daydream or so had a Naruto cameo appearance in it instead of Ryu.

And the training for the tournament had done his body good. Naruto looked bigger in his school uniform nowadays, seemingly having added on more muscle mass with his obsessive strength and conditioning exercises with Batsu.

...But it was still complicated. It just seemed too strange a concept for her.

Once again, Cammy didn't see how, but she didn't say as much, otherwise she'd have been the one keeping the conversation going around in circles. Perhaps she'd have to ask Chun-Li or a more worldly, responsible woman about what she was missing here.

Either way, she and Sakura eventually had to go their separate ways to head to their respective homes, bidding each other farewell with one seemingly hounded by thoughts plaguing her and the other just as untroubled as she was upon waking up that morning.

Taking the few extra blocks to the apartment complex, Cammy walked up the stairs and opened the front door to find Naruto sitting on the couch in front of the TV, doing his own homework for once and simultaneously pointing a laser pen all over the room with his non-writing hand to occupy the kitten Agent Jack.

Scooping up the furball into her arms once it scampered over in her direction via laser pen prompting, Cammy's presence in the apartment was acknowledged by Naruto who waved his laser pointer holding hand over his shoulder in greeting, "Hey Cam."

"Good evening Naruto." Cammy said with a small smile before walking over to sit down next to him, kitten in her lap, "You never do your own homework." She pointed out. Damn that perception of hers, "How was your day?"

Full of unexplainable look-over-your-shoulder paranoia, shoulder-to-the-plow odd jobs, and dubious street punks.

So basically-, "Same as usual." Naruto informed her, still looking down at his school assignment, 'Why the hell am I doing this myself?' Naruto thought to himself before remembering that he pitied his clones for their day of hard work, thus he endeavored to give the jutsu a rest and do his own damn homework for once, "Did you do anything cool today?"

Aside from blatantly telling all of their female friends that they had done the deed?

Normally this would be the time to warn someone that a potential hellstorm was coming.

But Cammy telling others about her personal business didn't qualify as something cool, and from Cammy's point of view she had been given a pretty specific question. He didn't ask if something interesting or if anything of note happened. He asked if she did anything 'cool'. She knew what cool was generally perceived as, and nothing cool happened to her that day.

Therefore…

"No, not really."

XxX

(The Next Day – Tamagawa Minami High School)

Okay, there was something up. If there had had been an inkling of trouble yesterday, it was an all-out klaxon warning him of pending doom today. And it wasn't the kind of doom that running away would solve, like an enemy planting a bomb in the school. It was more like the kind of doom that you could run to the ends of the planet and never find a way to escape.

Running would not prevent it. It would only postpone it.

First of all, the walk to school with Sakura had been quiet, and she hadn't been very perky at all. Not the usual way she usually was. The girl was more often than not a damn hummingbird in the morning much to his usual chagrin. Sure, she greeted him at the front door in the morning with a smile the way she usually did when they walked to school, but something was seriously off and it followed them right into the building and into class.

It seemed like only the non-fighter out of his group of female friends appeared to be acting like normal, because she seemed just as confused as he was as to the feeling surrounding all of them, "So you don't know what's up?" Naruto asked her, actually leaning over in Kei's direction to speak to her, "Is it just me?"

"You mean that 'whistling through the graveyard' feeling?" Kei replied, "Yeah, it's not just you. I think it might be everybody in the class feeling it actually. Not just you or me." And indeed, everyone else felt like there was something off, but the rest of the class even more so than Naruto and Kei could not figure out just why things felt out of whack.

Looking around, Naruto saw that Sakura wasn't the only off one that morning. Off behind him and to the side he could feel Karin's eyes upon him every so often for just a split-second. And when he tried to look back at her she simply would not or could not meet his eyes. Ibuki on the other hand was just staring a hole into the back of his head. He'd turn and look back at her and she wouldn't shy away. Her mouth would merely twitch into a small smile and she'd raise an eyebrow, as if to silently inquire if he had something to ask her.

'I'm missing something here.' Naruto thought, turning back around in his chair to wait out the rest of homeroom. He didn't flinch when the bell went off to signal the end of the period as their teacher got up to leave. As the teacher left, Ibuki latched onto Naruto's bicep and got his attention, "Meh?"

"Can I borrow you for a minute?" Ibuki asked, "I'll bring you back in a bit. Promise."

'Go with Ibuki for… whatever reason, or stay here and deal with English class first?' Since he could already fluently speak English and since he hated sitting down in class to begin with it was an easy decision and he nodded his consent to leave with her.

Her grip on him shifted from his arm down to his hand once they made it outside of the classroom. Naruto didn't say a word, electing to instead keep his mouth shut and go with the flow until informed enough to decide otherwise.

It didn't take long for them to make it to one of Naruto's favorite class-skipping haunts; the rooftop.

Walking to the edge of the roof, Naruto pressed his fingers through the safety gate as he looked down on the quiet traffic driving through the street. Ibuki just stood behind him a few feet away, hands behind her back and rocking on her heels as she observed his back.

"Remember back when we first met?" Ibuki said, finally moving forward to stand next to him and look down on the road as well, "It was a while ago." They'd been friends for well over a year. Letting out a bit of a laugh she kept speaking, "I put you through hell that first night. I don't think I ever apologized for that."

"You didn't." Naruto replied, a smile slowly breaking out over his face at the memory. It had been quite painful for multiple reasons, "But it's okay. A lot of my friends did stuff to me when we first met that they still haven't apologized for yet." And he was quite certain that the opposite was true as well in a few cases.

"I remember that I didn't want to go home yet, and I asked you if I could stay there with you for a bit." Ibuki said before turning a sly look his way without being seen by Naruto, "So what's it like living with a girl in your apartment? You like it?"

"Cam's a good girl." Naruto said, "It's actually really nice to go home and know somebody's there. She doesn't ever laugh at anything and it's pretty hard to get her to smile, but we'll get her there."

Ibuki nodded, taking a moment to choose her next words wisely. She then decided to cast that straight out of the window, "So does 'getting her there' involve nailing her?" Naruto's head slowly craned in her direction as if there was resistance to his neck to get him to turn, "She didn't smile after it was over?" From the way she talked about it she seemed as if she had been more than satisfied.

"…No, she did." Naruto answered carefully before looking around for something. This was weird. First of all that she knew, and second of all that she seemed so cool with it, "…Am I being Punk'd?"

"You're not really worldwide mainstream famous Naruto."

"Oh, that's right."

Naruto then wondered if he climbed over the gate if it'd be reasonable to run down the side of the school and hightail it back home as Ibuki set her small hand on his shoulder and gave it a few pats as she could probably sense his current tension, "Yep. I know, Karin knows and Sakura-chan does too. Thank Cammy for that. She's really not shy about much."

He would have banged his head on the fencing if he thought it would do more than just give to the push and at worst leave a mark on his head.

Not that it was supposed to be a secret that one took with them to the grave by any stretch, but did it really have to come out with the most inconvenient timing possible outside of a major crisis?

"So now what?" Naruto eventually asked, shrugging haplessly. What was he going to do, deny it? No. Why would he? Cammy was a sweetheart, and they didn't owe any kind of explanation to anyone if that was what they wanted from them. Cammy would probably give one anyway, but that wasn't really the point, "If you're mad I'm not gonna apologize. Nobody's getting one of those out of me. Not for this."

"I don't want an apology. I want a chance." Ibuki said, pointing right at him before walking close enough to poke him in the chest, "Do you understand?"

"I think so." Naruto confirmed with a slight nod, looking at her with squinted eyes, "But you didn't have to take me away in private to say that. You could have called me anytime, or said something whenever."

Ibuki shook her head and sighed, "I know that out of all of our friends I'm the one that's the farthest apart from the group." That was how Ibuki really felt. She'd missed out on so many things that everyone else had endured. The entire Shadaloo episode, all of the Mad Gear troubles, and she couldn't go to the tournament either, "It's because of where my village is, and I don't get to be around as much."

Yes, Naruto knew about that, "But you'll be graduating soon from being in-training right? Right around the time we all graduate high school? Didn't you say that they'd let you do whatever you wanted then?"

"Another year?" Ibuki said with a bit of a humorless laugh, "Who knows if you guys will even still want to be friends with me in a year? I just wanted to date a cute guy, kind of blunt, with some gravity to him. And I found one, and I can't find a moment to even spend any real time with him."

That was something that Naruto didn't know how to fix. He'd tried on multiple occasions to pull the wool over the eyes of the higher-ups in Ibuki's village to results of varying success, but in the end they always ended up getting busted.

"I've got to graduate now." Ibuki said, shaking her head and looking down with her hands on her hips, "No matter what the final test will be. It's what you would do isn't it?"

"I'm not really the best example to follow." And that hurt to say out loud, because Naruto always asserted that he was the most awesome human being walking the face of the planet. Having to dissuade someone from thinking this was the last thing he ever thought he'd have to do.

"Well no, not for certain things." Ibuki admitted sheepishly, "But at least you know how to put yourself on the line for what you believe in. I believe I'm ready, so I have to prove it. I love my village, but I'm tired of having my life tethered the way it is you know? I just want-. Just, can you promise me that when I finally get the assignment you'll help me if I need it?"

Ninja tests were no joke. This Naruto knew from his own brush with them. And Ibuki was already incredibly strong. Any test that she hadn't taken yet being as skilled as she was had to be a killer.

She'd been fretting over the possibility of her final exam for months, and she was looking quite uncertain of herself now. But she was tired of spinning her wheels. She was good and she knew it. She wanted to see the world and being a student while her outsider friends went off to see and do incredible things didn't appeal to her.

"Yeah, don't worry about it." Naruto said with a firm nod. She didn't even have to ask him that. She'd been there for him several times, and even if that hadn't been the case she'd be hard-pressed to find a way to keep him away, "You still didn't have to take me out of class to talk about any of this."

Ibuki sent a frown his way before quickly blurring out of sight with her short-range speed technique before appearing in front of Naruto with her arms around his neck, "I'd rather talk with you alone. I don't get a lot of chances like this, so I'll take them when I can." She moved her face closer to his but stopped. Naruto wasn't pulling away, but he wasn't holding onto her either, "I just want a chance to be a normal girl and go on dates… stuff like that."

Normal? As if anything about him and the people he surrounded himself with were normal.

Naruto grinned in a wry manner at contemplating the common definition of normal and what his life consisted of, "If you want to be normal you should really stop hanging out with me."

"Hmm, no." The bright-eyed kunoichi replied with a big smile, "It's not like I'm trying to get you to put a ring on my finger or something. We're 17, and I like you. You know that I do. I feel a bit of a spark, and I want to think that you do too. I think we could have a lot of fun."

Could she possibly have pressed herself against him any tighter while saying that? The answer was no. And a certain part of his anatomy was starting to react to the proximity of the lovely kunoichi, 'Did I slip into another coma in my sleep or something? Because this doesn't seem like something that would happen while I was awake.' "Fun you say?"

Damn those eyes. It was like she had lights dancing behind them. It was unfair for such a lovely girl to look at him so fondly. It went contrary to everything he'd come to expect over the last few years. And he wasn't so sure about that connotation of 'fun' that she'd spoken of. His nose almost sprang a red leak when he heard her say such a thing.

Ibuki was awesome. She was tough. She was a ninja like him and good at what she did to boot. She was always seemingly in a good mood, and was always a lot of fun to be around. They got along wonderfully and being around each other made even the most mundane of activities a blast. Even sitting in class all day wasn't as boring as it could have been because she sat right behind him.

And once again, the fact that she was so pretty it physically hurt wasn't necessarily a mark against her either.

"Ooh, your face isn't turning red, but your eyes are as wide as saucers." Ibuki said with a grin as she poked her nose up against his, "Why's your mind so dirty Naruto?"

Naruto hoped that the next thing that came out of his mouth would be something that was eloquent and somewhat smooth, but before he could attempt an ill-fated cool comeback line the ringtone for the main phone in his pocket went off.

Both of them looked down at his pants pocket before Ibuki looked back up at his face and raised an eyebrow. Naruto clicked his teeth and reached for the phone before putting it up to his ear, "What's up Karin? Something wrong?"

"_You would not currently be in mid-coitus would you Naruto-san?"_ Well that was certainly blunt.

'That's my boss lady.' Naruto thought while blocking a sigh. He looked right at Ibuki who hadn't looked away from him yet, and she could hear the reverb of the phone easily, so she got all of that, "…No?"

"_I see. I only ask because both you and Ibuki-san have been absent from class for quite some while. And I know how fickle teenage hormones can be at times."_

"Oh what the fuck ever." Naruto replied a bit snappishly. Was this how it was going to be for a few weeks now? That was complete b.s. as far as he was concerned. And when Naruto found something to be b.s. he got angry. And an angry Naruto shot from the hip, "The only reason you and me didn't already do it back during that incident we had is because… goddamn it, this is on speakerphone isn't it?"

He could hear the echo halfway through his rant.

"_Yes. It. Was."_ She sounded mad. Seething mad to boot. Not-yelling angry Karin was scarier than yelling angry Karin by a huge margin. Because when she was mad and didn't yell at you it was simply because yelling wouldn't be enough to get across how livid she really was.

"Well then." Ibuki said, trying to somewhat salvage the situation, "Maybe that'll teach you not to make calls in the middle of class?" She couldn't help but feel as if this were partially her fault.

"_I will remove both of your spinal cords with my bare hands."_

"I'd rather you didn't."

"_It's quite unfortunate that your opinion on this matters little kunoichi-san."_

Ibuki took a moment to soak in that odd comment and pouted, arms crossed over her chest at such a stony response from the wealthy young woman once she figured out just what had rubbed her the wrong way about what she'd said, "…You're distancing yourself from my name so you can kill me with an easier conscience aren't you?" It was odd how casually she was taking the whole idea of that.

Naruto was contemplating sending a clone back to class in his stead, but he was sure that Karin would just punch it or hurl half of the classroom at it once it popped its head in the door, "Can we talk later?" He said over the phone.

"_Of course. You can be rest assured that we most certainly will."_ She was probably so mad her face didn't even show any expression on it. He could see it now. He'd only done that once before, once by complete accident, _"I still have need of your services at the end of the week regardless, if you remember."_

Oh. That was right. That had been set up in advance a short while after he'd made it home. Another bodyguard mission. So she wouldn't try to beat his head in now at least. She could wait until later when she'd get him alone, or mostly alone, to do it. And she'd have a few days to build up further ire beforehand. Great.

"Okay." Naruto said, trying to keep the sigh out of his voice. It was always one thing after another it seemed, "We'll talk later. Bye." And with that he hung up the phone.

Ibuki waited for him to do so before making an observation, "You never apologized for blurting out what you said."

"…I didn't did I?" He couldn't keep himself from sighing this time, "I knew I forgot something." In his defense it could have been worse though. He could have said that the incident was during a heart-to-heart, on the lawn of her mansion, and that the only reason they didn't probably have sex then and there was because he had twenty rifles trained on him.

And with a hung head, Naruto slogged his way back to the stairwell to leave the roof. The rest of the day was going to absolutely suck. He didn't even feel like pricing the rest of his jobs that afternoon after school.

Ibuki just waited behind as he left before hearing the slam of the door. Without moving from her spot she frowned and looked up at the sky with a shake to her head, "You won't even let me kiss him will you? I can't even get just a kiss. Is Cammy's karma really that much better than mine?"

She got no answer from the unseen forces of the universe, but she was sure they were having quite the ball at all of their expenses.

XxX

(Two Days Later – Industrial Aohura City – Training Junkyard)

"Come on. Bigger. That's barely any better than an Odama Rasengan." Sakura said, sitting on the hood of a long since immobilized car, hands on her cheeks as she watched two Narutos try to form the biggest damn Rasengan in the world, "You can make it bigger than that can you?"

"Maybe, not safely though. But if it blows up are you gonna carry me to the hospital?"

"You did it for me when Shinkuu Hadoken backfired a billion times at first didn't you?"

She was at a safe distance of course, because she'd rather not get caught in the blast if Naruto's control slipped and he blew himself away. She loved him, but just not enough to die in a junkyard because of a training accident. One of them had to stay healthy enough to help the other. Unless they were sparring that was the approach to their technique training that they always used. For safety reasons of course.

Naruto slowly phased down the Rasengan to safe size before letting it and his clone dissipate from existence, "I'm telling you Sakura-chan. A bigger Rasengan just isn't safe. Not with my control." He said as he wiped sweat from his face.

He was good enough at chakra control now to make one Rasengan in each hand by himself and create all kinds of applications for the concept that formed the jutsu, but making them bigger than he already had was just one bridge too far.

But he needed to stay one step ahead of Sasuke and what he'd learned to do with the lightning manipulation of the Chidori. Right now they seemed to be dead even in the application and development of their signature jutsu concepts, with basically an even number of separate attacks using Rasengan and Chidori theory as a base. It was a decent and welcome break from his seemingly impossible self-given task to find a way to safely counter ki attacks from his enemies.

This was good though, even though the training was tough. It had been a while since Naruto had just hung out with Sakura. Since back before the tournament when he'd thrown himself into improving as fast as he could before opening day.

He'd finally managed to pull some time to take it easy, finally managing to quell his workflow of missions after a month of being overbooked to an extreme degree. His bank account sure was happy about it though.

"Next time there's a massive situation like what we just got through doing I'd feel a lot better if I had more guaranteed backup than Cam." Naruto said with a big grin before Sakura couldn't meet his eyes when he turned her way, "You too? Look, I'll apologize for things like what I blurted out over the phone to Karin, but I'll never apologize for sleeping with Cammy."

Sakura didn't want him to apologize. Naruto was an adult and basically had been for all intents and purposes since she had met him. That still didn't make it kind of strange to look him in the eye, because it did.

"I don't want you to. I don't think anyone wants you to." Sakura said with a shrug as Naruto walked over to her and took a seat and a drink of water from the bottle sitting between them, "And yeah, it was surprising at first, but I'm over that by now. That's not the thing."

"Then what is the thing?"

"I wish I knew. I'm confused myself."

"Reh…" Naruto muttered, passing the bottle to Sakura so that she could take a drink also, "Well when you find out could you tell me too?" He said before deciding that enough was enough and it was time to get back to work, "Okay babe, it's time to fix your damn Shinkuu Hadoken." He said, poking her in the belly in a ticklish spot to get her spit out what she had been drinking, "It's still too slow."

"Naruto!" She coughed and sputtered. Water going down the wrong pipe tended to do that to a person, "I just learned how to shoot the real version from Ryu's notes while you were training for the tournament! Can't you say, 'Good job Sakura-chan you're getting stronger,' or 'Wow, that's awesome Sakura-chan,' something like that?"

Naruto just gave her an expectant look and smirked, "No. Because even if it is bigger, badder, and faster than ever before you still can't hit me clean with it. And I don't praise stuff that can't hit me!"

"You don't even the praise stuff that _does_ hit you!"

"Well not out loud. But I'd make an exception for you if you ever Shinkuu Hadoken-ed me and it didn't kill me."

He was damn right he would. Sakura set her bottle to the side before jumping off of the car at Naruto to initiate a spar of sorts. It was more for fun than anything else.

Things came easier for them when they were fighting. It seemed like everything was alright when they sparred, as if they were twelve or thirteen again. Back before someone seemed to try and kill them every other lunar cycle.

XxX

(State-of-the-Art Laboratory – Unknown Location)

Dozens of holographic screen projections with names of people all over the world and intimate biological information on what made them physically tick, all painstakingly gathered through the efforts of agents placed all over the globe for quite some time and compounded in the best information sorting hardware available anywhere.

Many of the bios had pictures to go with them, but as quickly as they were being sorted through, many were being cast out of the overall lineup. The main separating point was not nationality or blood type. Nor was it gender, age, ethnicity, or anything of the sort.

The deciding factor in which fighter remained in the lineup was their ability to utilize ki and the potential of their ability to do so in their bodies.

All of this was being overseen by a small, grotesque little man in a lab coat, balding with long stringy hair and beady eyes darting back and forth over all of the info in front of him.

"How goes the research Doctor Senoh?"

That powerful, yet cool and controlled voice was nothing like Bison's. That voice would never be heard again after his quite timely demise under mysterious circumstances at the close of his own tournament. Senoh didn't even risk turning around. For some reason he feared this person more than Bison.

Probably because he wasn't really human.

Probably because he was created by the people that he now commanded.

Probably because of all of those things, and the fact that he could crush Senoh's skull like a grape if he felt that his use had been outlived or if he was going to betray him.

"The research?" Senoh asked, wiping away a bead of nervous sweat that rolled down his forehead.

"Yes." The voice behind him replied without a single hint of negative emotion. There was only a calm confidence about him, "You were M. Bison's lead examiner of ki-based studies. Held in high enough regard to not be set in S.I.N., but instead kept closely enough with him in Shadaloo as a consultant. I'm quite certain that if anyone is skilled enough to lead the BLECE project to a breakthrough it would be you."

"Of course sir." Senoh said with a smirk at the ego-stroking praise from his newest boss. Bison never did anything of the sort. Always so impatient and violent. Perhaps there were benefits of working for someone that was not human, "I've discovered that one of the last things we need to complete the project is something that your other scientists were too foolish to think to utilize."

"Oh? Do go on."

"They were looking for a potent enough catalyst to allow the weapon to work." Senoh's face was full of the smuggest sense of self-satisfaction at his own apparent brilliance, "But they're so set in their technology. Cold steel. Circuits. Chips. For all their technological brilliance they're forgetting the most important thing; that this is a biological weapon. And there is no biological marvel greater than life itself. Life in its entirety. Or should I say life-_force_?"

"The ki."

"Exactly. The body of a living being has the potential to safely expend enough energy to rival the overload of an electric generator and continue to operate at prime condition, to say the least of what some are capable of." Senoh said with a pleased chuckle as he gestured to the screens in front of him, "What I present to you are the finest examples of the human condition on current record. The most acutely honed sources of the natural energy the human body has the ability to possess."

There was a moment of silence as the leader took in all that he was seeing. Impressively it only took him a matter of seconds to do so and to understand it for the sheer amount of info he had to absorb, "There are dozens. All over the world. But so many are concentrated in one area."

"Perhaps there's something in the water in Japan?"

"Indeed."

"Any ideas on our next move sir?"

"We should begin testing the BLECE project, but not on humans yet. A place with an abundance of life would be best for this."

"Yes. In the meantime what about my theory on the ki of the warriors? You sounded intrigued."

"And I am. Since we cannot use my own quite… potent abilities as a control for multiple reasons, we should aspire to find the next best available subject for testing. We need to observe some of the more impressive fighters with ki mastery and ki potential."

Yes. Senoh enjoyed working for S.I.N. much more than he ever enjoyed working for Shadaloo. Or maybe it was just his boss? There was a man, or a being, that was in control and knew what he needed to get done. Bison getting himself offed in his vendetta against those that had almost brought Shadaloo crumbling was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

The sudden hostile takeover of S.I.N. in the days following Bison's death led to Shadaloo's remaining scientists being transferred over to the weapons development sector of the criminal organization. It was safer, and it was almost legal since S.I.N. had a real presence in the world as a weapons research and development company.

And Seth was a being of vision. Someone willing to use science and knowledge to obtain control unlike Bison who despite being a smart enough man did everything with brute force and intimidation, only willing to utilize science if it enhanced his own ability to do so and maintain control.

It was going to be a grand rise.

XxX

(A Few Days Later – Zurich, Switzerland)

"Oh Kami…" Naruto muttered to himself, once again stuck in his formal bodyguard suit and fighting the urge to tug at his tie. The suit wasn't the only thing making his job hard tonight, "Out of every single language that I hear in this ballroom… I can only speak three of them. If someone's gonna attack you, honestly they've got a pretty good chance of getting the drop on us because I can't make sense of any of it."

"I can speak every language that you are unable to comprehend Naruto-san." Karin stated, calmly sipping on a drink at his side while wearing a rather fetching red dress that hugged her body snugly and a white pair of gloves that went up to her elbow. Instead of her normal blue bow in her hair, she had a silver diamond-plated barrette, "I do not think that conspirators conversing in the open will be of any concern to us however. Not in a place such as this."

It was a gathering of some of the world's economic heavy-hitters. A function held by the very influential international technology company S.I.N. in order for them to announce an expansion of their business, allowing for more investment opportunity and chances for collaboration with intrepid partners. It was all blasé, boring state of the business talk, which was Karin's area of expertise outside of fighting.

The Kanzuki Zaibatsu had occasional dealings with them in the past going back before Karin was even born, as each had a small minority stake in the company of the other, and it was lucrative because S.I.N. seemed to have no ceiling on the profits that they could bring in. As an example, S.I.N. supplied the JSDF with most of their high-tech weaponry that brought their armed forces into the 21st century, a venture that they were still raking in money from.

Yes, and as a company that had a penchant for creating weapons from small arms to unmanned drones, S.I.N. had good security. Good, well-armed security, in superb tactical positions to oversee the interior as well as patrol the exterior of the meeting place. So maybe there wasn't any need for a superhuman ninja to protect a superhuman heiress to the wealthiest family in Asia.

But it couldn't hurt to have one at this party.

Naruto used the term party lightly when describing what was going on. There was light music, but it was mostly stuffy old men and women talking about things that involved more money than he would ever see. Speaking in terms of sums that he would never use in a sentence unless he was grossly over-exaggerating the number of something.

He understood the purpose of it all as this wasn't really his first rodeo so to speak, but he still absolutely despised it. He found it so hard to find something to eat these things. Things to eat that he could actually tell what they were. So he usually went quite hungry while working these things. That was another annoying thing about these VIP missions.

The only saving grace in the past during these events was that he could chat with Karin. But she'd been rather stiff since that day in school when he'd basically blurted out that they'd almost had relations.

That was the third and most annoying thing about the current mission that he was on.

He'd apologized face-to-face and he'd given her some space afterwards. She hadn't hit him yet and he didn't think she would, but then again Karin had always been above physical retaliation despite how tough she acted. She never hit anyone first. She'd make them try to hit her and then she'd kick their asses.

"Karin." Naruto said, trying to get her to talk to him. "Karin." This was how it would go when he usually tried to talk to her directly instead of making a broad statement like the previous thing he'd said, "Ka-rin." She'd act like she was ignoring him until he reached the magic number of requests, "Rin-Rin."

An eye twitch and a rather long sip of her cocktail to hide the reaction? Ooh, that one got to her. At first it used to piss her off that he referred to her without the proper honorific, but she eventually got over it. Now he had a brand-new button to push. Wasn't that fun?

"Talk to me Rin-Rin. I know you're bored. You haven't even tried to go talk about business or rich people stuff with these guys in almost twenty minutes." Naruto reasoned as to how he could tell she really wasn't feeling this gathering, "And I have no idea how many of those you've had." He said while the glass was still at her lips.

He hadn't really been counting, but she was underage by the standards of most countries. She was seventeen like him, only one month older. Granted she wouldn't be driving anything herself or flying them home that night after they left the party so in theory she could get as drunk as her heart desired, but that didn't seem a very Kanzuki-like thing to do.

"I'm not particularly here to make any business dealings with any of the CEOs present." Karin finally started to explain, looking with one eye in Naruto's direction. Her cheeks had a touch of red across them, but that could have meant anything really, "This is more for appearances, which is why I am here instead of my father."

"He seems to be using you a lot more for this kind of thing instead of doing it himself."

"Quite. I am basically doing everything but running things on a day-to-day basis with the amount of work I do every day, even in school. I think the time is coming for me to usurp control of the company's majority holdings from him. It is what he taught me after all, to strike at times of weakness."

For some reason a confident and in control Kanzuki Karin was one of the most attractive things to Naruto in the world. He would never let her command him or tell him what to do as was his nature, but there was something inherently sexy about a beautiful girl that smart, and he had already admitted to himself that Karin was one of the finest examples of woman in his age bracket.

Focused, business-mode Karin was a dangerous, gorgeous creature. Even more so than usual.

As she continued thinking to herself she noticed that Naruto hadn't stopped looking her way for quite some time, "Security overseeing this place or not Naruto-san, I wonder why you are observing me so closely and not our surroundings. An assassin could be skulking amongst the guests here and I don't believe you would be prepared to adequately protect me."

"There isn't anything I wouldn't do to protect you." Naruto replied, still not taking his eyes off of her, "Not that you really need it. But you are my lovely boss lady, and it's a habit."

"Apparently that is all I am to you."

"What does that mean?"

Karin opened her mouth to say more, but looked around at the ongoing party and decided that it wasn't for the best where they were, "No, it is of no consequence. Forget I said anything."

That wasn't going to fly. Naruto looked around as well with a frown on his face before grabbing Karin by the hand and pulling her along with him in the middle of one of her sips of her drink. Eventually he found a path out of the proceedings and managed to get them out to a balcony overlooking the side lawn of the meeting hall.

Finally freeing her hand from Naruto's grasp, Karin walked away toward the railing and looked out over it, "What do you think you are doing?" She said as he stood behind her leaning against the wall, shutting the door leading back inside, "I do not care much for how you removed me from the ballroom for reference's sake."

"What did you mean by that's all you are to me?" Naruto didn't bother mincing words now that they were by themselves, "Just my boss? That's what you think?" He wasn't even accepting much pay at all for this. He didn't mind travelling with her and he'd have definitely done it for free by now, it was just that she wouldn't take charity work from him as an offer.

"Yes." Karin kept her voice very even and her posture quite stern as she leaned on the railing, back to Naruto, "I mean-. I… I do not know. I am not certain. Expressing what I feel in a manner such as this is confusing to convey, and I am not much for understanding matters of the heart to begin with. And I do not know why I am finding it so easy to say such things now."

"Well now you're confusing _me_." Naruto said, crossing his arms over his chest, "I mean, before the tournament we danced around dating for a little while, but right before I started training hard for it I played around at asking you out to test how it'd fly with you. You froze up and backtracked, so I didn't. I just trained that whole time and things stayed the way they were."

During the period of training for the Second World Warrior Tournament his clone still saw her every day in school and she treated it like it was him she was talking to. Sometimes she'd show up to the junkyard to see his progress, but she wouldn't do that too often due to the surroundings not appealing to her, which was expected. Nothing seemed any different between them.

If anything he figured that she'd be the last girl that cared about anything he'd do.

'I confused you?' Karin asked, frowning as she continued to sip at her drink and took in the chain of events prior to Naruto's leaving for the tournament in Thailand, "My apologies. I panicked. I still panic when faced with the thought of you as a suitor."

"Yeah, I know I'm not the ace catch or anything. Your old man would probably throw the ultimate bitch fit if you brought me-."

A rather throaty chuckle came from Karin as she still had her back turned to Naruto. She downed the last of her drink and left the glass on the railing before turning around and leaning against the surface, "I am not concerned with a trifle of that nature. It is not what you are, or aren't in this case, that is the problem. It is me."

There was definitely something wrong, because Karin was admitting that she was at fault for something. That never happened. Once again, Naruto looked at her intently and realized that the faint blush on her face that he'd seen inside hadn't faded yet, "You've had more than three drinks haven't you?"

"Yes. Far more."

"How many exactly?"

"I did not keep count."

"Why?"

"Because I did not know how I would speak with you without something loosening my tongue first." She moved off of the railing with a slight sway in her step that he hadn't noticed on the way outside because he'd been guiding her, "I believe it has worked."

"…You're drunk?"

"Considerably so."

"To talk to me?"

"I could not look you in the eye and confront you otherwise."

Naruto didn't say anything else about it, nor did Karin. And upon taking a few regular looking steps forward it was quite clear why Karin's first move had been to move to the nearest sturdy object in the railing once they got outside when she stumbled into him, forcing him to catch her lest she fall to the ground.

"I am afraid that I have intimacy issues you see." Karin mumbled, her face pressed against his chest before she looked up at him with soft brown eyes, "I was taught to mask and bury all imperfections or everything would be lost. To give yourself so casually to another. To allow them to take you as you are, including all flaws and imperfections… these are things that frighten me."

Karin really was more free-flowing with the words with a few drinks in her wasn't she? She was still awfully smart, that much didn't change, but-. Oh holy crap, she was rubbing herself against him now. Oh man, that was not good.

A content little moan slipped from her mouth as she rubbed her cheek against his chest comfortably, "But you do not care about any of that. You know of my few deficiencies and you are not bothered by them. You yourself are a walking imperfection." No, really. Complement him more, "Affection is not something I am accustomed to giving, but I am willing to try."

She let out a few laughs as she balanced herself against him to stand properly, and Naruto came to the conclusion that Shibazaki and Ishizaki were going to try and kill him once he got her back to the limo.

"Okay." Naruto said louder than necessary as he started to lead a rather intoxicated young woman out of the building the way that they came in, "You're still really eloquent when you're sloshed Rin-Rin, but we should get you out of here before something embarrassing happens to you."

"Do not refer to me in such a familiar manner Naruto-san, endearing though it may be." Karin said, blinking as the lights of the ballroom started getting to her alcohol-stunted senses once they started moving back through, "Why must these functions always be so well lit?"

That was the first time Naruto had ever heard someone complain about there being too many lights in a public room before, "Because rich people like lights and don't have to worry about the electric bill?" Naruto answered questioningly, "I don't know. Come on."

He continued leading her out until their way was blocked by a large, muscular man in classic formal Turkish attire complete with a sleek-looking turban. He had red skin and turquoise hair worn in weird circular curls and on many of his clothing pieces he had a very ornate golden lion. Probably a family crest or something. Lions were so overused for things like that.

"Miss Kanzuki." The man said in English in a thick accent. It was just as well. Naruto didn't think Karin knew how to speak Turkish anyway. And obviously neither could he, so it all worked out, "I'm looking forward to setting up the meeting we discussed earlier in the evening. Your family's company is quite illustrious."

"Of course Mr. Hakan." Karin managed to say louder than she should have, transferring her lack of balance too far forward before Naruto could help her pull herself back up properly. He kept her from falling, though, so he just went with the illusion that she was trying to bow, "I'm afraid I must be going as I have responsibilities to adhere to as soon as possible at home." Responsibilities like sobering up and possibly dealing with her first hangover, "But you have my personal number. Feel free to call at any time and we can arrange something."

Naruto skillfully pulled her back upright as Hakan reached out a hand that Karin took a shook, and then did the same for Naruto for some reason, which he accepted. It was strange, but Naruto wasn't about to screw up Karin's work by not taking it. He felt the little bones in his hand crack as the gargantuan man squeezed down, 'Oh my Kami! That's the one Cam broke damn it! Not again!'

His face didn't show a thing, but if there had been a dog in the room it would have been howling at the high-pitched noise coming from Naruto's closed mouth that no human being would have been able to hear.

"Naruto Uzumaki." Hakan said, satisfied at Naruto seemingly not flinching at his strength, "Hearsay of your strength has not been embellished I see. I like that." He looked back at Karin with a grin on his face, "The Kanzuki family really is able to procure the best of everything, even bodyguards."

"Of course." Karin said, patting Naruto on the cheek before the both of them moved past Hakan, "Have a good evening Mr. Hakan." She said with a bit of an airy giggle as Naruto continued to guide her out, "Oh my. I don't feel quite like myself I must say." She said before laughing a bit more and spontaneously planting a kiss on Naruto's cheek, "Ara, you take such good care of your Kanzuki-sama don't you Naruto-san?"

She was a really cute drunk; actually sweet and quite pleasant to be around. But that didn't make the situation any less potentially catastrophic if someone there figured out that she was smashed, "Let's go get your drunk little ass sobered up." Naruto said quietly enough for only her to hear, "…And get me a cast."

XxX

In a place that easily allowed the observation of the party from stairs overlooking the ballroom, several black-suited guards stood in various locations, scouting for potential problems. With all of the important people in the crowd it would be easy for anything wrong to happen, and they needed to be diligent.

Amongst them there was only one caramel-skinned female, extremely attractive, wearing a suit as well but one unique to her.

The outfit of the full-figured lady consisted of tight black slacks into heeled boots with a golden belt buckle. In addition, her open black suit jacket and white dress shirt were short enough to expose her stomach with three buttons undone higher up to show portions of her ample breasts. The button at the collar was done up though, and around her neck was a black tie. She had extremely long dark red hair done in a single braid that reached down to the back of her knees.

From behind yellow-tinted sunglasses she peered down into the crowd much like the other suited guards, but she was not amongst them. She was a different sort of S.I.N. employee altogether. From a point of view only she could see behind the glasses a small icon appeared above the heads of Naruto and Karin as they exited the ballroom, marking them as ki-adept.

She had been watching them all night. Those two and Hakan.

The only reason she had come was because she already knew that they would be there. It was known that the Kanzuki family had been invited, and while it was too much of a trip for the patriarch Daikenjuro to bother making, the daughter was a well-known busybody in the circles of enterprise.

And whenever Karin travelled out of country on one of these trips, Naruto was almost always guaranteed to come with her. Touching at the Bluetooth on her ear to make a call that had already been set up, the woman spoke into it, sounding quite bored, "Three potential candidates for the experiment were here tonight. But I don't really see them as too terribly impressive."

"_You are aware that each of them can qualify as the most powerful humans in the world aren't you? Hakan is the most prominent Yağlı Güreş practitioner in all of Turkey. The Kanzuki girl is a part of the top echelon of fighters in Japan, not just amongst women, but in all of the country. And the power of Uzumaki is well-documented by Doctor Senoh even before then."_

"Hakan looks powerful, I'll admit that much." The woman replied into her headset, "But the other two are rather unassuming."

"_If anyone should recognize that looks can be deceiving it should be you Viper. But then again you didn't get to watch the tournament did you? You were hard at work as always."_

A wry smile came to the woman Viper's lips as she turned away from the overlook of the ballroom and walked away, heels tapping on the floor, "There's money that needs to be made. I don't have time to indulge in my downtime as much as most." She pulled her gloves tighter on her hands and her face got serious once more, "So they're leaving. Should I test the potency of their battle ki for the sake of the project?"

"_No. We have enough information on Uzumaki's ki from Shadaloo run-ins with him in the past. If you attack the Kanzuki girl in Switzerland you'll have to fight him no matter what."_

"What about Hakan?"

"_If you would like to risk destroying that brand new battle suit of yours feel free. The prototype is not meant for direct combat."_

"It has to be field-tested at some point Seth."

"_Agreed. But not here. And you are not part of the BLECE Project either. Not yet anyway. Leave the field work on the project to others."_

Viper stopped walking and mulled over his words before shaking her head at speaking to her superior once more, "By others you mean that woman don't you?" There was a distinct distaste to her voice when saying 'that woman', "I wasn't aware that you wanted the candidates dead." She jested dryly.

"_Her orders are strictly to test the targets I indicate for her. If they aren't strong enough to survive her when I'm directing her to keep them alive they aren't worth the attention are they? It's the perfect way to field test _her _new weaponry after all, even if there's the risk of her losing control in her excitement. You may retire from your mission. I will contact you again soon with your next assignment ."_

"Juri Han is a dangerous person." Viper said to herself after Seth hung up the phone, "That woman doesn't know the meaning of subtlety. I'd hate to think of what she can do now, especially with the results of her recent surgery."

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Meet the Family<span>

(Six Days Earlier – Aohura City, Japan – Genhanten)

Sasuke sat on the stoop in the alley out behind the building that contained his restaurant. His reason for being out there being to oversee the delivery of ingredients to Genhanten while his workers kept things going during the end of the day early dinner rush.

'Goddamn I'm bored.' Sasuke thought to himself, 'I wish something interesting would happen around here. Anything. I don't care what it is.'

Turning to his left he acknowledged the presence of Akira who was sitting right there next to him on the stoop, her bike parked off in a corner of the large open alley. Her helmet was off and she was just looking off into the distance with a content expression on her face. With that helmet off she was really mellow and shy, but when she put it back on she could be assertive and downright fierce. It was odd.

Kazama Akira had made it a habit of stopping around on most days after her high school let out, even if it was only for a little while. Admittedly it was nice company, albeit confusing as to what the point of it was. He didn't know what she wanted.

She didn't want to fight. She never really talked when that helmet of hers was off. And she didn't want to hire him, though she did show interest in him being an assassin and not liking Naruto, probably hoping in vain that he'd take it upon himself to kill him to make her day.

Who knew what she wanted? Maybe she just liked the atmosphere of his restaurant?

Either way it didn't matter.

Eventually though, more people walked into the alley. All high school students from the looks of them, led by three young men. One was of normal height in a purple outfit with weird-looking blond eraser hair, one was massive and looked like a sumo in the making, and the last one was calm and cool... even though he had a crutch to walk with he was the most dangerous of them all.

Akira tensed up and let out an almost silent gasp, but Sasuke didn't notice. As they all looked at him and Akira he felt the need to speak up at this strange situation, "Hello? Can I help you with something?"

Edge was the first to speak up, stepping forward with his hands cockily in his pockets, "Yeah, the first thing you can do is go die. Save me the trouble."

"Ooh." Sasuke said with a smirk before hopping off of the stoop. Somebody came to call him out. He hadn't beaten the piss out of anyone in quite some time, upstanding small businessman that he was, "Ooh is this really happening? Because I really hope it is." That was the most excitement for anything that Uchiha Sasuke would ever show.

"Oh trust me." Edge said, removing a hand from a pocket before pointing it at himself, "You don't want any of what I am right now." He had just beaten the finalist in the World Warrior Tournament in a game of darts _and_ he had an entire gang at his back. It could be said that the small-time punk was feeling rather lucky today.

"Come on then." Sasuke said, beckoning him forward. Something about this guy really made him want to slam his head through one of those delivery trucks, "Bring all five feet of you, or should I count your stupid hair?"

"Pretty big talk coming from a lame-ass playboy pretty boy."

"Pretty big talk coming from a chickenshit wannabe-Yakuza bitch."

Before Edge could literally make Sasuke's day and pull some throwing knives to initiate a fight with, Daigo lashed out with his crutch and swept his legs, knocking him to the ground, "Control yourself imbecile. This isn't Uzumaki. Look at those eyes. He won't just beat you up and leave. He'll actually kill you on purpose."

'Check out the big brains on the boss man.' Sasuke thought, giving Daigo a nod of respect of sorts for keeping his subordinate in line, 'Is that guy serious? I've killed actual gangsters. What does he think I'll do to him?'

Akira tugged on Sasuke's sleeve and quietly spoke to him, "…Kill him..." Was all most people listening in could hear from her. Sasuke was close enough to hear the extended version though and got everything.

"Fine." Sasuke said with a scoff before sitting back down next to her, "For you. I won't kill the blond idiot since he's your friend. But he'd better check that attitude at the mouth of the alley or he might not make it back out with all of his teeth."

From his place on the ground, Edge growled and started getting back up, ready to pull another throwing knife, "Motherfucker thinks he's tough." Before he could get up and do anything Gan sat on his back pinning him to the ground, "Get off fatass! This is a matter of respect!"

Ignoring Edge, Daigo walked forward and looked over at a red-faced Akira, "So this is where you go every day little sister."

"Not every day." Akira said softly, still blushing more than a little bit. Of all things, was she really staying around there enough for Daigo to get curious as to her usual whereabouts? How embarrassing… and possibly dangerous, "Daigo-nii, why'd you come here?"

His eyes quickly darted Sasuke's way and Akira's jaw dropped slightly before she glared up at him, trying to warn him off from possibly humiliating her. Being that he was stronger than her, it did not work, "Uchiha Sasuke?"

"Yeah?" Sasuke replied, eyes up and staring emptily at what he'd obviously by now figured to be Akira's big brother. His fingers twitched a bit at the thought of a big brother, but this was not the time to bring his own family issues into the open, "Is there something I can do for you?"

Daigo didn't say anything, instead just sizing Sasuke up for what seemed to be the longest time. In the end though, he just smiled, something that looked out of place on his face that was probably twisted in a scowl or a frown more often than not, "Make sure you take care of Akira."

Why? Even if someone attacked them stupidly Akira was strong enough to fight just about anyone by herself.

Either way, Sasuke had been addressed and had to respond. With an interestedly quirked eyebrow Sasuke just nodded, figuring that agreeing would get this whole awkward situation to drop as soon as possible, "Sure."

Akira was trying to carve a hole through Daigo's skull with her stare at this point, so much so that the entirety of the Gedo High Gang started taking steps back away from her. She was so going to punch him in the stomach when she got home later. She was definitely not cooking for him that night. He could feed himself for a day or two.

Seemingly satisfied after his quick observation and screening of Sasuke's character, Daigo motioned for everyone to leave the alley. With Gan getting up off of Edge, Daigo picked him up by his collar with his free hand and hurled him all the way out in an impressive show of strength, "My apologies for the actions of Eiji by the way." He said, speaking of Edge, "He lacks manners and common courtesy."

"I know the type." Sasuke deadpanned, "You might want to put him on a leash if you want to keep him."

"I'll keep that in mind." Daigo said with a humored look on his face before turning to leave with the rest of his gang as well, "Akira, I'll see you at home."

Akira's eyes didn't stop following her older sibling until long after he had left and she let out a quiet sigh of resignation. She'd done a pretty good job of keeping the crazy that was her brother's high school gang as far away from Sasuke as possible only for all of it to fall on his head in one fell swoop.

She was seriously going to kick the crap out of Daigo later. That jerk, he knew exactly what he was doing.

"Your brother seems like an alright guy." Sasuke commented idly, much to Akira's surprise. Not only because he hadn't been disturbed by anything that had just happened, but also because he was talking to her period. He barely did that without some kind of prompting first, "He should really keep better company, but whatever."

"…You don't hate Daigo-nii?"

"I didn't say all that." Sasuke said, making sure she understood him correctly, "Let's just say that I hate him less than a lot of other people I've met in this town."

A frown sprang to her face upon hearing that from him, "Is there anyone you don't hate?"

"You. Duh." Sasuke said with a shrug. He felt that much should have been obvious by now, "It's why I let you hang around. Out of everyone I know in Aohura City you're the only one whose presence I can tolerate for more than ten minutes at a time without wanting to bury a kunai in my eardrums."

Disturbing analogy aside, Akira took in the gist of what Sasuke was saying and accepted the heavily concealed compliment that it was meant to be, "Do you mean that?" She asked in a very quiet voice.

"Yeah." Sasuke confirmed, either not knowing or caring about what his words happened to do in regards to her insides doing flips, "Seriously. You're the only person I like. Everybody else I've ever met sucks." Even his other friends.

No. _Especially_ his other friends.

All of his other acquaintances; Naruto, Yang, Yun, Chun-Li on a good day. Every single one of them could be absolutely overbearing when they wanted to be. Even when they didn't want to be most of the time actually.

Akira was better than all of them. She never talked when there was nothing going on. When she did have something to say, it was always useful. She knew how to enjoy the tranquility around her. Yeah, from his viewpoint she would be his first choice whenever he needed a second for something. He might even bother with giving her his phone number in case she needed him or vice-versa.

Hey, you never knew.

All Akira could do was look down at her biker boots with a small smile on her face that she did her best to hide.

* * *

><p><strong>I don't know how this got so long. But it happened and here it is. Some time has passed and will continue to pass between the tournament and the next arc beginning in earnest. Now if you'll excuse me I've got a big-time presentation to put together by Tuesday. <strong>

**It's basically the end of my semester and I've got tons of things to do. I've got to prioritize what stories I write according to what I feel like dealing with at the time... and this won the contest of keeping my attention the easiest.  
><strong>

**Hope you enjoyed, Kenchi out.**


	40. Wheels in Motion

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. The world did not end on the 21st, however a lot of people found it a reason to act like fools the night before. But the Mayan calendar hype did manage to benefit me in some way, so I can't really complain about it.

**Chapter 40: Wheels In Motion**

* * *

><p>"Naruto wake up."<p>

"Go 'way. It's the weekend Sakura-chan."

"…It's the afternoon. What did you do last night?"

"Intercepted a smuggler's run into Tokyo Bay with Sasuke-teme. Joint mission. Late stakeout."

More work, more school, more work to top off all of the school, and enough training in between all of that to make any passing weekend warrior of a fighter regret their idea of a hobby. That was the basic archetype of Naruto's daily living for two months.

Sasuke had to kill a Triad boss trying to move himself and his product out of Hong Kong off of a tip and a commission from his 'not-master' Gen. On the other hand Naruto had to capture the drugs and bring it to Metro PD off of a payment from a detective that didn't have enough evidence to justify a police raid.

Naruto's job was way more dangerous because the drugs actually had to be intact at the time they were handed over, but with Sasuke running amok to accomplish his mission Naruto's wound up going smoothly.

Collaboration was the spice of life after all.

"Well that explains why you left town so fast after school ended yesterday."

Sakura stood over Naruto's bed dressed for the day while the man himself remained under his covers with a pillow buried over his head to drown out anything that would keep him from his sweet, sweet slumber. As active as he could be when he was actually awake, there was probably no one more difficult to actually rouse into consciousness.

A quick glance at a nearby calendar put Sakura in a pitying mood, thus she figured she could ease Naruto awake. She wanted to go do something fun today, but apparently he had to work last night and he probably hadn't gotten back until dawn.

He hadn't been the only one that had been busy lately. Everyone in their immediate and extended group of friends were hard at work with their own things, all over the world.

Batsu was busy with his free time trying to get his test scores up with the help of his girlfriend, the reason being so that they could get into the same university. It both helped and hurt that unlike him she was actually quite book smart. It was good because she was actually able to help him get better, but it was bad because her school of choice wasn't necessarily easy for guys like him to get into.

Ibuki was actually taking it upon herself to ratchet up her training, all to try and prepare for whatever major final test her village was going to throw her way for her graduation task. She was almost religiously leaving to go back to her village to get to work, but she could oftentimes be caught with her pretty brown eyes resting on Naruto's form sitting in front of her in class when she was certain he wasn't paying attention. Perhaps she required motivational thoughts to keep going with her program?

Karin was doing… something that they couldn't get out of her. All they knew was that she wasn't wasting a minute outside of class to get whatever it was done. Even in class, she seemed to spend every second on her smartphone working on some kind of project that was clearly extremely important. Naruto wasn't even sure if she was sleeping regularly or not. If anyone was an expert on that it would have been him.

E. Honda was still kicking sumo ass and had cleaned up in his most recent tournament a few weeks ago. Ken was still sitting pretty and basically living the dream in California; richer than filthy hell with a hot wife, and nothing to do all day but train, goof off, and run his businesses.

Chun-Li and Guile were apparently back to work in their respective jobs, investigating some trouble that was occurring in South America in a joint operation between Interpol and the U.S. Air Force. There was only so much they could divulge to them due to the nature of their careers, but that sort of thing was basically their jobs to deal with anyway.

Ryu had stopped by in Aohura City for a day or so to see how Sakura was faring with her increasingly grueling training, but as usual he didn't stay for any real sort of time at all. Last any of them had heard from him he was catching a flight out to Australia. What he could possibly do there that would make him a better martial artist no one knew, but if anyone could find it he was definitely the one that could.

Cammy was doing… Cammy things. Basically she trained, watched a lot of TV, ran her choice of Naruto's missions for her own money, and did jobs around and outside of town at her own leisure, and took care of her cat. That was enough to keep her happy.

So everyone was into something, but still no one burned the candle at both ends quite like the hardest working man in mercenary business of questionable legality.

Work was work. It needed to be done and with that there was nothing else to be said. Naruto cared about it more than a lot of other things that went on around him. He cared next to nothing about school, because a diploma was not going to help him do anything he wanted to do. The only reason he went was because all of the people close to him went, and it would have been a shame if he didn't at least graduate high school when he was fully capable of doing such a thing.

Still, working would always come before anything having to do with academia.

"I really hate your job Naruto." Sakura sat down by Naruto on his bed once he readjusted his pillow beneath him, "This isn't good for you to do by yourself." She said, reaching out a hand to run through his hair, "I know you're a ki or chakra juggernaut, but it's got to be tough on your mind. If you got hurt out there who would know about it?"

All Naruto did was mutter tiredly as he allowed Sakura to delicately continue her ministrations. Eventually though, he cracked his eyes open to look up at his best friend, "If you're gonna stay and fret you can lay down too you know. It's fine."

Sakura rolled her eyes but didn't hesitate to slip in next to Naruto, facing the same direction that he was with her back against him, "We're too old to do this anymore." All she heard was Naruto snickering a bit and she forcefully threw one of his arms underneath hers to keep it in place around her stomach, "I mean it. It was inappropriate when we were thirteen in middle school, let alone now."

"I don't want to hear that when you actually got in bed just now." Naruto replied cheekily, shutting his eyes to relax again, "I didn't pull you down here. You can be just as lazy as I can be and you know it."

"It's just your bed. It's huge and comfortable and it always has been. Whenever we took naps at my house we always kicked the wall and fell off of the bed." Sakura defended before going quiet and letting the afternoon tranquility fill the air before not really feeling up to sleeping. She really just wanted to spend some time with her best friend, "Naruto, are you sure I can't get you to think about going to a university?"

"I don't even want to go, and I'd just be wasting the place I was taking." Naruto said, burying his nose against the back of Sakura's head, "That's basically stealing someone else's spot that actually wants to be there. I don't need to."

It was strange how comfortable the two of them were with each other. Such an intimate gesture meant absolutely nothing between the two of them. All it did was get Sakura to relax further, even with a semi-serious topic presented, "I wish you'd consider it though. What are you going to do when we get older?"

"Well what about you? What's Sakura-chan going to do with those straight-As of hers?" He asked, tickling at her stomach until she pinched his arm to get him to stop. She loved it though, otherwise she'd have decked him years ago.

"Be a teacher." Sakura answered honestly, finding it to be maddeningly comfortable where she was. God, Naruto was really warm. She'd anticipated being more active today, not lazing away in a bed. Now she didn't even want to get up, "I've thought about it for a while now. A martial arts teacher. That's what I want to be."

"Like Dan?" Naruto questioned, and she could just feel him grinning against her back at the thought.

"No, not like Dan! Dan's moves are retarded!" Sakura blurted out, face red with embarrassment as she rolled over to face him, "I mean it! I love martial arts Naruto. It's given me so much. It even gave me you. But all the time we only see the dark and evil side of it. It gets such a bad reputation, and I want to do something about it. Maybe if I can get famous like you or Ken or Ryu I can start trying to. I don't know. In my head it's so clear, but when I say it out loud I can't find the words to explain."

"I know what you're saying." Naruto said to ease her worry. And he did understand. Sakura had always looked at the beautiful side of fighting. The infinite number of complex styles and techniques being created every day. The sheer amount of people that they had both met through fighting. The people that they had helped. She was a very idealistic girl, and he liked that, "I don't know why you need to go to college to teach people how to fight, but that's okay."

Apparently Sakura had thought about this quite a bit due to the look on her face as she averted her eyes away from Naruto, "Well I want to be seen as more than just an instructor. If you hadn't noticed most of the people we meet associate fighting with delinquency and crime."

"Yeah, my bad." Naruto said with a guilty expression on his face. There was a good chance he was partially responsible for that, at least in Aohura City.

"No, not because of you. I was thinking about the actual bad guys we've been fighting for years like Bison or Vega." Sakura assured him with a few pats on the cheek before taking a second to think about it, "-But come to think of it the perception of you doesn't really help that mindset. Anyway, I don't think people would take what I'd have to say outside of technique seriously even if I was a great fighter if I didn't have a diploma. Now come on. What does Naruto want to do when he grows up huh?"

Instead of an embarrassed answer the way she had been expecting, Sakura just got a blank look for several moments before Naruto shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know. I used to want to go home, and I still want to see if it's possible, but I have no idea what I really want. I can't really be Hokage here. Don't need to be either."

People loved him and cared for him. More people knew his name and more people than he ever would have figured openly acknowledged that he was great at something. That was basically all he had ever wanted out of life before realizing that he cared about something vastly more important than that. Hokage was just the end-all to confirming that he'd achieved all of that, thus it had been the dream.

So what could he actually do here? Could he really be a mercenary for the rest of his life? Was there anything out there that he could do for a living that was better?

"I could call you Hokage." Sakura propositioned with a grin, getting herself closer and more comfortable against him while Naruto had been thinking to himself, "I don't know what makes you a 'fiery shadow' other than the fact that you're a ninja that wears orange, but whatever."

"It doesn't really work like that Sakura-chan." Naruto said with a laugh, wrapping his arms around the girl and getting her to laugh too, "Thanks. I'm still not going to university though." Sakura pouted at him only for Naruto to shut his eyes and try sleeping again, "Night."

"…It's one in the afternoon…" That being said she didn't make any kind of move to get up herself.

XxX

(Rural Village in Kerala, India)

It was the same as it had been for a month.

Even after getting attention to his village to raise the money he had needed for them, the hits just kept coming for Dhalsim. One problem that was solved would just lead into another one, apparently making him another person afflicted with this kind of luck.

He had gotten the necessities that his village needed such as medicines and other goods required for a modern community to survive and thrive. And once he had obtained that there was a whole new issue.

The flow of water into the village had more or less stopped cold. It didn't make any sense.

That was most certainly not good. While they had the money to bring in water to survive with for a while, it was necessary to get the water back soon or there would be no hope. The only saving grace out of everything was that it was not summer yet. If that had been the case it would have been an emergency of catastrophic proportions. It was still an emergency, but not as horrible as it could have been.

What he found miles and miles upstream that was the cause was most certainly not what he had been expecting at all; a dam impeding the progress of the river from properly going forward and reaching his people.

'When was this built?' Dhalsim's white, pupil-less eyes looked onto the monolith strangling water away from his village in shock, something that didn't appear overtly on his face very often, 'I knew nothing of this!'

The land a mile away from the dam on all sides was gated off and guarded with electricity, barbed wire, and sentries, but it didn't matter as it could be seen from that far away downstream. Whatever the meaning of this was, Dhalsim was dead-set on finding out and for once he had no time to waste. He needed answers, and someone needed to come forward and take responsibility for this.

Teleporting himself past the gate and onto the premises he was immediately met by men in strange white uniforms pointing guns at him, "Put down your weapons, take me to whoever is in charge here and none of you will be harmed. This I swear."

Well as can be guessed, that didn't go over so well with the people holding the bloody guns, and they proceeded to open fire. Against someone that could teleport himself out of harm's way you had to get a bit more imaginative than that.

Reappearing well out of the line of fire, Dhalsim knocked several of them out with one extended limb kick, as solid as a swinging steel beam. They were trained, but he was out of this world in regards to being a combatant.

The last man standing from the skirmish turned and shot at him again only for Dhalsim to jump into the air and extend his arms for an overhead swing of twin hammerfists that smashed the sole soldier into the ground, forming a small crater underneath him.

The modest mystic detested fighting, but he was not about to allow himself to be shot at by anyone.

"My apologies." Dhalsim said in a calm and meaningful tone of voice as he walked over to the individual that he had just undoubtedly stuck with numerous medical bills, "I gave you all ample warning that such a thing could happen. Now-." He said, reaching forward to grab hold of the soldier's helmet, throwing it aside before resting his hand on the unconscious man's head, "-Let us see just who you are."

A quick flash of thoughts ran through the head of the man not trained to mentally resist being probed in such a manner, by proxy spilling everything he had worth knowing over to Dhalsim who promptly let go of him after getting what he could.

It was a dam built by the S.I.N. organization, but for what he had no idea. He was unable to learn such even from reading someone's mind. The person that gave him his orders happened to be a slightly higher-ranking grunt. So many interchangeable faces, Dhalsim was certain that he would get nowhere through this method.

The man was a grunt. The lowest of the low in the hierarchy. The soldiers were told nothing worth knowing, even the higher ranking officers. They were just bodies with guns meant to get what the science department needed to work. All he really knew was that he had been trained, given a gun, and paid well to do what he thought would be completely harmless to him. Guarding a dam built without anyone's knowledge upstream from a poor village that could just be steamrolled by a large enough armed group was not particularly a difficult assignment for a paramilitary group.

Was it morally horrendous? Of course it was. But human beings had great capacity for evil, even when it came to the evil of inaction. Most didn't care about what went on around them as long as it didn't adversely affect them, and this most certainly did not. None of these men were local. Not even close.

Maybe that was why they didn't surrender upon seeing and hearing him? Because either they didn't know him, they didn't speak Hindi, or both. Perhaps he should have spoken English instead. He probably would have had a better chance of getting a response aside from a hail of bullets.

But for now he had to leave. He could already sense others coming his way and didn't feel like fighting an outright war without knowing what he was getting himself and his village into. Not directly and not on his own. Taking things into his own hands and his own hands alone would be the actions of a foolish and prideful man. Hurriedly taking a few minutes to wipe the minds of the soldiers that had seen him, Dhalsim teleported off of the premises and started back for home.

There was something he could do, and help that he could request from someone possibly better equipped to get the necessary information on this newest threat to his village. He was not about to set off a possible military response against his village due to his presence there. It was too risky.

A few minutes after his departure, a new platoon of white-uniformed soldiers made their way to the location of the perimeter squad's decimation. They were quick to search and lock down the area, but found no signs of just who or what had beaten the others senseless.

Amongst them Crimson Viper looked around, almost bored at all of it, but she picked up a ki signature through the sensor in her Battle Suit, faint though it was. If a real fighter had been there attacking, regular soldiers might not have been enough.

Actually regular soldiers definitely wouldn't have been enough. There was a reason that no one in S.I.N. told the bottom of the barrel employees anything important; because they weren't particularly reliable in a pinch. But they were still necessary.

The small ki signature traces came from every soldier that was down and out, centered at their heads for some reason. Well that was next to useless, "I hate working so many of these assignments abroad." She said to herself as she ensured that she saved the signature for later in case she ran across it again and could identify just who did this, "…I'll just call Lauren later."

"Well." One of the soldiers adorned with better gear and weaponry than the others said, running up to Viper, "There's no further sign of any intruder. What do you think should we do?" From how jumpy he was he seemed to be anticipating a to-be raid on one of the villages miles away.

"Return to base." Viper ordered without hesitation as she started to head back to the dam, "This place is rather far out from the nearest village. If you idiots want to start an 'investigation' you'll end up razing several surrounding towns to the ground. We don't need that. We continue research on our projects and you continue guard duty, and actually _report_ when you run across something suspicious. Simple as that."

It was not a particularly popular opinion as far as the muscle went, "Feh, and what makes the head of the 'Battle Suit' project think that they have any authority over the military branch of S.I.N. when it comes to something like this?" He said, getting some snickers out of his men nearby, "You should go back inside and worry about your little science projects. We'll handle the important things."

Viper didn't say anything as she walked away, at first just adjusting some kind of switching mechanism visible only to her on her suit's special left glove. Without warning she drew her fist back and without turning around delivered a heavy punch to the ground, "Seismic Hammer!"

The second her fist connected from where she had been, the ground underneath the disrespectful soldier of fortune exploded, shooting him fifty feet into the air like a ragdoll. All the others could do was look on in shock and awe as Viper continued to walk away as if she had never done a thing.

Pulling the glove tighter on her hand after using it she didn't even bother gracing the other idiot soldiers with a glance in their direction, "Do you want to know why the military branch takes orders from the technological branch instead of the other way around? It's because in S.I.N. the science is the power. Intelligence and development is our strength. And you all just don't measure up on that front. You barely meet the requirements physically. Which is why you're here, to look tough and to point your little guns while we make the real difference."

She shot an even-tempered glance at one man that took a step back just in case he had done something to earn her ire.

All Viper did was scoff. As if she would waste her time beating up the nobodies for kicks when there was real work to be done, "Please. This suit has been tested enough times against fools like you, in greater numbers, with guns. I wouldn't waste the effort running a trial I've already completed when I've got new ones that need to be performed. So shut up and do your jobs, because my superior is infinitely scarier than yours."

Their superior just twitched haplessly in the heap that he had been left in. It was safe to say that there would be no dispute from him anytime soon.

XxX

(A Few Days Later – Aohura City, Japan – Genhanten)

"Why do you all keep coming here?" Sasuke asked in an exasperated manner as he came down from his office to watch an employee drop a check directly on a table populated by Naruto and all of his similarly-aged friends seemingly fresh out of school for the most part, "I don't get it."

Batsu was the first to speak up with a shrug of his shoulders as he was quick to pass the bill to his left, away from him and his girlfriend, "Because the food here is great." What did he want them to say? The place was good. The fact that he treated most of them like dog crap on the bottom of a shoe was irrelevant as long as the restaurant was that awesome.

"The real question is why you tolerate our presence to begin with if you don't want us eating here." Cammy said, wearing clothes that were reserved for her, "I mean, I was of the mindset that owners of businesses reserved the right to refuse service to anyone they wanted."

Sasuke muttered a response under his breath as Karin pulled out a black card and handed it over to his employee to pay for the meal without a care. Seriously, if she of all people happened to be eating it instead of personally catered food it had to be pretty good.

"I didn't quite catch that." Sakura said to nearby Kei in regards to what Sasuke had said, having honestly not heard him, "What was that?"

With a smirk, Karin folded her hands to neatly rest her chin on them while waiting for her card to come back, "I believe Uchiha-san was more than likely referring to how we usually pay for quite a lot of food when we come here." Naruto, Batsu, and Ibuki's combined faults since the three of them combined were a culinary terror. The three of them were still eating even though the check had come, "…By '_we_' I am of course referring to myself."

A scoff came from the only blond male at the table in Naruto, "Me, Cam, Sakura-chan, and Batsu all have the money to pay for ourselves you know. It's not our fault you always pay for everyone else." He deadpanned in between bites of his food, "You just like to show off a lot Rin-Rin." He wasn't really complaining since he was the last person that could talk about having an ego. He was just making a point.

Karin's smirk dropped at the sound of her drunk-times nickname and she shot a slight glare Naruto's way. Thank goodness no one else knew about that, "I would prefer it if you did not call me by that insufferable name Naruto-san."

"No." Naruto said, sending a somewhat challenging look her way, "Why? I think it's cute." Karin didn't have anything to say to that, thus she just settled for trying to hide her reddening face under the guise of a look that made her look more adorable than threatening given the situation.

"…Wish I had a nickname…" Ibuki grumbled to herself, chopsticks held in her mouth as she continued to finish her meal. She needed that energy for training that evening in her village. She couldn't afford to be jealous because being jealous required that precious energy… or did it?

"Your name is hard to screw with though." Naruto defended, having heard her, "I've tried, but I can't get anything that sounds natural or even halfway decent. Besides, if you actually want a nickname it defeats half my purpose of giving people them."

Who thinks that thoroughly in regards to doling out nicknames? Usually a guy that can get bored and has trouble paying attention to monotonous things pretty easily. Besides, counting his own drifting thoughts along with his clones that had idle thoughts of their own, Naruto had enough random thoughts to fill a notebook on any given week.

As everything continued to proceed, Sasuke eventually found an opening to grab Naruto and drag him off to the stairs that led up to his office where he finally let go. Naruto didn't say anything because if it wasn't in a pitched battle between the two of them Sasuke wouldn't try to hurt him. Thus he figured he was safe for the most part. As safe as he could be anyway.

It was kind of strange though, "So what's up? I'm assuming you had a reason for that. And I'm also guessing that you Sharingan-screwed everyone's head into not asking why you pulled me off somewhere."

Whatever it was seemed to have Sasuke pacing up and down the stairs, "Listen…" Sasuke said, palming his face to try and keep his cool as it seemed like there was something quite difficult bothering him, "Every fiber of my being wants to puke at once when I say this, but I need your heee…. I need your heeeelll…" He sound like he was dry heaving and instinctually blocking something.

"You need my help?" Naruto ventured to ask with a raised eyebrow. Was it really that hard for him to ask for assistance?

"Yes." Sasuke said, looking away up the stairs trying to regain his aloof coolness, "That."

"Well what is it?"

"Someone's coming in here today, and you and I need to put them down. Hard."

"What?"

They needed to kill someone, and Sasuke knew they were coming in here well in advance? No, it wasn't going to go down that casually. How could it? Naruto didn't even know who he was being asked to help kill.

Sasuke could see the apprehension all over Naruto's face and decided to try and make things go a little smoother by explaining himself, "This really isn't a good person dobe. You know I'm picky with who I assassinate. Well this person is an assassin too, with way more kills than me, and I can guarantee you when they get here they're going to screw everything over for the both of us. It's the most dangerous person in Asia, period."

From what he could tell Sasuke was dead serious about this, and that was enough to keep Naruto's attention, "When do they get here?" Sasuke just held up two fingers, getting Naruto to go wide-eyed, "Two hours or two minutes? Both are bad, but one sucks way worse than the other."

"Minutes. But I know better, so they might already be here."

"In the restaurant? Eating? Now? How am I going to know who it is?"

"You'll know who it is when I try to kill them first. Now let's go see."

With that, Naruto and Sasuke went back down the stairs and began looking through his restaurant, carefully scoping out all of the patrons. Naruto kept close with a kunai ready to be drawn right from his sleeve if the need arose.

Eventually red eyes locked onto the old hands of someone purposefully trying to hold up a menu to grab Sasuke's attention, and he didn't waste a second, "Get the fuck out of my restaurant Gen or I'll kill you, you old bastard!" Sasuke shouted before preparing to launch a deadly weapon his way… right until he saw Akira sitting with him, "Uh, Akira, what are you doing here?"

Lowering the menu, the old man sitting with her smirked at Sasuke from behind his wispy grey beard. He had white hair and a very stern and superior look on my face and wore baggy purple Chinese clothes of the archetypal kung fu practitioner with a red sash around his waist.

Whoever he was, the killing intent flying off of Sasuke due to his presence might as well have been tangible.

"Oh, you know this girl?" Somehow everyone listening knew damn well that Gen knew that Sasuke knew her, "She so generously gave me a ride from the train station." Gen said condescendingly, much to Sasuke's growing ire, "And what do you mean _your_ restaurant? This is my restaurant. My name is in it. I just have you running it."

Sasuke actually stopped for a moment and looked at Akira with a raised eyebrow. He wanted to ask just how in the hell Gen managed to get her to be his ride from the train station when he was certain that he didn't know who she was to begin with before ever arriving. Did Gen even own a phone, even a landline? Ugh, wily old man logic was just something else.

Naruto tapped Sasuke on the shoulder and whispered to him, "Sasuke, who the hell is that, and why the hell do you want to kill an old man?" He certainly didn't seem to be the sweet old man variety, but still, "What's going on here?"

"I'm the boy's master." Gen said as he stood up from his seat and shuffled over to Naruto and a fuming Sasuke, "You could say he owes me… well, everything."

"Like hell you are, and like hell I do. You basically kidnapped me! I'm gonna put a pillow over your head and stab your face at midnight." Sasuke threatened once Gen was in reach. God, that old man made Sasuke angry. Even Naruto didn't piss him off that much. Naruto got one death threat, during a fight, and that was it, "Why are you here? I'd rather Yang and Yun be here! Go back to Hong Kong!"

"I'm taking a vacation." Gen said, casually walking past Sasuke to stare directly at Naruto for several seconds, "…Hm." Without saying a word to Naruto he walked past him as well and headed for the stairs, "I'll be taking your room. You can prepare the guest room for yourself for my stay."

Sasuke just glared at his back as he left, wishing that he could make him spontaneously combust with eye contact… preferably in black flames that would burn for seven days straight. With a sigh, he adjusted his clothes and addressed the rest of the patrons of the restaurant telling them that Gen was the owner.

Meanwhile both Naruto and Akira were nearby with their jaws hanging, for the exact same reason. Akira didn't have it in her to speak up, but Naruto did, "…What the fuck just happened? Did I just watch you get punked out?" Sasuke had probably put people in genjutsu comas for less.

"If I fought him in here I couldn't do it without destroying the building" Sasuke defended, finally calming back down entirely, "Apparently he has leukemia. Feh." Gen was way too strong to be any kind of sick. The old man seemed like an old hermit that would never die, "Too much trouble trying to kill him here. I'll do it though. Don't you worry about it."

At this point, Naruto, Sasuke, and Akira had walked over to the table where Naruto's friends had been, and all of them had seen and overheard everything. "Now I'm not the kind of guy that propagates murder or anything…" Naruto said as he sat back down between Cammy and Ibuki, "…But you can't just challenge him and kill him now if he makes you mad enough to freak out in public?"

"Yeah." Batsu followed up in turn, "Aren't you one-sixth his age at closest?"

Hinata had to chide her boyfriend. Really, that whole rampant disrespect thing was not going to work in his advantage outside of street fighting, but she didn't know how to make him cut it out, "Batsu-kun be nice. You don't say things like that."

Ibuki hadn't been able to take her eyes off of Gen since seeing him, and even though he was gone her eyes still lingered on the last place where he had been, "None of you know who that was? That was Gen, one of the last true big legends of martial arts. The legendary underground assassin. He's one of the strongest men in the entire world! He's beyond winning tournaments and titles! Every student in the village is told to run if it looks like we have to fight him!"

That old man was really that strong? No way. He didn't look weak by any means, but to still make Sasuke think twice about starting a fight with him he had to be some kind of amazing.

The name sounded familiar to Sakura, which was strange since she only remembered obscure things when they had to do with Ryu. Wait, that was it, "I think I saw him in the original World Warrior Tournament." She said in remembrance, "He won his first fight, but then something happened to make him lose didn't he?"

"That stupid First World Warrior Tournament?" Sasuke asked with a roll of his eyes before making his point, "He didn't lose. He fought Yang and Yun's uncle for fun and then the officials forced him out after they found out how sick he was. The whole thing bored him to death anyway. For the best in the world everyone there was so weak except for Sagat. The whole thing sucked except for the finals. Me and the dobe could have beaten most of the competitors back then."

All of this struck a chord with Karin, who had been wondering about something for a while. She'd wanted Naruto to be the best fighter in the world so that he could achieve the potential that she knew he had. And she thought he'd done that. Well, had mostly done it by virtue of fighting his way to the finals of the Second World Warrior Tournament and battling to a disputed draw with Sasuke.

And now she was learning that there was something past it. She thought she knew about what constituted real fighting. But the true best fighters in the world didn't give a damn about titles, accolades, and tournament victories. So what was she having him do for all of that time?

She should have realized it sooner, especially with all of the things that had happened to them. Real fighting. Real martial arts, it didn't happen in arenas and on stages with rules and regulations, and thousands upon millions able to observe it.

The real stuff took place where no one saw it. Where no one other than the participants and maybe a select few would ever be able to tell the tale, and where the stakes were higher than money or trophies or cheers and jeers.

"I should have known that." Karin said quietly to herself as her eyes moved over to Naruto, 'He knew that.' Even if he never said it. Actually he _did_ say it. The first thing he said when they had started all of this was that he didn't care about being known as the best fighter.

It was why Naruto seemed to enter every single tournament with a sense of detachment other than the determination that he was not going to get beaten no matter who his opponent was.

There were more important things than proving he was the best to others. Outside of the Sasuke match he never cared about a single tournament scenario he had been in more than any of the battles he had outside of them, even the ones that she had coaxed him into entering. Even in the last tournament he took part in only because he entered due to an outside reason that never really came to pass.

The real fights occurred when it was life or limb on the line, either his or someone else's. When there was something vital up for chance.

Naruto didn't know why he could see Karin smiling so serenely at him and wondered what she was thinking about for such a rare thing to happen, but it was still very beautiful when he saw it directed his way. He smiled back at her and all she could do was shake her head at him, confusing him a bit, but she didn't verbalize what her intent was.

After all of the real deathmatches she had seen and somewhat been a part of, where real things had been on the line including her life, she should have seen it sooner. And that also meant that the strongest fighters on Earth weren't those that took part even in the World Warrior Tournament.

It explained the strength of people like M. Bison (whom they didn't know the whereabouts of), and to an even greater extent the Akuma person that had appeared and disappeared just as quickly without a trace (they definitely didn't know where he was). There were probably even more.

That was what Ryu meant when he kept saying that he wasn't ready to train a student, because what right did someone like him have to do such a thing when there were still so many that could defeat him. It was what Ken meant when he said that being the U.S. Champion wasn't enough to mean anything, because against that level of fighter he was still subpar.

"Sagat before his fight with Ryu was on that level." Sasuke mentioned seriously, "The one you saw after then, before he died, that was just a shadow of the real man." The one Naruto fought was not the true 'God of Muay Thai.'

Sagat had never recovered properly from how Ryu ripped his chest open. His woes had nothing to do with his mindset or lack of battle ferocity. Talent was talent. He merely never stopped training and fighting after his defeat. It was as simple as that. Days after suffering the wound that should have killed him, it was reopened in the opening moments of a fight with Adon that he technically lost, and he _still_ continued to fight, eventually losing another match to Dee Jay that gave the musical kickboxer some fame.

Ryu's lucky Metsu Shoryuuken nearly killed him in the most grisly manner imaginable, and for three years afterwards until his death he never took time to rest away from fighting or training. He broke his own body with improper care when he could have continued to grow in strength.

"I'm sure most of you knew that though. But if you want to know how strong Gen is? Gen can beat Sagat in his prime… as he is now."

XxX

(South America – Brazil – Amazonas Region – Amazon Rainforest)

"This is like searching for a needle in a needlestack." Guile complained as he and Chun-Li were led through the jungle by a guide that their respective organizations had hired for them to help with their investigation into some rather nasty rumors, "I'm a pilot. I fly planes. And yet this is the second time in two years I've been stuck stomping my way through the wild without a clue."

"Just your luck." Chun-Li replied, though she wasn't much of a fan of this kind of legwork either, "Look, the energy discharge that your government picked up originated from the Amazon. Rumors led us here to investigate first, about the disappearing fighters. Sounds like a Shadaloo thing right?"

It did sound like a Shadaloo thing. A disappearance of local fighters spoken of having the capabilities to utilize ki, and a big expulsion of energy was basically the bread and butter that had been their modus operandi in the past. Old dogs didn't learn new tricks after all, so why would Shadaloo?

This was the only lead they had these days as well. Balrog had slipped away after his tournament defeat, and Chun-Li never had hard evidence of him committing crimes in the name of Shadaloo. Being 'security' wasn't necessarily a crime. Vega had long been dead after Naruto had killed him in Thailand during the raid on Bison's Psycho Drive. Birdie had been arrested in Hong Kong, but he was absolute bottom-of-the-barrel enforcer muscle. And even he'd been killed while in custody.

The only one basically unaccounted for was M. Bison himself. Cammy had seen him during the tournament, but he never showed himself. They were certain that he was probably the only one there that could have killed Sagat, and Blanka claimed that he had seen purple energy emitting from the jungle that attracted him to the dead Sagat's location, but nothing was found of the Shadaloo overlord.

For all intents and purposes he was still at large.

While they weren't going to be obsessive in their searching, when something like this came up they still had to do something about it. They were the only ones equipped with all of the resources to do so and with the experience to tough it out through whatever may come their way.

"Here." Their guide told them as they started coming up to the location that he had been meaning to lead them to the entire time, "This is where the light in the sky came from a few weeks ago. No one in the village came out in this direction afterwards." And who could blame them? The able-bodied fighters in the region were disappearing without a trace and then a strange thing like that occurs out of the blue?

Guile gave the Brazilian man a pat on the shoulder as he walked ahead to take a look, "Thanks." He might have been getting paid, but it was still a pretty big risk to be out there without knowing anything about what was happening.

Both he and Chun-Li moved forward through the brush until they got sight of an extremely disturbing sight. Littering the forest floor were bodies of mutilated animals and human beings. Weeks old. And that wasn't the thing that was the most surprising.

"What happened here?" Chun-Li asked, covering her nose and mouth with her hand as she and Guile looked around. Their guide wasn't going to get any closer, but he was going to hang around to see them back. Once again; no one was blaming him, "It's like parts of their bodies blew up like firecrackers…" Would throwing up have been a weakness at that point? Because that smell was horrible.

"Yeah, it's pretty grisly." Guile said, lifting a camera to take pictures. They needed to come back with something tangible to prove to their superiors that they had found something, "But I don't think it's Shadaloo's style to kidnap fighters just to kill them like this. And what's with the animals? The same thing happened to them." He took a few more pictures of the scene and then sighed, "Ugh… we've got to radio this one in. I don't think it's too late for an autopsy at this point."

"Please do." Chun-Li said, cringing at the heaps of dead around. There was absolutely no sign of explosive use, "I really don't know just what did this, but I can't wait to find out what it was. Or can I? I'm not really sure at this point."

Things were so much simpler back when she was busting up Shadaloo drug and weapon deals around Hong Kong for Interpol. Success was a real bitch to the status quo sometimes.

XxX

(Nightfall – Naruto's Apartment)

Laying in the dark of his room, Naruto stared up at his hand that was extended up at the ceiling and focused enough to form a Rasengan in his palm to light it up. He'd been thinking for most of the night, and his afternoon training after his meal with his friends wound up with him having his mind elsewhere the entire time.

Basically he had been told that in a tournament broadcasted on a world stage, with fighters being billed as the best anywhere, the best hadn't been there. Sasuke had basically alluded that if Gen had been in the tournament, they would have lost. He didn't say it, but he didn't have to. The things that he did say, and his actions, expressed as much. And the sharpness in the old man's eyes when he seemed to size Naruto up for a moment had been powerful.

It wasn't the kind of look that Naruto was used to, in the way that people were trying to gauge just how easy it would be to beat him, mapping out the entire fight in their head from what they thought of him. That kind of thing was usually all over everyone's face when they thought it. Gen was different. He didn't know what it was exactly, but it just was.

It was kind of hard to keep going on about being the strongest ninja in the world when things like this kept popping up.

"**That old man could kill you."** The abrupt voice of the Kyuubi in his head broke Naruto's concentration and forced him to drop his Rasengan, **"I'm not saying that to mess with you this time. Using my chakra the way you have been wouldn't be enough on its own to defeat him. Overpowering someone like that isn't the way to win. I can assure you that nothing he can do will match the sheer destruction that you're capable of, but that by itself isn't strength."**

"That sounds weird coming from you."

"**Yes… well, I have been defeated by humans on multiple occasions that were entirely unable to match my power and used more clever methods to get it done."** Kyuubi replied sardonically, **"I **_**would **_**know something about it."**

"I guess." Naruto said before sighing. The kind of mindset that created wasn't really productive. He needed to be better, and it didn't have anything to do with one of the strongest people alive appearing out of the blue. A lot of bad things could have happened back at the tournament, but they didn't. Anything could happen to anyone he knew at any time and he'd be damned if someone got as close to hurting them as Bison did to Cammy before he disappeared again, "So do you have any ideas on how to make my jutsu idea work? Because I don't."

"**The idea is quite a difficult concept, but I have had time to think on it since I've woken up and learned what you're trying to do."** Kyuubi said. That was the thing ever since Naruto had suppressed his dark side. Kyuubi had been a lot more receptive to productive conversation. It was still pretty frosty in its attitude toward him, but their relationship was better than it had been when he was younger. It was better than it had been before Akuma had cut them off as a matter of fact, **"I think I have an idea, but if it doesn't work it'll be stupid, even for you."**

Naruto just kept staring up at his ceiling, resting his hands behind his head as he conversed with the monster in his body, "The idea for half of the things I wound up creating were stupid, but they all work." After hundreds of failures, but that was all part of the game of creation, "Come on, what do you have?"

"**When someone uses ki against you, I can reverse your chakra flow and restart it, sort of like how you learned how to temporarily stop your heart so your clones could fool people easier. Reversing the flow at the instant hostile ki touches your palm will allow you to more or less pull the attack into your body since it will be flowing with the attack into your tenketsu."**

Naruto wished that the Kyuubi could see the look on his face, but he was sure that his intent shined through via his tone, "That's a complete load."

"**I can do something that simple! I've been randomly screwing with your control for years for fun!"** Kyuubi roared in Naruto's head, ringing his skull with the sound of his voice before he went back into explanation mode, **"However the timing is the problem. If you screw up the timing of me switching the direction of your flow you won't block anything and you'll take the attack head-on, so you know… practice or you'll get your arm blown off."**

That was easy enough to understand. If Naruto and Kyuubi's timing happened to be off Naruto would get blown away. That wasn't too different from what had been happening the rest of the time anyway when he tried to discover a way to use his idea, only now there was a chance that it would actually work if he could do it right.

He'd have to create a new hand-seal or something to signal Kyuubi to screw with his chakra if it was really possible to do so. It probably was, since Kyuubi's chakra was constantly interacting with his own. If getting pissed could result in his body being taken over involuntarily why couldn't he allow some kind of activity with his chakra to be done of his own free will?

"**That's half of the problem though. Starting your chakra over again fast enough to send it back is the other half."** What? Send it back? All he wanted was a way to negate foreign attacks. That was it, **"You see, if my timing is off on righting your chakra flow or if I don't do it at all your insides are going to get scrambled. You can't just take an attack and hold it, you have to redirect it and let it go." **Whoa. What? **"I have to do that anyway, because if I don't put your chakra back on the right direction of flow your control will be shot to hell, like you humans writing with your left hand instead of your right… or the other way. I don't pay attention to that trifle for most of you."**

Naruto thought long and hard about trying to practice such a thing and finally came up with something that summed up what he had been pondering for most of that time, "Why does everything new I learn how to do have to be that dangerous? If I do it wrong I take an attack or I turn my insides into jelly. Maybe I should stick to dodging, even if it would be a pretty nasty surprise."

"**Come up with your signal and just train with it until our timing is perfect. It's all a matter of practice, like I said originally."**

"Are you actually helping me with something?"

"**Yes. Now shut up about it. You have a guest."**

A knock came at Naruto's bedroom door as Naruto rolled his eyes. That wasn't a guest. That was just Cammy. He already knew she was coming, he could hear her footsteps outside.

The petite little femme peered in, trying to see him in the darkness, "Naruto. There's someone outside looking for you." Oh, so that must have been what the Kyuubi had been referring to, "I didn't know what you wanted me to do so I came to get you first. He knows you're here already and he's willing to wait."

Naruto sat up on his bed and grabbed a kunai off of the nightstand before Cammy put a hand on his to keep him from picking it up, "No trouble?"

"Not that I can think of." Cammy replied before pulling Naruto up and out to the front door of the apartment, "After all he's never hurt us before, but I can't possibly imagine why he's here." She said as she opened the door to the outside to reveal Dhalsim sitting there, hovering slightly off of the ground as he meditated, "I hadn't even looked outside of the peephole before he spoke as if he knew I was there."

Upon the door being opened to the domicile of the yellow-haired duo, Dhalsim stood back up on his own two feet and his pupil-devoid white eyes opened up as looked over at the two people he hadn't seen since the first night of the Second World Warrior Tournament.

Naruto looked confused, and his confusion was shared in by Cammy as to just what Dhalsim was doing there. Japan was kind of out of the way from anywhere a holy man in India would need to go, "Uh, you want to sit down?" Naruto asked, noticing now that they were inside in the light that Dhalsim was actually sweating and looked exhausted, "Bad flight?"

"No flight." Dhalsim responded, taking Naruto's offer to sit down with a bow. Cammy pulled out a seat in the kitchen area for him while Naruto went to get him a bottle of water to drink, "Thank you."

"What do you mean 'no flight?'" Naruto asked as he gave Dhalsim his drink and went over to sit on the back of his couch next to Cammy to listen, "You aren't telling me you took a ship here from India? Dhalsim that had to have taken weeks."

"It took a total of six hours to reach Aohura City, Japan, and an extra hour to locate your unique aura to find you." Dhalsim explained, taking a deep drink before he continued, "I travelled through the astral plane to get here. It is the most effective method of long-distance travel for me when I am in a hurry."

Naruto palmed his face, and even Cammy's eye twitched at the thought of someone being able to teleport anywhere they knew the location of if they so desired it, thus proving just how off-putting knowledge like that was. Even Bison couldn't do that to the best of their knowledge. What kind of crap was that?

It took a moment, but surprisingly Cammy was the one to address this, "You have the ability to travel anywhere in the world, wherever you like, whenever you like, just like that?" It took six hours according to him, but it really should have taken way longer given the distance he traveled, "I don't even know what to say about that."

She wasn't the only one, "I'm so glad you're not evil." Naruto said with a deadpan stare, "Because that is the creepiest thing I've ever heard anyone tell me out loud in my life. Seriously, that just edges out the Santa Claus stuff that Sakura-chan told me about that Christmas holiday when we were kids."

Like hell someone would come down his chimney and break into his house once a year to leave stuff. Let alone a big guy in red that spent every other day of the year in one of the most desolate places on the planet using what basically amounted to inhuman (and unpaid as far as he was told) labor to recreate literally anything else in the world that could be desired as a modern gift who had the ability to traverse the entire globe in a period of 24 hours, staying ahead of the sunlight and carrying an infinite amount of things on flying excuses for venison.

Naruto didn't even know many people that owned a chimney, which made the tale extra shifty. It was the original reason why younger Naruto got reinforced doors, crash-proof windows, and made the escape hole out of his apartment he and Ibuki used just in case, because preteen Naruto was superstitious to an extremely chary degree.

From his own short experience in the ninja world most legends were actually true, none of them ever wound up being very positive to those they were passed down to, and in his defense he really hadn't known better yet. He hadn't even been in Japan for six months at that point, so it very well could have been true.

He basically spent the first Christmas he ever had at Sakura's house holding a kunai and staying wide awake all night long. He got a present the next morning though, so that was cool. But that was whole 'nother story.

"I don't see what any of this has to do with my presence here." Dhalsim said, having taken the time that the teen pair had used to mentally scream at themselves about his ability to go anywhere he wanted.

"It has a lot to do with it since you apparently _teleported _here." Naruto said, getting an interested Cammy to nod in agreement, "What is that like anyway? Do you have to walk or run through that astral plane place like it's a spacial bridge to wherever you pop out at?"

"Is it something along the lines of a distorted sense of space and time or a pocket dimension?" Cammy inquired, "I've seen things like that on some of those animated shows on TV."

"Do you even have to do anything at all after you activate it or do you just pick a place and go? Can you sleep through it like a flight if it's far enough away? Ooh! Can you get stuck in it?"

"How much ki does it take to travel this far? You look exhausted."

"Please stop asking questions." Dhalsim said in his normal flat voice before getting to the point of his visit. If he let things go as they were who knew when the two would run out of questions about teleportation. He clearly did not see his special ability that he had possessed for years as something so groundbreaking. He did not have the viewpoint of two teenagers either, "I need your assistance."

Naruto pointed at himself and blinked, "_You_ need _my_ help?" Not that he had a problem with giving it, but still, "Well, okay. I would have helped anyway, but I owe you after all for the Kyuubi stuff. Sorry about evil-me almost killing your mind while you were in my head by the way."

Dhalsim held up a hand to stay the apology, "No need. But there is something troubling my village that I require powerful help for. Will you listen to my story?"

"Of course." It should have gone without saying. Dhalsim had more than earned Naruto having his back if that was what he desired. That man was an honorary comrade as far as he was concerned, even if he didn't associate with any of the rest of his friends, "But can I call some people first? Just in case."

"We can go to them now if you would wish." Dhalsim said, standing up after finishing his water off, "I've recovered enough energy to return and reach the people that you want to find. For assistance I presume."

Oh. Well, he had been walking around town for a while looking for his home, so that had to give him some recovery time. And he forgot that Dhalsim was eerily perceptive, "Uh, Cam? I'm going to be gone for a little while." He said as he went to grab a ready-made travel pack from his room, "Do you want to go?"

She shook her head as she watched him come back out, "I'll be fine alone." Cammy assured him with a small smile. Someone needed to stay behind and watch the house and the kitten. Cammy wasn't partial to fighting without a need for it anyway, "I'll call Sakura and tell her not to bother coming to wake you up for school."

Giving Cammy's thigh a squeeze as a wordless thanks as he walked past her, Naruto moved over to Dhalsim, "So how are we going to do this? I don't really know anything about travelling through the astral plane or whatever and I don't think I can pick it up in five minutes if it took you at least twenty years."

Dhalsim rested his hand on Naruto's head and shut his own eyes, "Just stand still and relax as I reach deep inside of you and grab hold of your essence."

"..." Naruto.

"..." Cammy.

**"..."** Kyuubi.

"..." Naruto could only look back at Cammy who also didn't know quite how to take that either before he finally found it in him to say something, "I... need an adult?"

In that stretch of time, Dhalsim had found the two people in Japan that Naruto would have first chosen to take with him and opened his solid white eyes while generating power, "I AM AN ADULT! Yogaaa-!" He then vanished out of the apartment with Naruto in tow.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Elsewhere in Aohura City)

Gen was a salty old jerk and Sasuke was going to find a way to kill him before he left if it was the last thing he did. It was as simple as that. How strong he was didn't matter, because he'd been clawing up that icy peak for years. Now he was on his turf as opposed to the other way around… even though Sasuke was only used to Aohura City for a few months.

He had to think of all of his advantages and make a plan to fight that son of a bitch, because his time was now and Gen's time was up! He fucked up by leaving Hong Kong to mess with him, and it was time to prove it! By killing him! Upstairs from his own restaurant!

Treacherous thoughts aside, Sasuke really needed to get out of there or he would have lost it and done something foolish. Gen had really taken his room/office over, and it pissed Sasuke off to no end. Where did he get off, other than just the obvious fact that he could do it because the lease to the property was in his name?

To that end he had taken a walk outside at night and had bumped into Akira at the store getting ingredients for her and her brother's dinner that night. That was what he assumed she was doing, because she barely spoke other than giving him a greeting.

He wished he could have used her as a sounding board for ideas on how to use his abilities to finally put it all together and successfully take out Gen, but he didn't want her to be at risk for being an accessory to murder because he was going to smoke that old man somehow!

That kind of fate was fine for Naruto though. Who cared whether or not he was an accessory to murder? Sasuke certainly didn't. He'd have been fine and could have fled the country. No normal cop could ever arrest Uzumaki Naruto, so making a run for it was always an option. Chun-Li would probably pursue him to the ends of the globe for it since they were friends, but whatever.

A nudge to his elbow by Akira holding on to a set of bags got his attention away from his perfidious thoughts. Looking over to her he saw her smiling slightly in a thankful manner as they kept walking back to where she originally parked her bike to go shopping, "Don't thank me. I was walking around anyway and we ran into each other. I didn't do anything other than watch you buy food."

It was probably the quietest shopping trip ever shared by two people in recorded history.

Akira shook her head a single time and once again didn't say anything, directing her attention back to finding her motorcycle in the parking lot again. She didn't need to hear him say anything really positive. He somewhat enjoyed her presence and that was enough for her.

She'd seen him outright ignore other girls that came to Genhanten just trying to get a look at him and maybe spark something. He never even gave them the time of day. On the other hand he had been extremely patient while she'd been getting things for herself and Daigo despite the fact that he had no stake in what she had wound up purchasing.

Other than the strange old man staying in Genhanten that had somehow gotten her number and convinced her to give him a ride to the restaurant from the train station, it had been a pretty good day.

At least until they reached the off-street parking area between two adjacent buildings and found someone sitting on her prized possession that was her motorcycle, "Hey!" That had been the loudest that Sasuke had ever heard Akira speak on anything without her decked out in full biker gear.

Sitting casually, legs both on one side of Akira's bike was a rather lovely young woman slightly older than the two of them, looking at them with a devious smile and dancing pink eyes. She wore loose and baggy white trousers open on the insides of her thighs with purple tights on underneath, held up with a black and purple belt wrapped around her waist thrice. She also had a black and purple breastplate with eight black straps that wrapped around to her back and pink gloves.

Her fingernails and toenails were painted a bright pink and her dark brown hair was set in two horn-like adornments with pink ribbons on the top of her head and two bangs framing both sides of her face, "Well, I thought someone like you would be harder to catch outside of that restaurant of yours. I didn't think you were the type for dates."

Sasuke ignored the 'date' remark altogether as Akira fumed silently next to him. Whether it was for the new arrival's crack about them being on a date, or because she was sitting on Akira's bike Sasuke didn't know. Nor did he particularly care at the moment.

What mattered was that someone looking for him, "Why were you looking for me of all people? That's not really smart."

"Well I have more targets in this town." The woman continued to say as she hopped off of the bike. Even in such a small movement it was so quick and dexterous, "…But you were the easiest to find with any real ki to you, so I picked you first to scope you out. Aren't you lucky?"

Sasuke's eyes drifted down to the girl's feet to see a small view of them underneath the bottoms of her baggy white pants. She was barefoot with the exception of foot garments worn mostly by kick-centric practitioners of competitive martial arts, "Hm." He had nothing to say. If someone wanted a fight with him he could show them just how bad of an idea that really was.

The dark smirk on her face just grew at the sight of Sasuke slipping into a base fighting stance to face her, "Hah, right past the foreplay and straight to the action eh? Not even gonna buy me dinner first?" She jested freely, "What kind of gentleman are you?"

"The kind that'll let you make the first move."

"Ooh. I take that back. Chivalrous. I'll take you up on that." With one move the strange woman spun around into a low wide stance with one foot underneath Akira's racing bike. Without missing a beat she lifted it up with one leg and with the other she kicked it away, aiming it at the wall instead of at a person. The heavy two-wheeled vehicle slammed off of the brick with harsh impact and landed with a crash through the windshield of a parked car in the congested lot, "Whoops. That was quite a machine wasn't it? It looked expensive."

Akira clenched her fists and dropped her bags before rushing forward speedily. Sasuke wasn't able to stop her as he was so stunned at her knee-jerk reaction. Apparently the quickest way to piss her off was to mess with her ride.

"Senshuubu (Cyclone Dance)!" Akira launched a low-aimed spinning kick at the perpetrator of the destruction of her property, sliding skillfully across the pavement speedily. All the offending woman did was beckon her forward challengingly, giggling at the prospect of Akira actually hurting her.

Sasuke could swear he saw a pink gleam from her left eye before she moved faster than he could see without his Sharingan that he hadn't activated. Akira didn't even know where her enemy had moved to at first until she heard a taunting whistle that directed her attention to where she was sitting bored on top of a car, "Is that it? I was told that this town was a hotspot for ki-adepts."

She did that to Akira, who hadn't been moving slow by any measure. Akira hadn't telegraphed her movement for a second until she actually threw her kick, and it hadn't even come close to hitting.

'This is not good.' Sasuke thought to himself as he then decided that no chances could be taken and he activated his Sharingan.

She wanted a ki attack? Well Akira was mad enough to oblige her, and if it blew a hole into her in the process that would have just been too bad. She wasn't as adept as others, but she knew how to fire a shot, and that was all she needed to shut this girl up.

Akira clasped her riding gloved hands before pulling them apart to spark a blue ball of ki that grew to the size of a volleyball. Daigo's was stronger and yellow in the color of its intensity due to him being stronger than her, but hers was faster than his, "Kikou Kai (Spirit Cultivation Cluster)!" She shoved her arms out to send her attack flying at the strange woman sitting on the car roof with the speed of a cannonball.

The woman's eyes lit up as she saw the attack coming, and the moment it left Akira's hands she planted her feet underneath her from her seated position on the roof to jump back and into the air. Akira's attack ripped the roof clean off of the car and the next three cars behind it, but it still missed amazingly enough.

"This city might be fun after all!" The woman shouted to herself laughingly before spinning once in the air and somehow changing her trajectory to swoop down at Akira like an eagle striking, leading with her leg that she used to initiate a barrage of three fast, alternating, booming kicks that nailed Akira in the face and chest, "Shinkusen (Flash of Suffering)!"

The last kick sent Akira flying out toward the entrance of the parking lot and potentially out into the sidewalk and street if Sasuke hadn't darted through the air to catch her first.

Landing in a slide, Sasuke had Akira held bridal style, completely unconscious. Only three kicks. That had been all that it really took to knock her out. And it wasn't a merciful KO either from the deep dark bruise that had already formed on her swollen cheek from the foot that had hit her.

The girl that had done the deed looked quite disappointed at the quick outcome, almost pouting, "That was it? I mean, yeah she had ki, but that wasn't even enough for me to get limber." She directed her attention to Sasuke as he set Akira safely to the side, "So what about you tiger? You look like you wanna play around for a bit."

Sasuke stood back up and faced her down as he got a good amount of distance between himself and Akira just in case this got out of hand in a hurry, "Name."

"Excuse me?"

"What's your name?" Sasuke asked again bluntly, "I like to put a name with the faces of people that piss me off."

A rather provocative and chillingly saucy grin appeared on the woman's face as she winked at Sasuke, "Juri Han. Would you like my number too?"

His eye twitched and he cracked his knuckles one good time as he got back into his previous stance, "I am going to enjoy this way more than I should." He said as he scrutinized her closely, 'Why is her eye generating energy?'

The recently identified Juri just laughed to herself and held one hand over her left eye, the one Sasuke found suspicious, "You and me both, but not today."

"What?"

"You heard me. I'm the kind of girl that puts pleasure before business. You could be both, but right now you're the business."

How was he business? Did someone finally know enough about him in the underworld to put out a hit on him? Or could it have been something else, "You don't get that choice. You lost it when you attacked us."

"Technically I didn't attack anyone, I just defended myself." In a surprising show of speed and leg strength Juri jumped into the air straight off of the ground to land on a rooftop in one nimble backflip, "Like I said, I'll be in town for a while, and I want to have my own fun first before I get to work. Unless you want to leave her alone just to chase after little ol' me."

In return Sasuke just narrowed his eyes and 'humphed' at the mean-spirited woman before moving back to Akira, "I'll see you soon enough."

"Oh don't be that way handsome. I promise that the next time you see me you'll have me all to yourself all night long." And with that Juri departed by running along the rooftops and streetlights, "I've got to settle a bit of a score of Bison's sinful little Dolls first."

There were rumors that the Doll codenamed Killer Bee had been relocated to Japan and to this town in particular. Juri had a real problem with that girl being alive, and sought to remedy that before she went about her S.I.N prescribed assignment.

She could spare a day or two to find her.

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Gen  
><span>Nationality:<span> China  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> 79 (Birthday: March 12)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'5/134 ½ lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> O  
><span>Likes:<span> Meat buns, Chinese poetry, his friend Lee (Yang & Yun's long-lost uncle), Chun-Li's deceased father, his students (including Yang, Yun, and Chun-Li).  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Many different people (Sasuke Uchiha included), warriors with no honor.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Prescribing Chinese herbal medicine  
><span>Rivals:<span> Akuma, Ryu (friendly), Chun-Li (friendly).  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Multiple styles of Kung Fu such as Crane, Mantis, Snake, etc./Tai Chi/Chinese Kenpo/Assassination Arts of Sou-ryuu (Mourning Style) and Ki-ryuu (Hateful Style).  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Hyakurenko (Hundred Linking Hooks), Gekiro (Opposing Waterfall), Jyasen (Snake's Puncture), Oga (Tormented Fang).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Zan'ei (Cruel Shadow), Jyakoha (Snake's Bite Snap), Zetsuei (Absolute Shadow), Shitenketsu (Deadly Acupuncture), Ryukoha (Dragon's Bite Snap), Teiga (Crying Fang).  
><span>Background:<span> Perhaps the most complete master of Chinese martial arts in the modern age, Gen is a legendary assassin of the law, with a guild based out of Hong Kong. Having taken down hundreds of high-priority targets in his life he is extremely well-known in the criminal world, just as famous in the underground as any legend comparison in the mainstream and even more feared by crime lords as he is said to be invincible in combat. Took part in Sagat's First World Warrior Tournament in the hopes of finding worthy opponents, but was diagnosed with leukemia during a mandatory health screening and was forced out of the competition early on without ever losing and without getting the battle he sought.

Gen's mastery of more or less every fighting style that can be found in China has made him a highly sought after teacher of the martial arts for truly knowledgeable, though is extremely fickle. His students are few and far between, but include Chun-Li, Yang, and Yun as relatives of his friends. Even Ryu had seen fit to train with him for a short time after the first tournament. His lifestyle of diligent training and knowledge of traditional medicines has kept his body healthier than the body of a normal man a quarter of his age. His focus is on precision and attacks that can quickly and cleanly kill enemies with the least amount of damage possible. His strength in this is so readily acknowledged by all that know of him that he had even attracted the attention of Akuma, surviving the strongest techniques of one another before Akuma detected his to-be fatal illness and left. To this day even in his declining health Gen longs for a final battle to the death with a worthy enemy, not willing to die in a sickbed of his disease and wishing to go out in a blaze of glory while his body is still able.

Name: Crimson Viper  
><span>Nationality:<span> United States of America  
><span>Gender:<span> Female  
><span>Age:<span> 30 (Birthday: July 18)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'9/123 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> AB  
><span>Likes:<span> Her daughter Lauren, making money.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Doing overtime.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Magic  
><span>Rivals:<span> Anyone in the way of her job.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Covert fighting tools and anonymous spy-oriented martial arts  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Thunder Knuckle, Burning Kick, Seismic Hammer.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Emergency Combination, Burst Time, Burning Dance.  
><span>Background:<span> Crimson Viper is an extremely aloof high-ranking employee of S.I.N. and the head of the 'Battle Suit' project for the organization; a project meant to search for avenues to produce 'enhanced beings'. The suit combines Viper's natural speed and agility with the lethal gadgets in her suit including powered gloves and special boots that serve multiple ability-enhancing purposes. The only test subject involved in the project with the skill and overall physical qualifications to use 100% of the suit's possible capabilities effectively, Viper is the primary candidate for testing the suit in field operations.

A woman with a very superior and condescending attitude, she despises things that keep her from spending time with her daughter Lauren, and has no patience for things that impede her from completing her job due to this. These things include incompetence in the workplace and troublesome outside elements. She is not a very sociable woman, and seems to casually ignore right and wrong in exchange for focusing solely on her own goals. The affairs of S.I.N. are only as important to her as to what she seeks to obtain from working for them.

Name: Juri Han  
><span>Nationality:<span> South Korea  
><span>Gender:<span> Female  
><span>Age:<span> 19 (Birthday: January 1)  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'5/101 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> AB  
><span>Likes:<span> Spicy food, spiders, fighting powerful and honorable warriors.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Rules, tedious people, Shadaloo.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Photographic memory  
><span>Rivals:<span> N/A  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Taekwondo  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Fuuhajin (Wind Breaking Blade), Shinkusen (Flash of Suffering), Senpuusha (Piercing Windmill), Kasatushi (Deathly Killing Stare).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Fuharenjin (Wind Breaking Chain Blades), Kaisen Dankairaku (Spinning World-Ending Descent).  
><span>Background:<span> One of the most prominent world-class practitioners of Taekwondo in South Korea amongst any age group at the age of 15, Juri was also the daughter of a lawyer in charge of prosecuting organized crime operations, with Shadaloo being his next target at the time. Due to this her family was kidnapped and eventually killed, with Juri losing both of her parents and badly damaging her left eye in the process. Warped by the incident, Juri became very vengeful, wishing to destroy anything having to do with Shadaloo in any way she could and learning to fight for vengeance and the thrill of battle. Somehow winding up in S.I.N., they implanted a cybernetic replacement with the experimental Feng Shui Engine inside of it; a device that generates extra energy to her and gives her already extremely powerful ki, strength, and speed temporary boosts to unimaginable levels.

Appropriate for her style, Juri possesses extremely powerful kicks capable of killing common people in one strike and fast, versatile kicks that can land from any position and situation. She is very cunning and sadistic even outside of battle, with a 'black widow' kind of personality, and despises following the rules and standards of others, seeing them as a hindrance as those same rules and regulations kept her family from being protected and from justice being exacted on Shadaloo. Even through this Juri has a sense of honor, twisted though it may be, as she will not hurt others that cannot defend themselves and only tends to fight when she needs to. She has a propensity to respect strong fighters that can challenge her, and fights fairly, although is very brutal in her approach.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright, I've read enough reviews saying such a thing that I feel it's necessary to address the fact that in regards to continuity Street Fighter III did not occur before the events of Street Fighter IV. The Street Fighter IV things happened years before the events of III. If you don't believe me look it up for yourself. Just don't shoot the damn messenger. I do my homework.<strong>

**And that's all I've got for you. Hope you enjoyed it. Happy Frieza Day.  
><strong>

**Kenchi out.**


	41. Original SIN

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. There are five great tragedies in my life. This is one. Or two. I don't really know how that kind of thing works.

**Chapter 41: Original S.I.N.**

* * *

><p>Ibuki was having a wonderful dream. She was in the big city, on her own, girl-on-the-move. Finally able to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, in college for journalism to get her dream job of being a reporter (a career where being a ninja could be pretty useful). No one could tell her what to do or how to do it anymore, and if she wanted to take a mission she had contacts for that.<p>

She loved being a ninja, but her village simply had not adjusted life accordingly for the modern teenager.

Her dream was just like those shows on TV. Roommate shenanigans abound, good times all around, and of course a love interest that she was now fully able to pursue in earnest due to her complete freedom of person.

"Ibuki."

Oh, that view of the Tokyo skyline at sunset was absolutely gorgeous. For someone that wasn't a romantic her crush could certainly pull out the big guns in that department when he needed to.

"Ibuki."

Whisper her name like that again. God, this dream was the best one she'd ever had where sex wasn't involved. Of course maybe sex wasn't involved only because it hadn't gone long enough yet. Could she will her own dream to be nighttime? It was her own mental construct so she should have been able to.

"Ibuki!"

This time her name came with a shake and she was roused from her sleep with a hand placed softly over her mouth to keep her from yelling, just in case. She simply looked up at the familiar figure in the moonlight coming through her window and raised an eyebrow calmly.

Okay, so her dream had shifted gears rather abruptly. This wasn't the first time she'd had a dream where Naruto snuck into her village and her room to passionately nail her, but they usually didn't start that roughly with him covering her mouth to keep her from screaming.

"Are you not gonna scream when I move my hand?" Naruto asked, getting a nod from Ibuki who was still laying with her head on the pillow, "Okay. I'm gonna move my hand now."

He did just that and Ibuki sat up with her covers pulled to her chest, "I'm not dreaming am I?" He wasn't ravaging her mouth with his yet or pawing at her either, so it had to be real life. If it had been a dream there would have been sexytimes happening by now.

"You dream about me?"

"Not the point. Why are you here? It's… 2 a.m." Ibuki said after checking her clock with a yawn, "Did you come sneak into my room to fool around? That's a long way to go just to make out. I like the dedication though." Much like Naruto, her brain was not the fastest to catch up to her mouth soon after waking.

The first thing Naruto wanted to ask was what she was talking about. The more pressing issue though was something else when he could see no bra on around the portion of her bosom that was visible. Just pretty, fair skin, "Are you wearing anything under the sheets?"

"Hmm." Ibuki pulled the covers away from herself just far enough to look underneath and shrug, "Wanna see?"

That wasn't an answer, but Naruto didn't care. He hesitated at first before giving her an extremely guarded answer, "…Yes. Yes I do." Lying would serve no purpose.

"Thought so." Ibuki said with a lazy half-lidded look Naruto's way before she hit him with another haymaker to his libido-limiter, "Wanna touch?" The few seconds of silence from Naruto in response got her to roll her eyes, "I've already been up against you naked before, or is sharing a hot spring with me really that forgettable? If you don't want to fool around why else did you sneak in here?"

"I never said I didn't want to touch... or that fooling around was a bad idea. And stop asking me so nicely." Red-faced Naruto said, really glad that it was dark so that she couldn't tell how red he was, "But I don't think we have the time."

"It's not going to be sunrise for hours." Ibuki replied as she looked over at the clock side of her bed that her tanuki was sleeping near, "We have time Naruto. We can cuddle and kiss a bit, get some sleep, get ready for school, and leave to make it there at the same time I get there every day."

"I was planning on taking you to India, not school."

Ibuki just stared at him in the dark and once again a silence fell between them for a few moments, "You're taking me on vacation? I love it, but if that flight isn't leaving in exactly three hours I still want to sleep and optimize my Naruto time. I don't get much by myself you know."

The thing was, Naruto wasn't exactly in the Glade of Ninjas alone. He had Dhalsim and Batsu waiting outside of the village for him to come back with a pretty kunoichi in hand. He had managed to sneak into the village and her room with his mad ninja skills.

But in the end pulling her out of bed in the middle of the night, even for a pretty good reason, was very rude. She'd go with him no matter what because she was a sweetheart and because she loved the idea of travelling.

But he didn't want to wind up as some despicable person that would pick his friends depending on how easily he could get them to do things. That wasn't fair at all.

In return, all Ibuki really wanted was a chance to earn some affection from him. She actually had a lot of it already, he just didn't get to show it.

It was easy to show Cammy that he cared and was grateful for her because they lived together. It was easy to show Karin because most of her missions wound up with them almost alone together all the time. And Sakura, she already knew and had known for years. They didn't even have to say anything about it to each other.

With Ibuki it was oftentimes harder. They were always around other people. Always. If it wasn't at school or with their friends in the city, in the Glade of Ninjas there was always someone watching. Sanjou, Guy, the other citizens interested in what made Naruto tick. It was always something.

'Stop being such a damn wuss already!' Naruto said to himself before reaching out to Ibuki's cheek and giving her a kiss on the lips. She was thoroughly shocked at first and idly wondered if she was still asleep before reaching a hand behind Naruto's neck and pulling him down on top of her.

Cammy had never kissed him on the mouth. She just didn't, so Naruto didn't know what hers was like, but Ibuki was definitely a more playful kisser than Karin was.

Kissing Karin was cute because she seemed so uncharacteristically jittery whenever doing so. She didn't really know much about real romance past getting the attention of the opposite sex. It was turning out that she didn't know much about what she was doing when it came to exhibiting actual intimacy and was nervous that she would wind up making it bad.

Ibuki just didn't care. She knew what she wanted and she knew how to get to Naruto's tongue in any way she wanted to.

Content moans and her positioning his hands wherever she wanted him to put them on her hips and trim stomach. She purposefully kept his hands from rising far enough to grope at her breasts or get underneath the covers that concealed her body from view. The tease. Oh yeah. She'd thought about doing something like this with _someone_ once or twice.

She wasn't going to be giving up anything between her legs for him just like that, but it was definitely more fun than just sleeping the night away. She'd listen to what he was there for after she had gotten her fill of being bad for a bit. Ibuki was just happy that Naruto was finally there to help her with that.

XxX

(A Few Hours Later – Just Outside of the Glade of Ninjas)

Batsu and Dhalsim had to wait outside in the forest around the ninja village for the simple fact that Dhalsim was not a ninja, and for all of Batsu's interest in all things ninja he was absolute shit at sneaking. They wouldn't be able to step two feet into the village limits without blowing everything.

"So even though you can teleport you have zero stealth skills." Batsu said, leaning against a tree while Dhalsim took the time to meditate in order to restore his energy, "That's kind of appropriate."

Of course he couldn't sneak. He wore golden rings on his arms and legs. He could make noise sitting still.

A man of few words, Dhalsim didn't reply to Batsu. Outside of explaining the situation to the first pickup for Team Naruto upon teleporting to his house around midnight, he hadn't really said a word. Which meant that it had been a rather insufferable two hours for Batsu to deal with. There was nothing to do but sit around in a forest and chill out.

Boring.

What the hell was taking Naruto so long? He said he'd be back in forty-five minutes tops. In and out. It had been two goddamn hours.

Oh well. As long as he got to go to India for cool stuff he could sit in that forest until the sun came up. He hadn't been out of Japan in almost a year. The last time he'd left the country he'd gotten his leg shattered like a dinner plate by an egotistical Muay Thai fighter, so he was hoping that this time went marginally better for his health.

Still, this was like pulling teeth. Maybe he could try to make some more conversation? It was worth a shot, "So you're like some kind of mystic, magic man right? That means you're worldly wise or something." No response, but Batsu didn't give up, "Well I've got this thing. My girlfriend wants me to go to college in the fall, and I don't really think I'm a college guy, but she and my mom won't let me quit on it. Something about potential or whatever. So what do you say?"

At this, Dhalsim cracked an eye open and peered over in Batsu's direction and actually graced him with words, "If you align expectations with reality you will never be disappointed."

"…That doesn't really help me any." Batsu deadpanned in return, "Thanks though, I guess."

Once again Dhalsim didn't say anything.

And thank goodness two speedy figures darted down from the surrounding trees when they did because all of that waiting crap was for the birds, "Oh my God." Batsu said in an exasperated manner when Ibuki and Naruto landed cleanly one after the other. Apparently Naruto had changed into real clothes to fight in while he'd been gone, "What, did you get lost? You were the one that was supposed to know your way around here, remember? We're wasting time and you just left me with Siddhartha Gautama here."

"I'm not Buddhist." Dhalsim pointed out matter-of-factly, "Nor am I Hindi."

"…You're killing me here man."

Naruto walked forward and stood in front of Batsu with an unreadable expression on his face, "Dude. First of all, shut up. Okay?" Batsu just blinked confusedly, "Second of all, other than going to school today, which we're both knowingly skipping by the way, what else did you really have planned today that you'd be in a rush? Because no matter what the trip to and from is taking six hours for both."

"…Cram school."

"The college thing?"

"Yep."

"You don't even want to go tonight do you?"

"God no. I already called Hina-chan and told her something came up."

"That 'something' being me, and she knows that. So what's the problem?" Batsu just looked around aimlessly with sheepish body language, "Is it your mom? Or were you just bitching because you technically didn't sleep last night? Welcome to my world."

Ibuki, dressed in her normal ninja outfit placed her hands on her hips as she frowned at Batsu, "You got a problem with me taking some Naruto time buddy? Even you get more than me, and you're a guy… with a girlfriend I might add."

"Don't ever say that again." Both Naruto and Batsu said, getting the implication before Batsu turned to stare at Naruto, asking an unspoken question that Naruto rolled his eyes and shook his head at, "They why do I feel static around now? It wasn't here before you two showed up. Magic man?" Batsu concluded questioningly, looking over at Dhalsim.

"I am getting an enhanced sense of amorous pheromones from the surrounding area." Dhalsim said, turning Ibuki's face red at having a stranger basically call her out like that so bluntly, "I believe that Naruto and this young lady would be the most obvious sources for this."

Batsu smirked between the two of them and slowly grabbed the two of them before sticking them closer together. Ah, he loved his friends so much. They were so entertaining more often than not that he couldn't stand it sometimes.

A sigh came from Naruto as he pinched the bridge of his nose, "We really didn't need that. Can we just get going to India already? Apparently there's some dam that needs sabotaging and ninja action is required." Naruto said, trying to get things back on the original topic of him gathering anyone in the first place.

"About that." Ibuki chimed in, her face returning to its normal fair color, "There's no way we're getting to India in six hours. There's travel time to the airport and then there's the ten-hour flight itself, and then there's the time it'll take to get to wherever we're going in India. This is going to take a while."

Really, she could slip away from her village for a while but if she was gone for too long she'd end up raising the ire of her superiors again. What was life without getting all of the experiences you could out of it?

Upon hearing her concerns, Naruto then realized that he'd never told her exactly how they'd be getting there in the first place, "Ibuki meet Dhalsim. He's a weird yoga master with some kind of space-time power… amongst others." Ibuki bowed to Dhalsim who returned the favor. She was still a bit miffed at earlier, but that wasn't any reason not to be courteous, "Dhalsim, this is Ibuki; super-cute badass kunoichi-in-training."

"Space-time?" Ibuki said questioningly as Dhalsim finished bowing to her also, "Wait, you mean that teleporting thing he did during the tournament? I thought that was just for short-range transportation."

"I can go anywhere in the world as long as I know the destination well enough, but that is what the mind-reading is for."

"That's kind of creepy."

"So I've heard. Twice already as a matter of fact." Dhalsim directed everyone closer to him before getting down in a meditative position, "To transport this many people will require a lot of concentration. Each of you grab hold of me and do not let go no matter what."

With a shrug everyone placed the directed limb on Dhalsim and felt the power within him jump. And with that they left the forests surrounding Ibuki's beloved Glade of Ninjas in a holy man's teleport.

Next stop India.

…In about six hours or so.

XxX

(That Afternoon – Aohura City, Japan – Karin's Personal Manor)

"India." Karin said in a flat voice, finding it necessary to turn around from her seat on a piano bench. She'd been taking some down time after school with some music while she and Sakura listened to exactly what the deal was as to why neither Naruto nor Ibuki were in class today, "Naruto-san went to India last night."

"Yes." Cammy said calmly, as she usually did, because most everything that she did was devoid of much discernable emotion. She was much better at exhibiting it than she had been a year ago, but it was still a work in progress, "He planned on taking Ibuki and Batsu."

Sakura looked a touch confused at his choice of companions on such a trip, "Why didn't he get me, or Kanzuki-san? Why didn't you go as a matter of fact?"

"It was too late at night to go and get either of you from home. It was past midnight." Cammy explained, "And there was something of a need for a rush, so actual travel plans couldn't be made for both of us to go so suddenly. We couldn't just drop everything and leave together."

Sakura still looked a bit put off at missing out on something like that though, as did Karin.

The later had an outlet for this however as she turned back around and began playing a much faster song than the one she had been playing before in order to relax, "So there was no time to make travel arrangements or tell us himself what was happening. How in the world did he manage to procure a plane ticket for India in such short order, unless Dhalsim had already purchased tickets ahead of time?" She asked rhetorically, as she knew that Cammy probably wouldn't know the answer, "But then he would have known for certain that Naruto-san would accept?"

It sounded a bit fishy to the analytical business mind of the Kanzuki heiress, but then again that was more than likely the fact that she'd gotten used to bad things happening around the people associated with them; most notably Naruto. Even when he wasn't trying to push an issue something flew his way.

She couldn't blame him most of the time, lovable scamp as he oftentimes was, because she found it hard to stay angry at people these days; most notably again with Naruto. Damn him.

It was also hard to stay angry at Cammy, because she was so damned adorable even to the rest of the girls. When she said things like this though, it was kind of hard to keep it that way, "They didn't take a plane, they teleported."

Teleported from Japan to India? Really?

That certainly stopped the train of the conversation cold, and Karin's piano playing for a second time. How exactly did one respond to something like that? To her credit, Sakura tried though, "…Come again?"

Their amnesiac assassin had no problem with repeating herself. Just because she didn't really show shock and awe that well didn't mean that she didn't understand just how outrageous everything she'd just said sounded. It didn't make it any less true though, "Dhalsim used his teleportation technique to transport himself and Naruto to wherever it is that they were going."

Sakura and Karin both looked at each other across the room with a similar expression that they were missing something. They both thought that his teleporting was just some short-range thing useful for battle, not that he could use it to go anywhere he wanted. In all honesty that was kind of creepy. Not that they were judging him, but it just was.

The guy was quite mysterious, or at least that was the impression from him that they picked up from watching the tournament on TV and from what they were told about him by Naruto and Cammy. That didn't mean he was a bad person either. And he'd done something or another to earn Naruto's trust quite thoroughly. Something with the Kyuubi that they barely understood.

Either way, apparently he owed him one because he didn't hesitate to lend his help to him for a moment.

"Okay." Sakura said, trying to salvage what was left of her understanding of the fabric of reality. Seriously, a dimension-hopping best friend? Spiritualists that could bend time and space to transport themselves? And she used to poke fun at Naruto for being afraid of ghosts? At this point one could have popped out and shaken her hand and it wouldn't even have listed in the top ten of odd things that had happened to her in the last several years, "So when will they be back?"

"I don't know."

"What are they going to do?"

"I don't know."

"Why'd he leave so quickly then?" Cammy opened her mouth again at Sakura's last question before she was cut off by the girl in question, "Please don't say that you don't know again." Adhering to the request, Cammy didn't, because that was exactly what she was going to have said, "Ugh… my God Naruto. I hate you…"

She did not hate him as a matter of fact. That was just not true at all and everybody knew it. She loved him. He was her best friend and she would do anything for him. But she could do without a few of his traits that made him who he was, such as the ones that told him it was entirely acceptable to run off to another city or country at the drop of a hat. At least he didn't have Ryu's wanderer syndrome. Now that would have been a little too much.

"That sounds accurate enough with the kind of situation he would find himself in." Karin said under her breath, playing several more keys on the piano idly before standing up and smoothing her skirt back out, "At least this time it has nothing to do with that detestable Shadaloo."

"Or any militia-based gang looking to take over the country." Cammy added on as an afterthought.

"Or a conspiracy to kidnap and brainwash every fighter under the age of 20 in the city with powerful potential in order to create a stable of obedient killers to help a possessed high school student take over Japan." Sakura said, getting blank looks from both Karin and Cammy, "Oh, sorry. That was before we met either of you."

"When the hell was this?" Karin said, raising her voice a touch in surprise. She actually found herself a bit embarrassed at raising her voice so crassly and abruptly. Perhaps the company she kept was finally wearing on her, "Actually please forget I asked that, I do not think I want to know."

Sakura just nodded in acceptance. It really was for the best anyway.

XxX

(Meanwhile – With Naruto – Rural Village in Kerala, India)

According to Dhalsim, six hours had passed upon the moment they'd teleported to the moment they'd arrived in the middle of his village, but to Naruto, Batsu, and Ibuki they might as well have blinked because that was how long it felt like it had taken.

It had thoroughly exhausted the mystic man however as he needed help from the others to walk the rest of the way to his house, and in the meantime while waiting on him to recover enough to help them move on the dam the youngsters got a chance to sightsee.

"I was totally not expecting to ride an elephant today." Ibuki chirped brightly as she sat atop the aforementioned gargantuan animal behind Naruto, holding on around his waist to stay on, "Or ever for that matter." She took pictures of tons of things around them with her phone.

"Yeah." Naruto said in agreement, "If so many bad things didn't happen to us on a regular basis I'd say that no one lives cooler lives than we do." Oh who was he kidding? Even with the terrible things that tended to follow them around as a consequence, his life was more awesome than almost anything else he could think of, "I'll tell you what, if being an adult isn't halfway this much fun I'm gonna be disappointed."

Who would have ever thought they'd wind up driving an elephant? Who even knew Dhalsim owned elephant, as in plural?

But there they were, riding elephants that they had picked up from Dhalsim's own home on the way out to where the dam sat. Dhalsim would have teleported them there after making it home, but he was tired and he needed to let them know about the whole situation first, with the water to their village being cut off and everything that came with it.

Right now they were just taking a quick look around the place while Dhalsim rested at home with his wife. His surprisingly hot wife that was half his age, about four years older than them… that he'd already had a young child with. They definitely hadn't seen that coming either.

Upon returning to Dhalsim's modest home, both ninjas jumped off of the obedient elephant that returned itself to the portion of Dhalsim's land reserved for his 'pets' and went inside where Batsu was busy eating and watching Dhalsim's son Datta while his wife Sari made sure Dhalsim himself was getting his strength back properly.

"S'up jerks?" Batsu asked as he watched his two ninja friends reenter, "You two weren't gone long."

"Meh, I've been here before." Naruto said as he sat down at the table Batsu was eating curry at. The blond-haired teenager rested his chin down on his arms and grinned when he saw Dhalsim's son staring at Ibuki like he'd been love-stricken, "Hey kid, how long do you think your dad's gonna be? We didn't really plan for this to be a long trip."

To his five year-old credit, Datta was able to turn his attention away from Ibuki long enough to hear and comprehend Naruto and his question, "Uh, I don't know. Father doesn't teleport far away so much, and he never takes people with him." And with that he started following Ibuki around again like a lost puppy. To Datta's defense, Ibuki was gorgeous and by his standards exotic, so if she happened to be his first crush he definitely could have done infinitely worse.

Either way there were important things afoot. So Dhalsim tended to avoid going on long trips via teleportation? While Naruto and company didn't feel it, Dhalsim seemed to have endured every last second of the journey by the time they arrived.

Moving to one of the back rooms of the house, Naruto poked his head in to find a bedridden Dhalsim being tended to by a young lady with brown skin and brown hair in a single braid, wearing a sleeveless golden dress and a yellow shawl, "Oh man…" He said as he walked in and stood at the foot of the bed, "You didn't have to move us so fast if it was going to mess you up like this. We could have gotten here some other way."

Sure, it would have taken longer, but at least he wouldn't be confined to his bed.

"My apologies." Dhalsim said with a slight amount of difficulty. He seemed to be sweating even as Sari placed a wet rag across his forehead, "I fear I was in fact a bit hasty in recruiting and returning with you and yours."

Sari shook her head from her seat by her husband's bed and looked over and up at Naruto, "He is normally so calm and neutral, but when things befall the village he has a tendency to lose himself and his level head somewhat." She clicked her tongue as her attention turned back to her husband, "I've known him since I was a little girl and I've never seen him attempt a Yoga Teleport over such a long distance before. This is clearly the result of such a thing."

Knowing full well that he wasn't going to be heading anywhere to fight until his body would allow him to, Dhalsim gestured for Naruto to come closer which he did until he was close enough to stoop down by the bed and by Sari, "I will not be able to accompany you to the site of the dam, but I can give you what I know about it in my stead."

With that he placed his hand abruptly on Naruto's head and a day full of thoughts and memories that weren't his own filled Naruto's head at once. Damn it, he wished he'd give some warning before doing things like that. His pupils dilated and he fell back onto the floor before his brain rebooted and he jumped back up, holding his temple.

Sari just smiled at Naruto apologetically while he got his mind back together and suffered through the headrush migraine from hell, "He's painfully direct at times isn't he?" She said dryly.

"He's your husband." Naruto said, trying to get his vision to stop swimming, "I've had direct-er… and painfully-er. Don't worry Dhalsim. I've got this for free, because I still owe you for what you did back at the martial arts temple in Thailand. We'll get that water flowing downriver again."

All the stoic man did was nod before setting his head back down on his pillow. Someone like Naruto would do his best to ensure such a thing came to pass, and his friends had upstanding spirits as well. Something like this could be left to them and could be handled.

XxX

(Aohura City, Japan)

"_Is your mission complete yet?"_

"I'm getting to it." Juri said, sitting on a low hanging rooftop overlooking an alley as she spoke on her phone, "Geez Seth, you're such a buzzkill. You finally put me on an assignment where a girl could have a bit of fun and you're trying to get me to rush through it. Do you want the job done or do you want it done right?"

"_I want it done thoroughly."_ The serious voice on the other line said with no room for any shenanigans on the part of his subordinates.

"Well there you go." The Korean femme said with a slight grin on her face, "I've made first contact with one of your targets already. It shouldn't take long to locate all of the others in this country. In this town they're especially infamous."

"_Oh? How so?"_

Juri laughed slightly as she looked down in the alley where she'd just lain waste to an entire gang of well over one-hundred. They were still twitching and groaning in pain and anguish… those that were well enough off to know that they were hurt, "Trust me. If bottom-feeding losers like the people I just dealt with know of them I'm sure by sundown I'll have the location of all of them. Every. Last. One." And then she could pick and choose at her leisure who she wanted.

"_I expect results out of you. There's a reason that you were placed on this task."_

"Because you don't have anyone in S.I.N. stronger than me." She just kept feeling the need to mess with her boss. As if she didn't fear any sort of reprisal from him, "But I get your point. Don't worry. I'll get it all done." And she didn't. As long as she kept executing her missions Seth wouldn't try to do anything to her. And even if he did, it would probably be fun to deal with.

Anyway, this well of information was all tapped out. Just as well. Beating up on the local mooks for some necessary intel was extremely boring. They didn't even try anything interesting like coming at her all at once to maximize their chances.

Hopefully her first intended mark would provide her with a bit more of a challenge.

XxX

(Sundown – India – Isolated Dam Area)

With the setting sun at their backs, Naruto, Batsu, and Ibuki had come at a great time to hide while getting a great look at the concrete monolith that was steadily blocking off the water to Dhalsim's village and other areas farther downriver for their own aims.

"Okay." Naruto said, having counted around twenty separate armed guards patrolling the premises thus far, "So blowing this thing up probably isn't the first idea we should go with here since it would probably flood half of the area once we did it."

"I'm not sure blowing this thing is an option anyway." Batsu added on, pointing out the sheer size of the dam, "Look at that thing. I'm pretty sure it'd take everything we've got just to bust a single floodgate."

Ibuki rolled her eyes. Of course she'd be dealing with a pair of luddites. Naruto was the man that openly despised TV and did everything in his power to avoid going on the internet for anything he could get otherwise firsthand, "You know, that's what the control room in places like this are for. There's a way to release the water and open the floodgates. Someone just has to go in and screw with it."

By someone she meant herself, otherwise with the luck of the other two they'd wind up triggering some sort of base self-destruct sequence that would kill everyone and destroy everything within a ten-mile radius.

From their hiding place in their tree, Naruto sat back and started thinking, "From what Dhalsim showed me these guys'll react to anything they see and try to kill it. Fast. With everything they've got. So we can't all go inside. If one of us gets busted inside we're all going to be trapped in there, and I don't really like the idea of getting caught inside another base."

The last time he infiltrated a pseudo-military setup he wound up getting attacked by twelve super-hot female assassins and then had to fight a stark-raving all-powerful lunatic with a machine that could regenerate his fatal injuries.

So his record for things going swimmingly in such a scenario wasn't exactly great.

"So who's going in?" Ibuki asked before both she and Naruto looked at Batsu and spoke in unison, "Not Batsu." For all of his interest in ninja things his stealth left quite a bit to be desired. He knew that, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to act belligerent about it.

"Oh to hell with you both." Batsu responded, dropping down three branches to show his displeasure at them.

"Well whoever's not going in needs to be able to make enough of a fuss out here to occupy most of the guards." Naruto said, pointing to the nearest one quite a distance away, "And they have guns, so whoever does it needs to make it a win." With that he let out a sigh, "I don't even know why I said all of that when I know it's going to be me."

Ibuki pinched Naruto's cheeks and ignored the half-hearted glare he gave her in return, "Then you two should hop to it while I hop to getting inside of that place somehow. I'm not infiltrating until I know you guys have got their attention."

"Yup!" Batsu said, cracking his neck to the side as he placed his fingerless gloves onto his hands, "Alright teme let's get this show on the road and give her an opening." Dropping down from the tree, Batsu didn't mince words or movements before running at the first living thing he saw out in the open. Letting out a sharp whistle he made sure he had the attention of others before launching the first person he could reach with a nasty uppercut.

And with that the first shots were fired in his direction that Batsu dodged by taking cover behind the nearest tree.

Naruto sighed and formed the cross hand-seal with his fingers. He was more irritated at Batsu stealing the opening move than anything else. The flashy and obnoxious entrances were his thing, and his friend went and muffed it all up. Seriously, one punch? He could have tried a little harder than that couldn't he have?

"See you on the other side Ibuki." Naruto said, getting a wink and a thumbs-up from the playful kunoichi before she moved out of the tree in a speedy blur. That was his cue to raise a little hell too, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!"

The tree filled up with multiple Narutos that all counted to three before hurling kunai with small bags attached into the air.

A small incendiary charge was attached to them as they flew over the heads of the soldiers shooting at Batsu's place of cover that now numbered two full squads of eight. In mid-flight the bags exploded, sending small bits of shrapnel flying all over, aimed at the ground where it hit a few guards and wounded them, but forced many more to cease attacking Batsu out of fright.

'Chance!' Batsu thought to himself with a grin as he ran out from behind his cover and threw a lightning-quick wide-reaching kick that nailed several soldiers at once, "Mikazukikero (Crescent Moon Kick)!" The action knocked them out of the battle while Naruto's clones beat the daylights out of everyone else, "Nice. What was in those bags and where'd you buy weapons like that?"

"I didn't buy anything." Naruto said with a rather pleased grin on his face, "I made them myself. It's gunpowder and lots of random stuff like thick chunks of glass, porcelain, parts of metal cans, other things like that. Just random stuff that could be sharp and dangerous."

How positively green of him to weaponize stuff he could find around the house, "That's extremely ghetto." Batsu pointed out. Homemade explosives? Speaking of which, did he still have those Molotov cocktails sitting on his counter in his kitchen?

"Whatever." Naruto replied flippantly, "I could have used explosive tags but who pulls those on mooks? I save those for people that it would actually require an explosion or two to beat. Besides, they made enough of a bang where more people will be coming, see?" Naruto concluded, pointing in the direction where they could hear orders being barked out and bootsteps heading their way.

"When you're right you're right." Batsu said, punching into his palm before forming a ki-ball in one hand that he punched forward at the oncoming soldiers with the other before they could stop and start shooting at them, "Kiaidan (Guts Bullet)!"

He might as well have had a grenade launcher from the way the volatile ball of human energy exploded right in front of them. Naruto's clones wasted no time making further copies of themselves and charging forth to dispatch the enemy before they regained their bearings.

"Don't you know who I am? I am a one ninja army!" Naruto shouted at the top of his lungs as he and Batsu prepared for more soldiers to come in force after this, "Bring your guns! Bring your tanks-!

"Don't bring tanks!" Batsu shouted to directly contradict Naruto, "…Unless you don't have tanks in which case I'm with teme; bring your goddamn tanks!"

"-And I will blow up all of it!" Naruto concluded before he heard safeties being switched off. He and a few of his clones shoved their hands into the ground forcefully and started spinning their chakra through it, "Rasenshinsen (Spiraling Tremor)!"

The ground shook and chunked up with portions rising to block bullets around Naruto and Batsu, and other portions falling out to trap the legs of guards in manmade cracks in the earth. A brave number of soldiers actually made it through and climbed themselves over the raised parts of ground to aim their guns at Naruto and Batsu who raised their arms in surrender. It didn't really stop them from opening fire on them and riddling them with bullets.

Bullets that turned them into smoke that dissipated in the air, much to their confusion.

"Hey." Naruto whispered over the shoulders of some of the soldiers looking at where he and Batsu had apparently been a moment before prior to their mysterious disappearance, "What are we all looking at?" Before anyone could freak out and make a move, Naruto smashed two heads together hard enough to crack some skulls and grabbed another to hold him hostage as a human shield that got the others to hesitate.

They held off of firing long enough for Batsu to basically crush them with the largest piece of fallen tree that anyone had ever been hit with, as he had hurled it directly at them. It had to have weighed several hundred pounds at least. And there was blood. Quite a bit of blood actually.

Batsu dusted off his hands while Naruto continued to hold on to his frightened human shield, "This is like if Balrog fought an infant. New guns or not." He said, kicking at the rifle on the ground that he'd never seen before, "They keep shooting at where we are and not at where we're going to be." They were the most unforgiving moving targets any gunman would ever have the displeasure of firing at, "Who are these guys?"

Switching his purely human shield tactic to neck lock and a wrenching arm submission that he'd learned from Cammy, Naruto decided to get the answer to that question as he held his captured soldier's shoulder behind his back at a rather awkward angle, "You heard the man." Naruto said in English, "Who's shooting at us and blocking off the river with a random dam?"

Apparently he was not any sort of real soldier with a true allegiance to a cause because feeling the pressure on his shoulder socket from Naruto's learned joint-lock loosened his lips quite quickly, "S.I.N. hired mercenaries to run security for them and outfitted us to test their equipment! It's their dam!"

S.I.N. like that weird company that ran the gala that Karin took him to two months ago? What did they do again? He didn't care at the time because all of those obscure companies and corporations blended together with the vague explanations of what they did.'

Batsu almost let out a laugh at hearing that, "Well it really is true. The biggest companies in the world all have shady secrets that keep them moving forward. Rich girl Kanzuki's old man made deals with Yakuza, and S.I.N. exploits rural places in up-and-coming countries."

"Behind every great fortune is an even greater crime." Both Naruto and Batsu would have high-fived at that moment of articulation as far as both of them were concerned, but Naruto was still holding onto a hostage, "Oh. Tell me what the dam's for or I'm gonna turn your arm into a kanji." Naruto said noncommittally.

"What do you even care?" The soldier asked, getting his arm jerked a bit for being argumentative.

"We're radical environmentalists." Batsu outright lied, "Now answer the damn question!" Their impromptu interrogation seemed like it would be cut a little short as the ground started to shake a bit.

As the ground seemed to quiver, the captured soldier had it in him to smirk at the forthcoming misfortune of his enemies, especially the yellow-headed punk that was bending his arm like he was Stretch Armstrong, "You want to know what the dam is for you stupid brats? I'll tell you. We're using hydroelectric power from this river and the amounts of open land around here-."

At that moment a row of trees happened to get run over by a large machine; a newfangled tank without treads. Instead of treads it had one single glowing, rotating orb peeking out of the bottom of it. It seemingly kept the tank upright and mobile, and despite how absolutely heavy a tank was it didn't even make a mark in the ground where it had rolled.

"-For extensive weapons testing."

Both Naruto and Batsu stared at the very agile-looking tank for the longest time before Naruto's eyes widened, "Oh! That's what they do. They make weapons. S.I.N. is a weapons developer." As Naruto seemed to pat himself on the back for remembering any of Karin's business talk while he managed to hide ogling her in her dresses, the cannon of the tank was then pointed directly at them. He then realized the severity of his previous comment, "Oh fuck! S.I.N. is a weapons developer!"

The first crack of the tank's experimental gun ripped through the air right at them.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Nightfall – Aohura City, Japan – Karin's Personal Manor)

Three hours ahead due to the time zone difference, the day was basically winding down 3000 miles or so away in Japan.

For a lot of the day, Karin had been using her resources and her massive computer system set up in her home to try and find something going on in India that would require someone like Dhalsim to request intervention from someone like Naruto.

Even with everything she had at her disposal she had nothing. Which was amazing when one thought about it. She had been able to procure information on things of a sensitive military nature at times, and now that Naruto actually knew people in the military she could probably do better nowadays. There shouldn't have been anything in the world that she couldn't find out as long as she knew what she was supposed to be looking for.

But here she had nothing. No shady land contracts, no major upheavals or power shifts in the region that would cause strife. Nothing that seemed like a matter that a ninja could help with.

With a yawn, Karin stretched her arms out over her head and took off the gloves that allowed her to interact with the smart-screen projections. She'd been standing there and walking around the different screens for hours, multitasking leads that wound up in dead ends, "I can without a doubt say that I am honestly baffled at what is going on."

Her audience consisted of Cammy and Sakura. Mostly Cammy, who was the only one awake and watching everything that transpired while Sakura had eventually checked out and wound up sleeping on a sofa with her head in Cammy's lap, "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you anything that was of more help."

A slight frown appeared on Karin's face at Cammy apparently talking herself down. The girl never really had much of an ego, which was usually great for Karin because in turn she herself had a rather large ego that surpassed even Naruto's at times, but there was something wrong with someone as inherently earnest as Cammy apologizing for something she had no control over.

Rival in the race for Uzumaki Naruto's affections or not.

"It is quite alright." Karin assured her in return, "I cannot expect to have all of the answers so easily all of the time." Placing the gloves on a pedestal that was meant to hold them, all of the computers began powering down loudly enough to stir Sakura from her sleep with a confused start, "Whenever effort is required to accomplish a task it is a sign that what you are working for is worthwhile."

"That's a pleasant way of looking at it." Sakura pointed out, rubbing her eyes tiredly as she pulled out her cell phone to check what time it was. 10:24 at night, "I'm surprised honestly, hearing something encouraging like that from you."

"Of course." Karin said with a grandly superior smile, walking out of her work station with her hands on her hips, "I bring that mindset into everything. Training, school assignments, my work. It is the approach of a winner Sakura-san. You would do well to remember that."

Did she just blatantly bait Sakura into responding? Of course she did. Anyone with eyes could see that. Did it work? Without a doubt it did.

Even though she had just woken up, Sakura was more than ready to duel with her original rival once again if she was up for it. And she seemed to be from the smirk on her face, "So I'm guessing you want a match."

"I am always up for proving my superiority to you." Karin replied, "You are aware of such." Why the hell not? They hadn't done anything active all day long, so why not fight with each other a bit?

Sakura reached into her backpack and pulled out a pair of red 4 oz. gloves that she prepared to put on as she stood up, "I didn't know you were so keen on getting your butt kicked. Should we do this outside or do you have a place inside so I can tuck you in after I put you to slee-, YAAH!" She exclaimed after she found herself stricken on the rear from behind. But there was only one person that was in position to do that, "Cammy, why?"

"Naruto said you two can't argue." Cammy said, still holding up the offending hand that spanked Sakura, "So don't argue." Sakura could glare at her all she wanted. Naruto said what he said about Karin and Sakura fighting, and that was that. If he wasn't there that didn't mean his word didn't stand.

Speaking of loyalties, at that moment, Shibazaki ran into the computer room breathing heavily and looking quite disheveled. The usually composed and cool steward of the Kanzuki heiress seemed like he'd just gotten through running from a monster.

Karin moved forward to her family's employee and put a hand on his back while he was bent over and catching his breath, "Shibazaki what is the matter?"

Taking a moment to get his air back, he eventually stood straight up and tried to save some face, adjusting his glasses on his face, "Ojou-sama we need to get you away from this mansion. There is an attack taking place."

Then why didn't any alarm go off? The place was state-of-the-art set up with the security system in place. And what about the mercenaries she had guarding the grounds? If Shibazaki knew what was happening that meant that he should have already had armed guards on the job. He usually handled most security disturbances without ever bringing them forward to her at all. He was an able employee like that.

Shibazaki didn't know what to say, "Ha… it is as if the assailant turned off our security just by entering the premises… and the power." He involuntarily shivered, "I have never seen any human being completely dodge automatic gunfire like that in my life."

"How can anyone simply deactivate our systems?" Karin asked, actually significantly surprised by that fact, "This is the same system S.I.N. put on the market for military use. Not only is it brand new and barely on the market, but from the computer room I should have been aware if someone were hacking into the mansion."

"We cannot stay here." Shibazaki reiterated, desperately holding on to Karin's arm as if pleading for her to leave, "You are in grave danger if you are indeed the target. I know of your battle prowess, but your safety and protection comes first."

"Well thanks a mil Jeeves." A confident female voice said from outside, and Shibazaki's face showed him to be one step short of soiling himself out of fright, "To think that one little demonstration has you so high on my abilities. How much could you really have seen though? You ran away so fast before I was even halfway done. And you didn't even see what I did once I got inside."

Karin's face hardened and moved past Shibazaki who was babbling for her to stay back and away. Outside of the room in the corridor stood a woman slightly older than Karin wearing baggy white pants and a breastplate instead of an actual top. She was barefoot with foot garments meant to be worn by kick-centric martial artists and had dark hair held up in a unique horned style.

The wealthy girl's eyes lingered on the white pants that were stained with specks of red. More than likely the blood of her security unfortunate enough to run across her.

"You compromised sixty-four armed guards and a brand new security system complete with infrared grids, thermal imaging, motion sensors, outdoor and indoor security cameras that operate in full and no light… all combined costing over 110 million yen." Karin clicked her tongue while crossing her arms firmly over her chest. She sounded more than a little miffed at the latter, and had good reason for it due to how much money she had spent on it. Even so, she mustered a clearly fake yet extremely pleasant smile, "So, how can I help you?"

It could never be said that Juri Han wasn't a fan of sarcasm when she actually laughed somewhat at Karin's response to her presence inside of her home.

But the entire situation tickled her significantly. The most realistically welcome response she'd received from anyone in Aohura City since arriving and it was totally fake, "Ah, I like that." She said, calming down her laughing to wipe away a tear from her eye, "Anyway. I've come to kick someone's ass so hard they meet their maker… and I don't mean God. I literally mean that she's going to meet the person that made her, because I'm going to kill her and Bison's already dead."

Adept enough to put together the clues and know that she was referring to Cammy, Karin pursed her lips, "And that brings you here for what reason? I live here alone, and if you're referring to M. Bison of Shadaloo I really don't know why you're here. The last time I checked the man attempted to destroy my family's company, so I truly doubt you would find anyone here associated with him."

"Hmm." Juri hummed to herself before her leg shot out to the side and kicked a hole in the wall that a small jet could have fit through. Even though they'd been quiet and content to let Karin try and talk her way out of a conflict, Sakura and Cammy couldn't do anything once they were seen inside of the computer room, "So you don't know anything about that little doll-eyed hussy in there being one of Bison's personal bodyguards and assassins?"

"No. I cannot say I have any recollection of that knowledge."

"Ah. I see."

A touch of silence reigned for a moment until Juri moved forward almost faster than Karin's eyes could keep up with. It was definitely faster than her body had been prepared to move or react to when she found Juri's hand underneath her chin, stroking her jawline.

"Are you sure about that princess?" The impression that Karin was getting from Juri was startling to say the least. This woman was a predator in the purest form. Anything she targeted would be victimized, and there wouldn't be anything other than a direct force powerful enough to get the job done that could stop her, "Are you really sure? You're a good liar. Really you are. Couldn't have done it better myself honestly. But let's play six degrees of separation for a moment."

"You, Kanzuki Karin, are a lucrative business partner to American hotel tycoon Ken Masters, who is the noted fellow disciple of former world champion Ryu, who defeated the late/great 'God of Muay Thai' Sagat. The last person Sagat had been seen in any kind of physical contact with before his death was one Uzumaki Naruto, who is listed as living with a girl in his apartment under the name Cammy White, of which many of the official records of her existence have been faked up to a year ago. She seems to bear more than a passing resemblance to the Doll 'Killer Bee.'"

She seemed thoroughly bored by giving her reasoning as to why Cammy was the girl that she was looking for, but there wasn't a single thing that she'd said that was inaccurate or misinformed.

Okay, not that it wasn't something that couldn't have been obtained with a decent amount of legwork and background knowledge, but it was still extremely eerie to hear someone that they didn't know saying all of those things about them and the people that they knew.

"I could have dumbed that down and just said that you know her because you routinely hire the man that she lives with in this town, but that would have been even more boring than what I did." Juri said, stroking Karin's cheek with a finger, "Also, that look on your face is just too priceless."

Yes, this woman was a predator that seemed to revel in playing with her prey.

*CLICK*

Off to the side, aiming through the doorway, Shibazaki shakily held up a revolver properly with two hands, and even that didn't give Juri any concerns, "Leave the premises now." He managed to muster some confidence due to the firearm in his possession, "I'm no killer, but I will have no problem ending your life for Ojou-sama's."

"Well aren't you the textbook definition of classy, giving me the chance to back off." Juri said, still holding on to Karin who seemed to be pondering the merits of making a move despite the fact that her neck was just about in the enemy's hands, "But here's the thing Alfred. The only thing that's going to happen when you pull that trigger is me moving your cute little 'Ojou-sama' right into the path of your shot, if it's even straight to begin with. And all the money in the world can't stop a bullet through the brain. Then I'm going to kill you before you can even set the hammer for another shot so put the gun down, give me Killer Bee, and that'll be that."

"If I'm the one you want that's fine with me!"

From the other side in Juri's blindspot where she hadn't been looking, Cammy was crouched with her fist cocked back for a punch that she lunged forward with. Juri had to let go in order to dodge the attack, otherwise Cammy's red metal-gauntleted fist would have hit her directly in the side of the neck.

When the hell did she even move? Even if Juri hadn't been looking at her through the hole in the wall that she'd made in exchange for threatening Karin and keeping an eye on her gun-toting butler she still should have seen Cammy move via her peripheral vision. But then again, Cammy had been on her right side. That was kind of important to her awareness of her surroundings.

An attack like that was a kill shot. That meant that this was definitely Killer Bee.

Flipping away from Cammy and a newly freed Karin, Juri's smirk turned into a more manic-looking grin as her left eye shone in a dangerously bright pink color, "Well there you are. I've been looking for you kitten. You've made some friends in high places, but then again so have I."

"We've never met before." Cammy said firmly, standing ready to do battle against this new enemy, "I couldn't have done anything to you to justify attacking my friend's home like this."

"I was going to attack you once you went home, but it didn't look like you were leaving anytime soon." Juri admitted with a shrug, "I figured it was going to be some kind of sleepover or whatever it is you high school girls do in Japan."

Sakura actually stopped and thought about it. That was actually a great idea… if this wasn't happening at the moment. Put that in the back pocket for another time when the topic could be brought up without looking negligent and scatterbrained in regards to a dangerous situation.

*BANG*

Shibazaki had actually taken the opening of Juri being away from Karin to foolishly shoot at the woman that had already fairly warned him not to do such a thing. It took every ounce of first step speed that Sakura had been improving on recently to reach Shibazaki fast enough to shove him out of the way of a single kick that would have torn his head clean off of his shoulders.

Sure, the resulting shove from the didn't-know-her-own-strength schoolgirl wound up with him sailing halfway across the room with his body halfway implanted into a wall, but it was vastly better than the alternative.

"Tch." Juri sneered down at Sakura, both of them still frozen in position from their previous actions, "I was going to save you and Kanzuki for later, but I might as well kill three birds with one stone right now."

"You can't take all three of us at the same time." Sakura refuted full of belief in herself and her own abilities. She hadn't been training her tail off for the last eight months for nothing. She knew she was stronger. What she'd just done had proven it. She was _not_ that fast when they had been fighting Mad Gear, "Go away and leave Cammy alone."

"I didn't know you were for harboring murderers!" Juri said, spinning through her previous post-kicking posture to attack Sakura with another nimble kick that tore the air where her head had been, "Do you have any idea how many lives she's ruined at Bison's orders? DO YOU!?"

Finally springing into action, Karin decided that enough was enough and proceeded to join Cammy in attacking Juri while she was trying to get rid of Sakura with a varied array of kicks. Both blondes moved in attacking in a high-low pattern.

"Spiral Arrow!" Her go-to move in mind, Cammy launched herself low at the devilish woman's back leading with her legs and body spinning like a drill while purple ki exuded from her body.

"Ressen Ha (Violent Massacre Break)!" Karin launched herself in a swift midair arc, preparing to bring her arms down in a crushing strike on her to-be target.

Seeing her friends attacking at Juri from behind in a way that cut off two potential paths for attack led to Sakura choosing to stand her ground and position her hands to fire off her signature ki technique to thread the needle from the opposite side, "Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" Sakura's larger than appropriate Hadoken blasted forward from her hands and filled the already difficult but still possible to dodge through space, making such a thing damn near impossible. For anyone.

It was a terrible situation and Juri knew it full well. But before any sort of panicking could take place in her mind, she remembered just what she was now capable of. Her left eye glowed brightly for a split second as her body was revitalized with unnatural energy and she managed to avoid all three moves that had been synchronized to trap her.

It was impressive, because all three of them took extremely different approaches to fighting but they were all able to coordinate their attacks on her at a moment's notice without saying a word to each other, "That was nice." Juri commented, a safe distance away back out in the hallway, "I wouldn't try it again because I'd crush that little formation in a heartbeat, but yeah, almost anyone else would have been in some serious trouble there."

Even in a three-on-one situation she still saw fit to play with them like a cat and a wounded mouse.

"Do not patronize us!" Karin exclaimed, more aggravated than ever after her home had not only been infiltrated and damaged, but after the perpetrator of the act had managed to avoid a pick your poison scenario where she should have had to choose which attack she took damage from, "I know fighters, ninjas, world-class athletes, and people trained in strictly evasion for years that could not do what you just did! What just happened?"

"It was her eye." Sakura pointed out, "Something happened when you two attacked and she turned back to face me when I shot my Hadoken. I saw a flash and then she just moved." She moved when there should have been no feasible way out.

"Points to you for being observant." Juri purred, sauntering forward with her hands on her hips, "It's too bad those points aren't redeemable for giving you a chance against me. But we'll see. The night is young after all."

The girls moved into separate positions and launched themselves in the three-pronged attack at Juri, who was still a bit blown away at how three completely different fighters could try and work together the way that they were doing.

But they just kept missing. Every one of them couldn't strike a blow, and all Juri was doing was dodging them, seemingly sizing them up instead of actively fighting them.

Karin was the first to pull back with Sakura and Cammy doing so as well after they realized that their formation was broken, 'This is a waste of time. She knows we can't touch her unless she tries something against us herself.' And she was having too much fun making them look like fools.

It was about time to remedy that.

"This is completely unacceptable!" Karin stated with a stomp to the ground, "What is happening here? She attacks my home but refrains from actually fighting to try and finish us! She is making sport of us, and I will not stand for it!"

"Wah-wah-wah princess." Juri said, making bawling gestures by her eyes with her hands, "Go cry me a river. As if the weak can dictate to the strong what to do. If I want to play with you I will. Make me fight back if you can. I'm having too much fun just watching you fail."

Cammy's eyes moved to the side and saw Karin's fists clench tightly. Too tightly for preparation to defend herself and she knew what that meant, "No, really, don't-." But Karin moved before anything could be done to stop her. Cammy could swear that she saw her mouth move before she went ahead though. It looked like she'd said 'trust me' or something along those lines.

"Guren Ken!" Closing the distance in the blink of an eye, Karin launched two powerful hard-stepping palm strikes that whipped through the air before pulling back as they both missed cleanly, "Grr."

"Ah, ah, ah." Juri wagged her finger chidingly at the blown attempt, "Strike one. You've got to do better than that."

Karin shook her wrists out and seemingly ignored any calls to get back in line and work in trio with the others before moving ahead and trying Guren Ken again, this time after the second strike she slid for a kicking tackle at Juri's legs that missed again.

"Ooh, closer that time." Juri taunted again after she jumped over Karin, placing herself between the heiress at her front and putting Cammy and Sakura at her back. Both of them made moves to try and attack from behind, but Karin held up her hand to stay them, apparently fuming at every single move she made missing, "Yes, listen to the girl. She's got one move left before I show her just what separates me from all of you."

By now she'd realized what the Guren Ken was all about. It was clearly the staple of how the girl fought. The technique that opened up the rest of the moves that she tried to use since.

It wasn't about the first or second blows landing, even though she was still trying to land her hits and was moving cleanly and quickly. They were still real attacks, fast and hard, but despite that all that mattered most was the third move she made, which she had designed the combo to be next to anything. No matter how clean her palm strikes were, no matter if they landed, there would still be a definite three parts to the attack, and as long as Juri knew that there was nothing Karin could move forward with that would even scratch her nose.

'What is she doing?' Sakura thought to herself, 'Why is she stopping us and doing this alone?' Turning to look at Cammy she saw the girl carefully staring at Juri, but not to spot an opening to attack with, 'She's analyzing her? But she's not attacking.' Sakura let out a small gasp to herself and blocked the smile on her face from coming up, 'She's analyzing how she's dodging!'

Something that was just as important in this case with a tricky opponent. If there was a pattern to how Juri kept evading them, taking a step back to observe it secondhand was the absolute best thing to allow someone like Cammy to do, and Karin was giving her plenty of chances to do so without putting her in danger since Juri had already admitted to being there to kill the former Doll.

Sakura just kept her fists tensed while Karin seemed to be stewing in her own anger. Getting back into her original attack posture, Karin moved forward one more time to attack a waiting and willing Juri with one more Guren Ken combination.

First stepping palm strike: miss.

Second stepping palm strike: miss.

Third strike, changed up to a double palm strike: miss. And badly. She didn't even move forward a step in attacking, and Juri had seen enough as she backflipped out of range of the blow that wouldn't have hit her anyway, "Shinkusen (Flash of Suffering)!"

In the middle of her lightning-quick backflip, she shifted directions in a swooping, diving kick that was sure to be followed up with more and more behind it.

Behind her extended arms with her lowered head no one could see the smirk on Karin's face when she moved her fully extended arms upward to stop Juri's kick without even moving back an inch. The moment Juri's foot touched her hands she swiped her arms apart in an opening motion, knocking her entirely off kilter, "Yasha Gaeshi: Joudan (Demon Lord Barrier: High)!"

Cammy's blue eyes twinkled once she saw Juri knocked topsy-turvy in the air and did not miss, "Cannon Spike!" Leading with a single boot to Juri's back, Cammy drove the kick through and knocked her up towards the ceiling.

'Karin countered her? What did she even do?' Sakura didn't have time to dwell on that as she had to hurriedly charge the falling Juri to jump at her, hands held up and over her head in a double-sledge position, "Sakura Otoshi (Cherry Blossom Drop)!" Sakura proceeded to hammer Juri thrice with the attack before she fell far enough away that Sakura couldn't hit her again.

Upon her landing she watched Juri hit the ground and slide across the floor with a screech coming from the friction on the surface. Her head turned toward Karin as if it were on a swivel and she got view of her rival's very pleased expression.

And why wouldn't she be pleased? Her actions led directly to three homerun hits landing on the person trying to make them look like untrained amateurs. Where was Shibazaki to give her some praise for how incredible that was? For how brilliant she was.

Karin had noticed back before the Second World Warrior Tournament a problem in that kept persisting for her. That no matter how hard she trained, some of the people she spent time around were faster than her and she couldn't bridge the gap quickly enough to set that disadvantage aside. As far as speed went in the regular group of her friends, she was upper fringe bottom tier.

Naruto, Ibuki, and Cammy were top three out of the six of them in quickness, while Sakura and Batsu were beneath her at the bottom, but unlike everyone else except Cammy she didn't have any options for distance attacks to make up for it.

Her physical martial arts skill and comprehension ability happened to be the absolute purest out of every last one of them though, despite the fact that her ki manipulation didn't go any further than augmenting her strikes. She was intelligent, resourceful, and diligent enough to find her own way to fix her speed disadvantage problem that manifested itself in the Yasha Gaeshi stances.

This defensive technique was created entirely to deal with enemies faster than her. She knew that the deadly woman would counterattack since she'd boasted that she would do so after Karin missed her third free move on her, and Karin had realized even before any of that the impossibility of hitting her via conventional methods. Her missed attack at the end of the Guren Ken chain wasn't a miss. It was just a bluff, putting her in the necessary stance and tricking Juri into forcing the counterattack, thus allowing her to land her own counter to Juri's original counter.

Damn it, talent like that couldn't be earned, you had to develop that from scratch! It took a little deviousness too. Just a little bit. And a vindictive streak to take advantage of the character traits of others to manipulate the whole scenario. No one ever said she was the nicest, but you didn't have to admit she was a nice person to admit that she knew what she was doing in a battle.

Cammy still eyed Juri's body carefully, but had to ask the question that even Sakura wanted to know, "How did you just do that?" She said to Karin who was more than happy to explain the genius of her unassuming new technique.

"It is quite simple really." Karin started to say none too modestly, "Whenever one takes any sort of blow while blocking, the arms recoil inward first and foremost, whether the defense is broken or is rock solid, it matters not. The very moment someone makes my arms move from their outright positioning even in the slightest, I trained myself to recognize it and gently move any attempt to lay a hand or foot on me aside."

There was nothing 'gentle' about how she handled the kicking barrage from Juri that never got the chance to get started. How insane did her timing have to be in order for that to work, and how painful was it to train it? How she even found the time between all of her business work over the last several months was another issue.

"So you weren't trying to give Cammy a chance to see how that woman moved in defense." Sakura said, kicking herself for ever thinking that Karin would try and put teamwork first in a situation such as this, "You were trying to goad her into attacking you after you faked making a mistake." And the flow of smashing team attacks that followed was just a fortunate by-product.

Oh well, you couldn't complain if it worked out.

Still quite proud of herself, Karin nodded, "For some reason people think that the fact that I am wealthy makes me prone to throwing temper tantrums when things do not go my way. I have never given off that impression in the past have I?" She asked self-consciously, getting a series of averted eyes from both Sakura and Cammy, "Either way, acting as if I were fighting rashly paid off for us, so I cannot complain about the preconceived notions of others."

On the ground, Juri remained perfectly still before finally rose like the undead, starting from the feet up. Needless to say she did not look pleased.

She popped her back a bit amid the stares from the other girls before she finally graced them with the sound of her voice again, "Okay, that was a good one princess. I'll admit it. That little Batman gambit of yours took some smarts and some talent to pull off." She said in an oddly even-tempered voice. For someone that had just been sent head-over-heels and hit with attack after attack she didn't sound like it in any way, "Treating you like those trash fighters on the streets of your town wasn't fair. You're definitely all worth more than just a warm-up."

For some reason that compliment didn't exactly make them feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Once again her face turned a dangerous kind of maniacal at the prospect of battle, "Remember the name Juri Han little Doll. It might give you some extra points when the grim reaper asks you who sent you to him."

* * *

><p><strong>Alright, I actually wrote more for this, but it was too damn long. Way too long. And I split the whole thing in half.<strong>

**So later I'll be throwing out the other one, but I have to do a little bit of work on it to try and make it seem like a natural chapter instead of just a straight split. So… expect that, and have a good day.**

**Hopefully it works for you. Kenchi out.**


	42. Sugar and Spice

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. Now I'm going to take that frustration from knowing that fact, bottle it all up for another two weeks, and then unleash it on some poor hapless opponent's body when I can finally get another fight again. Punching things when you're allowed to punch them is great anger management. It's why I've only been stark-raving mad one time over the last three years.

I don't know what this has to do with a disclaimer. Just humor me alright?

**Chapter 42: Sugar and Spice**

* * *

><p>Sitting in a break room in a pretty high-tech laboratory facility in Brazil, Guile found the time to catch a few 'z's. It was a much needed nap, because he and Chun-Li had been making calls all over South America trying to find a proper place to analyze what they'd found in the Amazon. Eventually it led them back to Brazil. More specifically Sao Paulo, and the most progressive lab that specialized in studying obscure phenomena with the human body.<p>

In other words they tried to unlock the secrets of ki usage without taking part in the hard work that it actually took to access it.

It was just the way people in the world were. It wasn't like ki was some big secret. No one had ever tried to hide it, and the concept to utilizing it was simple. It took diligent hard work, drive, and focus. More than most people were willing to put forth for no reason. The body and mind needed to be trained and well enough in synch that you could consciously use it.

Untrained humans could use ki as well, but it only manifested itself in times of intense adrenaline bursts. True do or die situations. It was what allowed people wounded by gunfire to continue fighting battles. The old story told a million times of a woman with her child pinned underneath a car, and how she was able to lift it to save him… ki.

Everyone had it, but without proper training it just wasn't able to be used for the superhuman feats that they performed. It would lay dormant.

And this lab was one of the places that tried uncover a way for people to just tap into that energy. What a joke. It would have been funny if it didn't piss him off so much just out of principle; the thought that the ability that people had struggled to access for millennia would become nothing more special than an appendix; something that you'd just have but no one knew what the use of it was for.

There was a reason that only fighters that developed their physical abilities to the peak could utilize ki, or chi, or in Naruto's case chakra. Whatever you wanted to call it, the reasoning was the same. When bare hands weren't good enough, when there was a reason to go beyond what humans could be capable of normally, when you wanted to break the limits, and you truly wished to work for it, then and only then was the power available to you.

A kick to the leg of the chair he was sitting in woke Guile up and his head darted up off of table to glare at the side where Chun-Li was standing with a mischievous smile on her face. The damn woman could have at least shown some displeasure in having to wake him up.

"I thought pilots were supposed to be alert and all that jazz." Chun-Li said as she sat down across from him at the small table, "It seems like I'm the one doing all of the actual detective work here, but that is my job after all I guess."

Guile folded his muscular arms on the table and sucked his teeth indignantly, "Yeah, well I don't know if you've noticed but they don't really like Americans here. Especially big, blonde, military, roughneck, asshole Americans like me." At least he could admit to a fault or two of his own, "It helps you that you're not even from this hemisphere… and you know, the whole being a woman and being pretty thing doesn't hurt either."

"I'm flattered, but you're still a married man so you'd better watch yourself." Chun-Li drawled, setting her cheek into her hand as she posted her elbow on the surface in front of her, "Either way, you should hear some of what these people are talking about here."

So he was guessing that these people had been able to come up with something about the bodies that their own people hadn't, "What do you have?"

Chun-Li set a paper on the table with a diagram of the human body, "Okay. So in all of their years of doing this, technology is finally good enough where over the last twenty years they're finding out all of this stuff that a lot of us already knew about was true." The look on Guile's face was requesting that she explain, "Okay, those of us that actually studied the effects of this kind of thing. Like for instance the human body has 361 acupuncture points, pressure points, you know."

Guile nodded, but scratched his flat top head, "Yeah… I didn't know there were 361 of them but I know about pressure points. That whole Chinese martial arts myth and whatnot."

Some people would call anything a myth, even after seeing all that they'd seen. Chun-Li had personally seen Gen paralyze a man's arm for life with nine strikes to specific places on the limb. With a shake of her head the young Interpol detective continued, "Whatever. Anyway, people outside of specific ki-sensitive martial arts are just now realizing that these are more than just sensitive points on the body. They're the places where ki is exuded from inside."

"And?"

"Getting to that if you'll just wait." Chun-Li replied bitingly to Guile's impatience, "I told you that to tell you this. Remember those bodies we found? Every one of them looked like something had burst or exploded or something."

How could he forget? Admittedly he'd seen worse before. Smelled worse too. But it was still something that you didn't forget that easily.

"What about them?" Finding out just what the deal with them had been was the entire reason they'd stayed in Brazil to begin with. They had more important things they needed to follow up on, but they couldn't leave something like that a loose end untied, "What killed them?"

Instead of saying anything, Chun-Li placed pictures of the bodies on the table. One with his arms blown off, another with his chest blown open, the last with his head blown off. Silently she tapped each of the pictures and then tapped corresponding places on the pressure point chart.

The intent was not lost on Guile, "You're saying that their own ki blew them up?"

"The autopsy showed that every single pressure point on their bodies were swollen and damaged, as if the bodies weren't used to bringing out any ki period." Chun-Li continued to explain, "Something forced it out of them. There was an unknown chemical in their systems and that might have been the catalyst."

"Like some kind of drug? These guys are guinea pigs for some kind of weapon."

Chun-Li just shrugged in response to the question, "Something like that. And I don't like what that means. I don't think it's a direct biological weapon, or that it's supposed to be anyway. Whoever did this also kidnapped fighters with access to ki so they could find something out about the process. I think it's something deeper than just a bio weapon."

"It's not really a bio weapon anyway." Guile said, "If it was, we probably would have gotten it, and everything in that clearing would have. Other than a few animals that were probably guinea pigs too nothing else in the forest was infected."

Its nature was different from any other weapon they'd seen before. Like something that could potentially allow others to freely utilize ki without having to undergo the work necessary to gain access to it. That could be catastrophic. But it clearly wasn't the only thing wrong. This was a problem, because even if that part of it never came to fruition, if that was even the intent, without giving people ki usage it was still a deadly weapon.

But this seriously wasn't Shadaloo's modus operandi. It was too… indirect. And establishing one person as the overlord of the entire world did not seem like the endgame here.

So there was someone or something else out there pulling clandestine crap at the expense of the world. Wonderful.

XxX

(India – S.I.N. Dam)

The inside of the dam base was much more peaceful than the outside, at least as far as Ibuki could tell. It was positively huge, and she was only at the top level interior. She really hoped she wouldn't have to travel all the way to the bottom levels to get to where she needed to be, but it wasn't like there was a tank inside shooting at her so even if she did it would be okay. There had been a few automatic gun cameras, but those were easy enough to avoid for a techno-savvy ninja.

Employees within dressed way differently than employees outside from what she'd seen. Most of the people inside wore thick white suits that looked hazmat in nature, with visors over their faces to protect them from whatever they were doing. Scientific stuff, because from the chatter she picked up while sneaking through the joint she couldn't make heads or tails of the technical terms being used.

It made sense though that this whole place was just one big science lab when she took the time to think about it. Experiments and tests had to take a lot of power to run, and where better to set up a secret facility for such a thing than a hydroelectric dam? It wasn't like they'd have a shortage on the necessary energy then.

All of the fuss that Naruto and Batsu were making outside was working swimmingly for her sneaking mission though. Most of the scientists were crowding around any video feed to outside they could find to watch the two boys… fight a tank.

At least they all said it was a tank. It didn't have tires like a tank, but that main gun certainly looked and sounded like one.

Huh. She really needed to find the main control room and sabotage it quickly then didn't she?

And the room with the entire wall closest to her comprised of glass to see inside of it seemed like a good choice, especially due to the fact that there were a ton of massive computer servers inside, and enough monitors overseeing every other conceivable room of importance in the dam including close-ups of the closed off floodgates themselves.

"Ahem."

What? Someone caught her? Bullshit, she didn't alert anyone that she was there. No camera caught her, no person saw her, no motion sensors got her. What the hell?

A woman with long red hair in a single braid going down her back stared up at a seemingly normal patch of concrete wall inside of the dingily-lit dam. She was the only person that Ibuki had seen thus far that didn't wear one of those ridiculous white suits you'd see in a quarantine, instead wearing a rather cool suit. Looking at the woman's exposed cleavage gave her a bit of breast envy, and that was saying something because she was no slouch in that department herself.

"I can see you." The suited woman said, waving up at the unassuming patch of wall that she had been staring at for a few moments now, "Seriously. Get down. You're embarrassing yourself."

The jig was up, so Ibuki dropped from the wall, holding a camouflage sheet that she quickly tossed away now that it was useless to her, "You could see me? Unless you have x-ray eyes lady I would really be interested in figuring out how just what gave me away. I didn't leave a print or a trace anywhere in this place." She said with her facemask up over her nose and mouth.

The smartly dressed woman tapped her amber sunglasses and smirked, "These do more than make me look good. I can find people with extraordinary amounts of ki. Compared to the scientists and soldiers that work here, you might as well be a lighthouse on the shores of Maine."

Ibuki just stared at her blankly for several seconds before tilting her head confusedly, "…What?" The woman just sighed and shook her head while holding her temple, "Wait, who are you anyway?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Doesn't matter?"

"Because you're still going to catch a beating for trespassing sweetheart." Without warning, the woman rushed forward swiftly with electricity crackling around her gloved hands, "Thunder Knuckle!" Ibuki kicked off of the wall behind her and flipped over the woman's head, landing behind her in a sliding crouch as the attempted punch busted through the concrete wall as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it.

"Wow." Ibuki said upon seeing her adversary's initial attack, "You hit hard for an old lady. Really hard."

It was a testament to the even temper of said 'old lady's' businesslike façade, because in her mind she had visions of breaking Ibuki's neck at that moment, "I should. It's what we've been working on." Who was that whelp of a girl calling an old lady? She was only thirty for goodness sake, "Now what does a ninja want with our work?"

Ooh, their work.

Speaking of which, since her cover was blown anyway, Ibuki had no reason to try and keep things low-key any longer, thus she unfolded a very large fuuma shuriken that she'd somehow smuggled in without it hindering her actions at all and threw it.

Not at the lady challenging her, but at the glass wall that shattered once the weapon hit the glass and cut through it, stabbing into a computer screen at the back end of the room and alerting the hapless workers inside, "Miss Viper, what's going on!?" One of them shouted in shock.

Ibuki smiled at Viper underneath her facemask while Viper just tightened her gloves on her hands, "What does it look like? The security breach isn't limited to just outside with those boys. Now get out of the way or you'll just get hurt." Whatever the ninja girl wanted was in that room.

They didn't need to be told twice and all ran out through the broken glass wall as Ibuki disappeared past them and out of Viper's view with her afterimage-producing speed technique Kasumi Gake.

Reappearing right in front of the console that housed the screens that had camera views of the floodgates, Ibuki found herself hesitating, 'Wait, which one of these opens them?'

"Burning Kick!" From behind, Ibuki had to duck and roll aside lest she find herself nailed in the back of the head by a jumping spin kick from Viper, complete with a explosion of fire from her boots. The kick missed and Viper landed nimbly on the control panel, her feet not touching a single switch or button as she flipped her hair back smugly, "Careful, don't hit the self-destruct button. You'll never make it out in time."

Ibuki's eye twitched at the thought she'd jokingly made earlier coming back to bite her. She didn't really think the place would have a self-destruct button, "I'll keep that in mind." But seriously, fire and electricity? Who could use both of those simultaneously?

Somewhere in Aohura City a pissed off Sasuke sneezed for absolutely no reason whatsoever, thus pissing him off further.

Viper jumped into the air with a front flip and fire started building at her feet. Ibuki slid briskly across the slick floor to avoid what would have been a fiery stomp. Upon landing, she dashed after Ibuki in pursuit, closing the gap between them faster than the latter had anticipated.

Reaching out a hand to hook onto the leg of a bolted down table, Ibuki swung herself around it in a sharp turn and shot herself back in the opposite direction underneath the table itself. At the end Ibuki had gone other from, Viper peered underneath to see that Ibuki had stopped herself halfway under just waiting for her to take a look so that she could throw a kunai at her head.

It missed when Viper pulled her head back up but when she looked underneath again, Ibuki was gone, 'What the-?' Looking up she saw Ibuki dropping her way from the sky and placed her hands underneath the top of the table, exerting a massive amount of her effort and her suit's effort to rip the bolted metal table up off of the floor on one end and block the series of falling bicycle kicks from the barefoot kunoichi.

Ibuki bounced off and landed on the floor right in front of it but moved when she heard the bolts at the other end get ripped out, resulting in the table flipping over entirely with a crushing noise of ringing metal hitting floor.

She was then met with a series of fists flying her way with electricity crackling off of the knuckles, and from that moment forward committed to never being hit with those fists a single time. A retaliatory jumping dropkick hit Viper in the chest, but a follow-up backfist was stopped.

Ibuki's three long topknot tails that she kept her hair in were grabbed in one hand and used to yank her head back so that Viper could deliver a downward elbow strike to her chest that dropped her to the floor.

'Gah, she fights so dirty!' Ibuki thought to herself, blinking back tears as her hand was tightly pressed to her bosom area, 'Ironic considering I'm a ninja, but-.' She rolled aside before a punch that busted through the floor could do the same to her skull and a secondary sweep from Viper missed as Ibuki got her distance again.

She leapt backwards into the air, launching three kunai at Viper who kicked them away with the bottom of one of her boots, "I didn't crush your breastbone with that elbow? Perhaps you'll be a decent test for this suit." She said while adjusting her tie around her neck.

"It's a very nice suit." Ibuki said, partly being honest, partly poking fun at her deadly enemy. If only she knew just how badly that hit had really hurt her she would have been rushing her at that very moment, "Really, very sexy keeping those buttons undone with the collar buttoned. I like that touch."

"Not what I meant, but I'll take that compliment." Viper said before jetting into the air via the mechanism in her suit's boots. Her attempt to stomp on Ibuki with a Burning Kick failed when Ibuki dodged and left an afterimage in her place with Kasumi Gake. Once again Ibuki went for the floodgates console before Viper twisted a dial on her gloves and punched the floor, "Seismic Hammer!"

Underneath Ibuki the ground instantly ruptured and popped Ibuki hard into a wall.

Satisfied at the performance of the suit against a fighter that had proficient control of her ki, Crimson Viper adjusted her gloves again and lunged swiftly at Ibuki to finish her with a lightning punch, "Thunder Knuckle!"

Ibuki had hidden her right hand underneath her thigh to hide the fact that she was focusing. Viper's glasses might have been able to tell her if someone had free use of their ki and worked to develop it, but that was where the tactical advantage ended. She couldn't see if someone was building it up in preparation for a move.

The moment her fist lashed out to strike at Ibuki she was ready to counter by striking out with her fist covered in crackling blue energy. The stalemate of energy didn't result in a standoff, as Ibuki immediately spun through and placed her elbow right at Crimson Viper's chest, "Let's really put this suit to the test. Yoroitoshi (Armor Piercer)!"

Using her opposite elbow for a more focused point to release her ki from, Ibuki's attack blew Viper away straight into the floodgates console. Giving her a receipt for the earlier attack that smashed her into a wall, Viper instead hit the screens of the computer and landed in a heap on the console, hitting who knew how many switches and buttons, 'Damn it, I was unattentive.'

A rumbling noise could be heard through the dam that sounded like it came from the lower levels and Ibuki cringed, "Oh no, that wasn't the self-destruct sequence was it?" She asked fearfully. Nobody would ever let her live it down for calling Naruto and Batsu luddites and then accidentally blowing up a damn because she didn't know what button was what.

"Flood control." Viper managed to get out, straining to talk while holding her body. The suit was designed to mimic the ability of ki-users, but it wasn't designed to stand up to attacks taken from ki-users, hence why it heightened her speed enough to keep up with and outpace people with Ibuki's speed at times. She might as well have just taken that attack with one of the vests one of the guards outside wore for protection.

It was better than taking the attack without it though, which was why blood hadn't started leaking from her mouth due to catastrophic internal injury yet. She was better than she could have been otherwise.

Ibuki didn't say anything about it, but the fact that she had remained mostly functional after taking the business half of her Yoroitoshi finisher was kind of remarkable. If she'd been able to use both attacks in the combination, the first to soften the initial point of targeting and the second as the kill shot, it definitely would have done just that and killed her. Instead she sacrificed the first portion of the attack to stop the Thunder Knuckle safely.

Still though, she released the floodgates. That was good right? Yay. Time to leave? That rumbling didn't feel like it would lead to unanimous good times all around though.

"So…" Ibuki said, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet uncomfortably before taking off in a run to get outside and see just what she'd done, "Bye!"

Viper couldn't block the sigh that came from her lips despite how much it hurt her quite damaged ribs and lungs to do so, because she had just lost to that girl, 'Suit needs more testing against adequate foes…' She thought to herself before she started limping away to an escape vehicle up top.

XxX

(Moments Earlier – Outside of the Dam)

"Do you still want to fight a tank?" A loud Batsu asked snidely as he and Naruto found a rocky outcropping that no tank could enter and move through, even the highly mobile tank after them currently. Thus the tank chose to simply back off and bombard their position with heavy gun fire, machine gun fire being used on any attempt from Naruto's clones to try and divert its attention, "How's that working out for you jackass?"

Naruto's tempting fate earlier notwithstanding, he'd done it too. He was quick to forget that part though since Naruto clearly had in exchange for falling back to a somewhat fortified position (read: cowering for their lives).

"Shut up! I shot down an armored attack chopper with my bare hands so I figured that we had a chance!" Naruto argued in return, shouting over the roar of tank fire, "The two of us can beat a regular tank any day by ourselves! But damn that thing is fast! It's like a tank from the future. A future tank!"

It definitely wasn't normal. Tanks shouldn't have been able to move in exact opposite directions with just one second to turn. Tanks shouldn't have had that much ordinance to shoot the main gun at them for forty-five minutes straight. Tanks shouldn't have been able to take a Kyuubi-charged Super Breath Cannon at point-blank range from the top.

"Use that head for more than storing rocks in the empty cavity where your brain should be! Come up with a plan!" Batsu said, smacking him on the back of the neck, "You do it all the time. I'm pretty sure a bunch of guys we fought in the past would have killed you if you weren't able to."

"It's _always_ me Batsu! Why the fuck do I always have to come up with the plans? I've never lied to you jerks and said I was smart. I'm really good at improv yeah, but I'm not Napoleon so why do I always have to pull something out of my ass to win at times like this?" Naruto fired back, "You do it! Or is getting routine sex killing your tiny amount of brain cells or something?"

"Jealous?" Even then Batsu had to stop and smell the roses by taking a shot at his friend. That tank's heavy gun wasn't even shooting shells at them. It was more like ki or something. A big blast of ki that would rip them into pieces if they were hit with it, "Maybe routine sex would get your tiny amount of brain cells to circulate useful ideas outside of eating and blowing stuff up."

Blowing up stuff was kind of what they needed at the moment though.

"Bite me. I don't know how to stop a tank. Destroying its treads is the only thing I know that'll work for starters, and if you haven't noticed-." Naruto said, gesturing to the very tank with the single rolling orb at the bottom of it that allowed it to move completely freely and on demand, "-There aren't any treads on this thing."

Batsu punched into his palm as another shot shook the landscape, "I wish we could just tear that thing open like a tomato can if it wasn't suicide to go out there. You sure you can't Rasengan it or something? You said it tore the tail off of a chopper like a piñata before."

"This is a space-age tank." Naruto pointed out vindictively, "…It's a little bit thicker." Try a lot thicker. As in thick enough to eat a Kyuubi-charged Super Breath Cannon from the top without stopping. Still though, he had to wonder, "How durable could that ball thing really be though? They covered it enough that you'd have to be a mole to take a shot at it so it's got to be kind of vulnerable right?"

It just went around or blew up any trap they'd gotten enough minute distance to hurriedly lay out while running away from it, so that was out of the question. Seriously, that cannon was not shooting shells or else they would have run out by now with how much they'd been fired on, and every shot blasted out in the same color as the orb underneath the bottom of the tank's hull.

The orb was glowing from beneath the tank even now, making it look almost UFOish in the dusk, especially how the hull itself levitated three to four feet off of the ground. To put it bluntly it didn't look like the most stable thing in the world was under there.

And Naruto's mind was racing to power the lightbulb that had just lit up in his brain, "Batsu… I'm about to do something really stupid. When I do it I need you to hit this thing with your best shot that you can give it without getting close. But for Kami's sake, just don't miss."

"You're not seriously gonna-?" He started to say before Naruto nodded grimly, cutting off his question with an answer, "Oh… I won't miss. But are you-?" Before he could even finish that last sentence, Naruto jumped out from the rocky area they'd been hiding in and ran for the tank, "-Sure? Nevermind."

With that he just jumped up on top of the tallest rock he could find and started channeling his raw anger into enhanced energy, bathing his body in a fiery yellow-orange. With the Burning Vigor technique activated he focused tons of ki to hands to prepare his strongest move.

"Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" The scene out in the open was like something out of old-school war movie, with hundreds of Naruto's charging straight ahead yelling bloody hell at the tank that just shot everything it had at them. The gun operator, the driver, and/or the rest of the tank crew had to have crapped their pants at the sight of it.

Eventually Naruto himself managed to make it through the anarchy of bullets and explosions with gratuitous use of Kawarimi no Jutsu and willing clones to substitute with. Without a second of hesitation, Naruto slid under the tank that had slightly been lifted off of the ground via the part beneath it that allowed it 360 degree stop-on-a-dime lightweight mobility.

Naruto's gamble had paid off for the time being as he stuck to the underside of the hull. He had to be run over by the orb directly in order to be crushed, but even so, the underside of the hull was just as tough as the rest of the outside. And the orb was snugly attached, half inside the tank, half underneath it allowing the vehicle to roll without being a cumbersome eyesore.

"Damn this thing is hot." Sticking his back to the tank underside with chakra, Naruto looked at his hands and took a deep breath before tapping into some of the Kyuubi's chakra. Just enough so that he could make this work better than it otherwise would have, "Chou Ikitaihou (Super Breath Cannon)!" From his mouth, Naruto fired a massive amount of blue and red chakra that did more than carve a brutal trench into the ground beneath his face as the tank kept moving.

It also managed to do its best impression of hydraulics and pushed the front end of the tank up into the air, just high enough for just long enough to provide Batsu with the clearest view of the orb that either of them had gotten all day. Even Naruto's close-up view wasn't that good due to how bright it was. He couldn't look at it without hurting his eyes

It was a black and white orb glowing a pale blue that looked like a yin-yang symbol, radiating enough power to even keep the slightest specks of dirt and grime off of it, making it look big and bright and pristine.

Needless to say there was no chance in hell that anyone could have missed that big flashing beacon. And Batsu didn't.

"Nekketsu Zenkai Kiaidan (Burning Super Guts Bullet)!" Raging orange ki half the size of Batsu's entire body screamed forth from his hands the second he saw the first inner circle of the yin-yang thing underneath the tank, and it covered the necessary distance like a rocket before blowing up right on target.

The resulting explosion was the most incredible light show of unnatural white and black fire that he'd ever seen, towering fifty feet into the air and in diameter and taking even the clones that weren't caught in the big bang along with it.

Arms slumped uselessly to the side, Batsu's jaw dropped at the sight that he couldn't take his eyes off of until the blast subsided, "What an odd-sized explosion…"

And once he did he realized that his close personal friend for many years, through thick and thin, good and bad, peace and… not-so-peace, had been _extremely_ close to that blast.

"Naruto!" Batsu shouted, hopping down from his rock to run over to the site of ground-zero where he could start looking for him and eventually found a blackened, soot covered Naruto awake and staring up at the sky from flat on his back, "Oh man, Naruto!"

All Naruto did was cough once, never taking his eyes off of the newly exposed moon in the sky.

Batsu hurried over to him and sat him up, patting the black grime off of Naruto before figuring it was futile and giving it a rest. A good hour long shower or several with industrial soap would take care of that.

Things were silent for a bit before Batsu couldn't take not reveling in their victory any longer, "That was fucking awesome! Did you see that?"

And just like that, Naruto's eyes lit up and he couldn't help but join on in, "See it? I was almost in it!" He dropped immediately and ran for it when he saw Batsu charging up a big orange Super Guts Bullet, but even the chakra cloak couldn't let him outrun an explosion like that, "I thought I was deaf until just now!"

"**You can't go deaf permanently with me here idiot."** Kyuubi chimed in out of the blue, **"You both just vaporized a tank crew of people and scorched a quarter-mile of earth by the way. Way to pop your cherry on the former. Congrats."**

"What was with that flame?" Batsu asked, shaking his head as he started pacing back and forth, "Black and white fire? Have you ever even seen that before?"

'Once.' Naruto thought idly before getting up off of the ground, "Oh, I wish I had a picture of that. Three things that I wish I had a picture of: Budokan Hall getting demolished, whatever me and Sasuke did to make that crater at the martial arts temple in Thailand, and that explosion. I mean-." He stopped talking as he realized that the roar of the explosion's echo hadn't rescinded yet. Unless that wasn't an explosion echo, "What's that?"

Their mutual celebration of how cool that had just been wound up being cut short. Both of them turned in the direction of the dam and then quickly wished they hadn't before taking off in a sprint as fast as they could in the other direction, "High ground, high ground, high ground! Fuck it, climb a tree!"

The reason being, that a gigantic wave of fresh water that had been held up behind a dam had come out way too quickly for the immediate area. Up to two miles out from the dam would wind up being flooded as a result of the floodgates opening all at once… which was really only just two miles of the three that comprised the land that S.I.N. had taken over for privacy anyway, so absolutely nothing was really there.

Except for Naruto, Batsu, blown up segments of a high-tech tank, and roughly 150 soldiers that had been keeping the rest of the area locked down while their experimental high-tech tank tried to murder their teenage intruders.

Climbing a tree was a good idea to start with. Unfortunately enough, gallons upon gallons of water slamming into the trunk of the wrong tree could fell it, and that was what happened to theirs. The absolute worst log ride ever.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Aohura City, Japan – Karin's Personal Manor)

Juri fought in a manner that none of them had ever come across before. True enough, Chun-Li fought a very kick-heavy style, but that was her own personal preference. Kicks worked better for her than using her hands when it came to delivering devastating impact from most of her attacks because… well all you had to do was take one look at the things to see why! That was like asking why a hammer was good for smashing things.

To compare, Juri simply did not punch, at all. Period. If she fought with her hands tied behind her back, everything else that had occurred in the fight still would have happened as it already had. None of the girls would have been able to justify anything going differently.

Which made it extra painful when Sakura woke up lying on cold ornate brick outside by a hole in the bay window downstairs.

'Whuh?' Sakura slowly pushed herself up despite the pain stinging at her body. Bruised and battered most definitely, she started standing up and picking shards of glass out of her left arm, 'What happened?' Looking up at the moon as she tried to regain her bearings.

Oh, and just like a computer rebooting now she remembered. She got a bit overzealous going for a Shunpukyaku to try and maneuver Juri into a trap of a move from Cammy and wound up _paying_ for it. But did she get knocked out because of what happened? Oh God.

She could still hear things getting annihilated inside though and got up to try and rejoin the fight at hand that she'd been previously KOed out of. It wasn't like they'd been necessarily winning when she'd gone for that move, hence why she'd put herself at risk just to try and give one of her friends an open shot. She didn't even remember seeing what hit her. Just a lot of purple, or pink. She didn't recall exactly.

Getting up and running back into the mansion she went through several of the larger rooms on that floor, seeing many motionless bodies in the main foyer. The main staircase upstairs had been devastated. The ornate railing had been completely torn through and many of the stairs had been broken through. Not even talking about the wall next to it.

Tearing off the sleeve of one arm of her battered uniform, Sakura used it to temporarily tie off a cut from the glass that had hurt her arm. The living room, the atrium, the downstairs parlor, all looked as if a drunken forklift driver had run right through them, walls included. Luckily she had dozens more rooms where those came from.

Speaking of the downstairs parlor, just outside of the room right by the doorway to enter, Sakura came to a stop when Karin flew through them and hit the wall on the opposite side of the hall with a crack to go along with the hole her body made in it that was five times her size.

"Ugh…" Karin groaned, holding a bump on her head that was bleeding down one side of her face. Much like Sakura her own red uniform was cut and shredded. Her blue bola tie underneath the collar of her shirt was completely undone and hanging, "I fear…" She said upon noticing Sakura's presence, "…We have not made much headway in defeating this Juri Han. Help me stand Sakura-san."

Sakura did as she'd asked and feared she'd need help walking, but Karin did not as both of them entered the parlor where they had usually sat and spent time whenever anyone had been at Karin's home away from home.

Cammy wasn't looking any more pristine than the two of them did. Her hat had been discarded at some point in the battle, and her hair had been forced out of its usual twin braids, but she was still standing and fighting unlike the two of them that had been knocked out of the fight at separate intervals.

Unlike them though, Cammy didn't have the luxury of taking five. If she went down Juri repeatedly and expressly stated that she would murder her at the first opportunity given.

Pulling a knife from one of her boots, Cammy hurled it straight at Juri but hit nothing other than a pillar in the room as it sailed past her, "Cute." She said before jumping forward with a spinning flourish that ended in a heel kick. Cammy avoided it and the floor wound up smashed underneath the strength of Juri's pointed attack, "Did your little 'ninja' friend give you that to teach you how to kill for him better? Going from one master to another I guess! Pathetic!"

"I don't kill for anyone!" Cammy yelled back, beginning to lose her temper. Juri kept nastily referring to her as a malfunctioning Doll, an emotionless executioner, Bison's murderous little call girl, or any other number of nasty names, "I don't even remember what I did back then! I haven't killed since I first came here!"

"You think one year of being a good little girl just cleans the slate?" Juri said with a mocking laugh before her glare turned absolutely malevolent, "No. You apparently lost your memory. Big deal. That doesn't change what you've done." She stomped a foot on the floor, busting through it with her foot again, "Do you have any idea how many lives you and your 'sisters' ended? Especially you! You were supposedly the best! The original! Created and raised through childhood for only the purpose of serving Shadaloo and M. Bison's needs."

Sakura held a hand to her chest at a thought that came to her. Cammy had been with Shadaloo for years before that fateful day she'd come across them. And it was true, there was no telling how many or just who she had killed before then, "Did… Did Cammy kill someone close to you?"

Juri's killing intent turned full-blast onto Sakura, but she stood strong. At least until Juri let out a laugh a smiled slyly, "No. She didn't. But Shadaloo itself did." Then why the hell did she want to kill Cammy so bad, "That entire organization, it took everything from me, and it makes me sick. Bison may be dead, but I won't stop until every ounce of Shadaloo is eradicated, from the bottom to the top, everyone active for him in his time, until his shadow is completely erased from this world. All of them bear the sinful stink of that lunatic and I'll clean it off with fire."

Cammy looked down at her own hands with a thoughtful frown on her pretty features. Was she really that bad of a person before she lost her memory? Dhalsim said that she had no sense of self-awareness much less a sense of right or wrong, but did that really make any difference?

Now more than ever she was certain that she didn't want to remember anything about her past. If what she'd done wound up with someone hating her so resolutely without ever even meeting her prior to now, amnesia was probably the best thing she could have been afflicted with. It gave her a second chance. Or a first chance period seeing as how she'd never had one to begin with.

"Aww, is the heartless little killer having a moment of solemn reflection?" Juri said, breaking her from her thoughts, "Come on Killer Bee, show me what makes you so damn special compared to the rest of those flesh and blood robots. You're not using brainwashing as an excuse for getting out of paying for your sins."

"You're right, I won't ask for that any longer." Cammy said in quiet acceptance, "But even if my past keeps trying to catch up to me it still doesn't mean I can't keep looking and moving toward the future. All I have to do is stay ahead of it."

"How sweet. But how's that future going to work out when you're not going to live for five more minutes?" Dark energy gathered at Juri's elevated leg before she swung it and kicked a wavy crescent of purplish-pink ki at Cammy, "Fuhajin (Wind Breaking Blade)!"

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" Sakura's own training with Ryu's tips and programs given to her months ago showed the fruits of that labor when she fired a straight and fast Hadoken, well-aimed that intercepted Juri's own projectile and allowed Cammy the freedom to rush forward and fight once more.

Watching Juri dodge Karin's attacks earlier upstairs really did help Cammy by giving her time to analyze the woman's movements. It was uncanny how quickly her body moved in certain instances for just an instant. Her body seemed to randomly step up her already formidable speed for the length of time of a blink of an eye and then she would return to normal.

If Cammy wasn't so certain that she was moving at the exact same speed that Juri usually was she wouldn't have noticed it, as Sakura and Karin had not. But speed recognized speed, and that little aspect of fighting wasn't something that someone that wanted to kill you tried to sandbag in the middle of a fight. She'd watched her avoid attacks enough to know as much by now.

As soon as she got close enough, Cammy planted one hand on the ground and swung her legs outward in a whipping, swinging motion to try and kick Juri in the face. It missed of course, but it was meant to test out the point she was trying to prove; that Juri only moved at a nearly unreadable speed when she was dodging.

Sakura and Karin tried to attack her from both sides when she landed, but Juri jumped up again and lashed out with both legs something of a jumping split kick that hit both girls and stunned them. The moment her feet touched the ground again, she picked a target and followed up, "Senpuusha (Piercing Windmill)!" Cartwheeling multiple times in one jump, Juri's legs became veritable fan blades, and her target was Karin.

She had already been on her last legs to begin with, but taking six rapid kicks with such ill-intent behind them was simply all she could take after getting kicked around her own home for the better part of the night.

Karin's body flew into a nearby couch that she proceeded to overturn when she hit it, landing on the other side on the floor facedown.

A wide eyed Sakura got a close look at Juri's eyes afterwards and the satisfied smirk on her face. Sakura was not amused. Winning and losing fights were one thing. She'd long since accepted that at times she and her friends would get themselves beaten up, at times bad enough to lead to their defeats. She'd lost fights, Karin had lost fights, Cammy had lost fights. They all had.

Ibuki, Naruto, Batsu, Blanka, E. Honda, Dan (especially Dan), Chun-Li, Ken, Guile, and even Ryu had all gotten their asses kicked royally at one time or another. It was the nature of the beast that was martial arts and fighting in general, and the fact that they usually tended to drift toward large scale troubles that they could solve in some way.

But this was different. Someone was attacking Cammy for something she didn't have the slightest recollection of despite still having remorse for it, that didn't even affect the person attacking her in Juri Han. She destroyed her number one rival and close friend's home and could have possibly just killed her, and for what?

This was that dark side of martial arts that she despised. People with power tended to use that power to do whatever they wanted with complete disregard for their fellow man, no matter how destructive it was. And it was something that she was so tired of seeing and dealing with; this backwards survival of the fittest mindset that had led to tragedy after tragedy.

"You hypocrite!" Sakura's temper was finally lost, and she wasn't getting it back so easily. She swung her leg upward and then downward in an axe kick that Juri blocked with a raise of her own leg, "You want to destroy Cammy for what she did when she was unaware, but what about you? How many people have you hurt or killed on purpose knowing full well what you were doing? How many people did you kill, just today?"

"I never said I was in the right with what I want." Juri said dryly. She wasn't deluded enough into thinking that she was doing the right thing, nor did she try to or even wish to justify herself. The simple fact of the matter was… "I just don't care anymore. Do you understand? It can't possibly be that difficult a concept to get."

Just like that, something in Sakura's state of mind finally broke.

She had by far been the most normal out of every single one of her friends that fought. She was a good straight-A student with a well-to-do family that loved her and that she actively lived with. She abhorred the thought of hurting others outside of matches for sport and held a marked distaste for killing and death. She didn't even swear, ever! Even when it was appropriate, understandable, and forgivable to do so!

But after dealing with all sorts of freaks, criminals, and other assortments of explicitly horrible people since the age of thirteen that seemingly had no reason to commit evil deeds than other than 'just because they could since no one could stop them', along with secondhandedly being passed along stories of people close to her being harmed by these unsavory types, she had finally reached the boiling point.

"…Are you serious?" She asked in a dangerously low tone, very uncharacteristic for the usually cheerful and peppy pugilist.

"Perfectly serious." Juri had a rather insane glint in her eye, "As far as I'm concerned if I end up going to hell for what I've done, that will just give me the chance to stick it to those pathetic bastards that killed my family, and everyone that ever associated with them for all eternity!" She elevated her leg to kick Sakura's aside but found her attempt to light Sakura up with her opposite leg blocked when Sakura stopped her shin from rising with her own.

What the hell? Kicking her leg aside was supposed to throw her off whack. How'd she recover like that enough to block? Narrowing her eyes, Juri began trying to outpace Sakura's steps to mix her up enough to kick her lights out the way she had done to Karin.

Only to find that Sakura was able to step in time well enough to keep from being outpaced within striking range. She couldn't get an angle to attack from that Sakura would find awkward to defend from.

Seriously, what was going on? She had been kicking the stuffing out of all three of those girls, and now that the unassuming little goody-two-shoes girl had blown her stack she could do something like this? Interesting. Interesting but extremely aggravating.

Sakura's skin darkened slightly to a tone of a really good tan, but in the low light of the parlor it was hard to tell such. Cammy could see however, that underneath the scarf of Sakura's uniform top there was something red that she could see carved into the white shirt.

At first she figured it to be a gash or two that Sakura had suffered earlier. After all, she had seen her get kicked through a window just like everyone else had, but it wasn't bleeding. There wasn't any blood from it at all. In fact it seemed to be… glowing red?

Juri wasn't seeing or caring about any of that though. She was more concerned with the fact that Sakura was still stopping her from making a single move with nothing more than her positioning. Expert fighters couldn't and hadn't been able to stifle her attacks with that kind of movement.

It was like she was sliding across the ground fluidly, barely even moving her legs.

'Come on!' This abnormality was not lost on Juri. People didn't just match speed with her, even if she didn't use her trump card openly for attack, 'I'm not using this stupid eye for something as simple as finding me an opening! I should be able to do that alone! I don't need the Feng Shui Engine for that!'

But Sakura's steps were getting more aggressive as they darted all over the room in their little positioning dance, and she wasn't trying to waste her efforts with so much as a jab until she knew for certain that she had Juri and could hit her without fail. Sakura had all the time in the world. It was a game of who would be the more impatient of the two, and with friends like hers one thing that Sakura had plenty of was patience.

'I didn't come here to play hopscotch with Ryu's little tagalong protégé!' Juri thought to herself before finally losing it and flipping away to gain plenty of distance, "Fine! Let's see you dance your way out of this! Fuharenjin (Wind Breaking Chain Blades)!"

Juri's left eye was steadily glowing pink at this point instead of just a flash this time, and with that, pink ki radiated from her entire body as she started spinning and firing off kicks faster than anyone could keep track off. With every kick she threw, Juri shot pink ki disks in every direction, effectively turning Karin's first floor parlor into the terror dome.

Cammy dodged as many of them as she could, but there was no avoiding them all, and one caught her in the back of the leg, effectively hobbling her and forcing her to take two more that knocked her to the ground and wounded her flesh.

Sakura stood calmly in the face of the storm of deadly attacks, progressively getting angrier and angrier with every ki bolt that missed her. So much so that eventually she had to grit and bear her teeth, revealing slightly sharpened canines.

"**She thinks of you as some kind of weakling." **The dark whisper in her head was doing nothing to sate her mood, fueling it further along, **"Thinking that you'll balk in the face of a ceaseless barrage. She can throw all the attacks she wants. She can send thousands, millions even. All you need is just one."**

Sakura slammed her hands together and drew them back to begin building her ki. She felt incredible. It had never come so naturally before. Building up her normal oversized Hadoken came quickly, almost in an instant. But if it was that easy to build to her signature gigantic ki blast.

"**Why stop there? You're better than this! If you're stronger show your strength! Make her regret ever coming here!"**

With a short growl of exertion, Sakura pumped even more ki into her preparations, making it seem to grow even larger. It seemed just about to burst from between her hands, shifting between bright colors spontaneously.

Juri stopped her moves once Sakura's Hadoken started doing its best impression of the aurora borealis, 'What the hell?' She couldn't take the time to scrutinize just what was up with her opponent's pending attack, as pink lightning crackled around her left eye, forcing her to wince and close it in pain, 'A malfunction? I knew this thing wasn't strong enough to sustain my kind of attack style!'

The pain was debilitating.

And that Hadoken didn't look like something that she could deal with if she was handicapped by her hardware acting up on her. She had been overusing the Feng Shui Engine in all truthfulness though. There had been little need to use it purely for evasive action earlier in the fight. She merely felt like psyching out her prey, demeaning them before she put them in their places. Toying with them as it were.

These girls were a cut above though, even able to endure her for as long as they did once she got serious about putting them away. And now her time was up.

"Tch." Juri smirked despite the paralyzing pain in her head, "I guess I can see why Seth had you all listed as potential guinea pigs for his little science project. Later." Discretion was the better part of valor in this case, and overexertion would do little for her if she couldn't get away after getting the job done.

Killing Cammy was just a personal touch that she could get back to any time. Other than that little optional objective she'd already done the portion of her job that involved the girls. Thus she kicked her way through the remainder of one of the parlor windows and took off into the open land around Karin's mansion.

Sakura was alarmed at first. Juri had been winning. Handily winning. And then she suddenly took off, right before Sakura chose to mount her counteroffensive? Her dark side was not a fan of that outcome at all, **"This is not a victory! We were beaten by a coward who runs! A true battle isn't complete until a pulse stops! She will not outrun this blast! Fire and kill her!"**

"Tenmetsu Shinkuu Hado-!" Sakura was about to shoot her Hadoken when she stopped herself from doing so. Cammy and Karin were down, and she could feel her own power. If she let her ki technique go it wasn't just going to go straight. It was going to go everywhere. The only safe place would be behind her and she knew it.

"**It doesn't matter, it is worth it! That woman is the embodiment of everything you've come to hate about fighting; doing so only for the sake of destruction! End her life!"**

Okay, that was definitely not her talking. She wasn't going to shoot the strongest goddamn Shinkuu Hadoken that she'd ever created, even counting full power in training, if it would kill _anyone_, especially her friends by accident.

So why was it so hard to put it away? Why was it so difficult to suppress this impulse and the boost that came with it? She didn't want it to begin with! It just came to her when Juri had gotten her to see red, and now she was internally fighting tooth and nail to keep herself from obliterating her friends and the entire north end of Karin's home. Destruction for destruction's sake, just for kicks so she could keep that good feeling that she was getting.

Just like what she hated most, and what originally set her off to begin with.

With that extra push she somehow placed all of that absurd power away, even though it hurt as if she were having chest pains, and she dropped to the ground clutching at her heart. The urging in her head that had been there before was gone, and the mother of all migraines remained in its place.

'Oh man…' Sakura thought to herself, slowly laying down on her side on the floor. Even when it was stark cold and covered in debris it still seemed more comfortable than any cushioned surface at the moment, 'I don't… what was that?' Going to sleep never felt so good.

Cammy lay on the floor, nursing her wounds from Juri's last berserk attack that tore what was little was left of the parlor apart. Her right thigh had a pretty decent gash in it, as did her right arm and a shallow injury lay on the left side of her body, cutting through her leotard.

She observed Sakura's skin regaining its usual fair tone and from her point of view she could now better see what had been cut into the back of her uniform. It appeared to be some sort of kanji, but she wasn't a master of reading them, knowing enough to comfortably operate day-to-day in Japan. This particular one was incomprehensible to her since she never needed to use it before, thus she couldn't tell what it stood for.

This entire situation had been bad news from start to finish. So now there was someone in town with enough power to handle her, Karin, and Sakura simultaneously and make it look easy the entire time, "We hit her once. One time. And she got back up." And proceeded to continue beating the daylights out of them.

Whatever Sakura had done at the end to deter Juri, as odd and as alarming as it was to see her charge up the most unstable Hadoken that she had ever borne witness to, it had to be counted as a blessing tonight.

XxX

(Moments Ago – Rural Village in Kerala, India)

"I'm sorry, but I didn't hit the floodgates on purpose." Ibuki said, sitting in the middle of a doorway in Dhalsim's home after returning from a successful mission, "I told you. There was this lady named Viper that fought me in the control room and I knocked her onto the panel. It was completely unavoidable."

"Yeah, well we still got caught in a gigantic wave from the released water." Batsu replied, sitting around in his boxers with a slightly damp towel over his head, "Our phones are officially dead."

"Mine was dead when that tank blew me away." Naruto commented, raising a hand out of turn, "I'm on burners these days anyway, so it doesn't really matter to me."

Like Batsu, Naruto was also in his skivvies, getting some injuries from the tank explosion bandaged by Dhalsim's wife Sari. They'd be going home in the morning once Dhalsim had rested himself enough to take them on a return trip to Japan, but in the meantime he was still sleeping to restore his energy.

It had been quite the day. Just what kind of company was S.I.N.? Weapons developers had shady reputations to begin with, but everything that had happened today set off every logical klaxon in his heart. That dam couldn't have been sanctioned. It wasn't possible that something like that would be allowed to happen. In parts of the world like this bodies of water were invaluable, and to just block one off for monetary gain wasn't going to happen just like that, popping up almost overnight the way Dhalsim had said it had.

A grunt escaped Naruto's mouth in a bit of discomfort at the tightening of his wraps, but a small smile to Sari let her know that he was just fine. He tried to insist earlier that he didn't even need to waste their bandages, subtly alluding that the Kyuubi would have him all better by sunrise, but she would have none of that.

As he started to rest and ponder where exactly they were all going to sleep that night, a jolt came to the back of his mind that forced his pupils to momentarily dilate in shock. He had to stop himself from running outside in the direction of east northeast.

Was all of the incense burning in that place screwing with his head or did he sense Satsui no Hadou? That was impossible. No one else felt it. If Akuma had been there and openly projecting his power the feeling would have gotten him and everyone else in the village to start cold sweating. It couldn't have been Ryu having one of his episodes either, because he was in Australia doing the ronin thing at last check.

"**Just because something is far away doesn't necessarily mean there's a range to sensing it."** Kyuubi informed him upon listening to his thoughts as the feeling of that dark energy had gotten its attention as well, **"We were stained with that taint for the better part of the last year before you cast its influence out of your dark side. Needless to say you are vastly familiar with this 'Satsui no Hadou'. You are extra-sensitive to it due to what has happened to us in the past and because of my origin."**

Yes, because the Kyuubi was allegedly a chakra beast of malevolence, so it would have to know evil things when it felt it. That was why he knew for sure that Ryu was still in Australia at last check, because he felt it to the south a matter of weeks ago.

XxX

(Aohura City, Japan – Genhanten)

Ever the nitpicking old man that he was, Gen was spending the near midnight hours of the evening going through Sasuke's record books for the restaurant so that he would have something to get on the boy's case about tomorrow to antagonize him.

He needed the distraction since his little friend Akira had gotten beaten up rather badly by someone that apparently had come to see what abilities he had to offer. He had more of a chip on his shoulder than usual because of the run-in with the woman Juri Han that he'd been unable to locate thus far.

While reading, Gen's head tilted up as if he'd heard something, but it was dead silent inside of Sasuke's room and office that he'd taken over for the duration of his stay. He hadn't heard anything.

With his long life experience in the martial arts, Gen was intimately knowledgeable about the supernatural and had developed something of a sixth sense for the powers of others. He had sensed something that had occurred just outside of the town limits.

"Feh." Gen said with a touch of bored antipathy as he touched a fingertip to his tongue before turning a page, "Another one? That makes three now."

Stupid Satsui no Hadou.

XxX

(United States of America)

In California it was early in the morning as opposed to nighttime elsewhere across the Pacific.

Ken Masters' day had already been going for an hour and a half since 5 a.m.

And in the middle of his morning exercises outside of his mansion he had to stop and look west at a sudden spiking feeling that caught his attention and put a frown on the usually good-natured fighter's face.

"That was probably Ryu training again right?" He said as if he were trying to convince himself. In the past he'd felt flashes of Satsui no Hadou and figured that it was Ryu in Australia trying to train where he couldn't hurt anyone if he lost control. And over time it steadily started to settle. This did not feel like that, "…God I sure hope so. For Christ's sake, Ryu and Akuma were enough."

XxX

(Northern Territory, Australia)

The Australian desert was extremely harsh, and just what Ryu was looking for in regards to a new challenge in his training. Simply travelling through that place on foot by himself was an ordeal. But once he made it all the way north to Darwin he'd be taking a boat back to Japan for a short while.

Even the night wasn't a time for too much rest and relaxation as he sat in front of a fire and stared at the flickering flames.

Out of nowhere he turned toward seemingly nothing in the direction of the north, 'Akuma!' He thought to himself before carefully analyzing what he was feeling, "No. It wasn't strong enough or refined enough to be Akuma's. It was closer to his in the past. Very raw and untrained.

Ever since being defeated by Ken he endeavored to overcome the control that the Satsui no Hadou had over him in dire situations. He was not going to allow his own power to consume him, nor was he going to allow it to change who he was fundamentally either. Akuma's 'advice' be damned, he would find something beyond that power that would not force him to relinquish his very beliefs.

But maybe he needed to make a run up north until he caught wind of just what that burst of dark power had been. He'd have to hurry up his training sabbatical and get to the ports quicker than planned.

XxX

(Gobi Desert, Mongolia)

The abusive cold was nothing for the 'Supreme Master of the Fist' to sit through calmly and patiently.

No amount of freezing cold wind blowing sand onto him could break his will, even when it buried him fully at the center of a newly shifted dune. It simply wasn't worth his time to respond to. The elements could not kill him no matter how extreme, sub-zero as it was.

Endurance training aside, Akuma's crimson eyes popped open, the sudden presence of his active ki aura blowing all of the sand around him away for hundreds of yards. Just as he started reacting to the distant feeling that he had been picking up in Japan he simply scoffed and remained seated.

"Another potential user." He said to himself, "The potential for a final battle is lesser than Ryu's however. It is of no relevance… yet."

Every Satsui no Hadou user had the ability to grow to his level of power, if only they chose to embrace it and everything that came with it as he did. There were only two people in Japan that had even the smallest attachment to the style that spawned Satsui no Hadou. One was a teenage girl that he'd seen trying to tend to Uzumaki Naruto after he'd lain waste to him in Tokyo. The other was some loudmouthed fool that his brother Gouken had rejected from his school before his training was even halfway complete.

To him it was obvious which of the two it had to be. The latter was less than dirt in his opinion, and the girl had actual potential to be extremely powerful in her own right.

Either way it wasn't worth his notice. She would probably never be strong enough to provide him with the challenging battle to the death that he craved at his very core. But things could always change.

XxX

(Mt. Mikagura, Japan)

The night sky atop a mountain in the country was quite the calming and relaxing sight indeed. There was just something about all of the stars and clear constellations that could ease a calamitous soul and a troubled mind.

Not that there was anything troubled about this man.

Sitting out front on the wooden floor outside of a small, slightly dilapidated dojo was an elderly man. An extremely muscular old man that professional bodybuilders would have been jealous of. He was balding with long white hair trailing around the side and back of his head tied into a single ponytail with a prayer bead, a thick white mustache and beard connected to this. Around his neck he wore more prayer beads and dressed in white pants, a navy blue sleeveless gi with only a single shoulder and in place of a belt holding it closed he wore a thick rope.

"Satsui no Hadou again eh?" An old yet stern and strong voice from the man said as he stroked his beard thoughtfully and looked to the southwest. It was a bit of an alarming trend. His student Ryu had been dealing with it on his own for the last two years, and now another person showed signs of manifesting it as well, "Well I believe this is a sign that I've been recovering from Akuma for long enough."

With that he stood up and headed inside of his home and dojo to gather some things for a trip. It had been so since Ryu and Ken had been young men training there with him, and it had been a rather long time since Akuma had struck him down in battle.

Who said that the Shun Satsu Goku was impossible to survive? Sure, it put him into a coma for two years, but that was more because of his own mistake in countering the attack than anything else.

Either way, rumors of his demise had been greatly exaggerated.

"I can't fault Ken for burying me." He muttered to himself like an old timer as he put his travel belongings in a rucksack to carry with him, "For all he knew I really had been dead. Digging myself up was a bit of a pain though."

He wondered how the two of them were progressing though. Now that he was leaving the mountain for the first time in decades he'd have to pop in on them. They were 23 when they left several years ago and he was curious as to what kind of men they had grown to be since leaving his tutelage.

But first he would go to where he felt that latest surge of Satsui no Hadou. Who knew what he would find there? The only two he'd trained in his style happened to be Ken and Ryu. Dan never came close to finishing the training. So who else would have the potential to use it?

That was what the journey was for though, to learn of such a thing.

Placing a straw hat onto his head, he left the house barefoot and set out down the mountain and on his way, with no regard for the time of night it was. He was far too old to be concerned with such a thing. It was time to go wandering for Gouken.

XxX

(Unknown Location)

Dr. Senoh walked through the nearly empty halls of the laboratory that was now his place of employment until he reached an elevator and used his key card to hit the button for the top floor. Unlike with his previous boss in Bison, Seth chose not to keep his strongholds out of the public eye. It was safer by his count to have his places of study in a place where everyone could see it.

Putting your base or laboratory or what have you in the middle of nowhere was nice for when privacy was needed in large quantities of space, but unless space or some other element that you couldn't get outside of a city wasn't what you needed putting any of those things out where no one could find it had multiple weaknesses.

Most notably that if you couldn't let anyone know where it was, if something happened to the property to destroy it there was nothing that you could do if you were unable to get to the people that did it. If everyone knew where it was, and one rogue that discovered something discreet decided to do something about it, you could bring the law enforcement of the world down on their heads in the case of S.I.N.

They were a legitimate world-reaching business after all with prominent armed organizations all over the world taking a stake in their wares. Who was going to take the word of a sole person or group above theirs? For a gun that shot straighter, faster, with more ammunition and less cost, or for a tank with full 360 degree flawless mobility and an energy-based cannon there wasn't much of anything most governments in the world wouldn't do for them if they asked for it.

They were sitting on that oh so valuable private contract making arms for a sole country for such a rainy day, but until then they were equal opportunity, and they were keeping all of the best toys under wraps for themselves.

Speaking of which.

Senoh knocked on the door of his current boss and received a strong 'enter' for his efforts. Upon doing so, he was gifted with the sight of a grand C.E.O.'s office with a premium view of the city around them. The entire floor was his abode and place of work.

And it was there he saw Seth himself.

He was the only person that had access to that floor, or to Seth himself. The reason for that was due to the fact that his mind and resourcefulness made him a valuable commodity to S.I.N.'s projects, and also due to the fact that Senoh posed absolutely no threat to him whatsoever.

Seth could put a gun in Senoh's hand, guide it to his own chest, and even help him pull the damn trigger himself and Senoh still could not end his life. He was just as intimidating as Bison was, for different reasons. Bison would kill you for sneezing out of turn. Seth had a taste for the more clandestine methods of control. He didn't enjoy getting his hands dirty on what he called 'lesser beings'.

Apparently every human that took breath was a lesser being.

Walking around the vast penthouse floor, he eventually found Seth staring out over the city before him. It was 4 a.m., but he simply never slept. Sleeping was something that humans required. Rest was something humans required. He didn't need such things. No food, no water, no form of sustenance whatsoever.

The muscularly built Seth stood head, shoulders, and chest over Senoh. Standing taller over him than Bison ever did. And as the head of the company he usurped control of, he was dressed the part in black dress pants and a black dress shirt with a red handkerchief under his collar. He had a white vest, burgundy gloves, and burgundy boots that rode up just underneath his knees.

His eyes shifted colors between red, blue, black, and white, all in solid, dead, emotionless colors. He was entirely bald… and his skin was chrome.

Needless to say he did not run S.I.N. out in public. But he was synthetically created for a purpose that had nothing to do with his appearance or what he wound up becoming. In actuality he was never supposed to gain autonomy and have any sort of control over his destiny.

"Speak Senoh." Seth said, still staring out the window with his arms behind his back, "You said you have reports for me."

"Yes, of course." The flummoxed scientists said before clearing his throat, "Juri Han has apparently begun her actual mission objectives in finding apt talent possible to be used for the BLECE Project, and Crimson Viper has informed us that the dam base in India has been compromised. Operations there are being shut down and they are currently preparing to move everything out by tomorrow evening. The prototype tank has been destroyed in battle. The Tanden Engine was a greater weak spot in the design than we anticipated."

"I told you as much when you started on that project." Seth said as if he were telling a child that something inconsequential to him wasn't a good idea, almost jokingly, "The Tanden Engine isn't meant for anything larger-scale than what it is already used for."

"But sir, a limitless supply of energy. Can you imagine the applications? What kind of things we can create if we can harness it for more than-?"

"Of course I can, but this just proves what I already knew to begin with. I'll repeat myself. It isn't meant for anything larger-scale than what it is already used for. I _know_."

That was that. Seth had vision but he also knew full well when he was reaching for something that couldn't be obtained. In the tank, the Tanden Engine not only allowed the tank full mobility due to how it was placed at the bottom to roll, it was the entire power source for the tank. It gave life to the tank's powerful engines, it even provided the ki that was blasted from the main gun.

But it was unstable and unsafe. Anything larger or smaller than the original design was imperfect and dangerous, and with what caused the Tanden Engine to work, one of any size going critical was disastrous.

"Enough about that." Seth insisted, "Tell me more about the BLECE Project."

Grateful for the shifting in gears in the course of the conversation, Senoh did just that, "Well Juri can't finish her mission and return with the data she's gathered quickly enough. We tried putting what we've already worked out to test on subjects in Brazil. The results were rather… unsavory to say the least."

"So I've heard." Seth said with an amused chuckle, "Exploding pressure points? Even if we did take the design of BLECE beyond what it is now for what it is truly intended for, I would like to think that the form of it that we have now would make a grand weapon that we could make a substantial sum from."

What did he care what it would do? BLECE wouldn't work at all, finished or in its imperfect bio weapon form, on anyone that could actively manipulate their ki. It wasn't like it could come back to hurt him or any of his plans if he sold it to any radicals and they foolishly tried to turn it on him.

"It is an intriguing effect." Senoh admitted. Bison definitely would have loved that little aspect of it, "But I'm still infinitely more invested in the finished product, or what we intend for it to do. Imagine it, any human being in the world can have their inner energy available to them with the application of BLECE. You could do anything you wished with that sort of power at your disposal."

"What I wish for is to achieve my purpose." Seth said, looking at his gloved hands before making fists from them, "What I was created for was to rule above all else. I can and will succeed where Bison failed, because intentional or not when he deigned for my creation, he made me better than him. Unlike him, reliant on the Psycho Drive to give him power that transcends mankind, I need no such thing. I am the key. And BLECE will be the catalyst to my ascent."

White and black energy formed around his fists as his eyes glowed blue. He turned around to face Senoh and the scientist began stepping away. Even though Seth never overtly tried to intimidate anyone to get what he wanted it mattered not. He was still an eerie presence, "Sir?"

"I will rule all." Seth said, looking directly into Senoh's eyes with a confident smile on his face, "Anything of use to me will be assimilated into my efforts one way or another, and everything else will otherwise be subjugated or destroyed."

* * *

><p><strong>And that's that for now folks. The second half of a doubleheader of chapters. Imagine all of that stuck together in one blistering chapter.<strong>

**This is still the most fun thing that I'm currently writing for some reason. Unlike two other stories I do, this one doesn't feel like work at all, which is why chapters for it come so easily.  
><strong>

**So aside from that, guess what possible major life shift I might be making in the next year? I might be trying to join the army when I graduate if I can't find a job. Why the hell not? **

**From what I've gleaned from my old man that did it back during Desert Storm times, I'll basically wake up at the crack of dawn, train my ass off from sunup to sundown, get yelled at, and learn to shoot things better than I already do before they give me a job doing communications stuff that I already went to college to learn how to do (if I test for it well enough).**

…**Basically that was everything I was doing already **_**anyw**_**ay, only cranked up several notches, and then I'll be getting paid for it. Also I won't have to emasculate myself looking all over Virginia, northern North Carolina, eastern West Virginia, and possibly Ohio and Pennsylvania for someone to hire me fresh out of college in a shite job market.**

**Yeah… I'm really thinking about doing that. I don't even care about the potentially getting shot at part. I've already been shot, in the side, so I popped that cherry already. I'm sure that'll change if it ever starts happening regularly since PTSD and some of the wounds I've seen guys have are no joke, but we'll burn that bridge if we come to it. I won't be infantry, I'll be a comm. guy… hopefully.**

**Sure the U.S. Government will own me body and soul, but how is that any worse than Radford University owning me while I work my skin white trying to pay back their loans until I'm 30? At least this won't potentially fuck up my credit and I'll actually be doing something I believe in. Every armed forces guy I've ever met has been cool, and if it was good enough for my dad it's good enough for me too.**

**Of course this is all pending me not getting a regular job for some time after I graduate… so this is all going to take quite a long while. But I'm definitely not against it .**

**Growing up folks. Twenty-one years old and not getting any younger you hear? Kenchi out.**


	43. The Darkness in Us All

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I started a Hands Across America movement to influence this to change. We got about as far as the end of the driveway, because people found out what the entire thing was for and walked away.

**Chapter 43: The Darkness in Us All**

* * *

><p>"I will not remain bedridden at a time such as this." Karin disputed resolutely despite the fact that she was indeed stuck in bed with her larger butler Ishizaki pinning her to the bed and underneath her covers by her shoulders with his sizeable bulk, "There is much work that needs to be done, and I require more intensive training. My improvements were not enough to defeat that detestable woman and keep her from ruining my home."<p>

Shibazaki just let out a sigh and adjusted his glasses on his face. Karin was never hurt as bad as she currently was, but when she required extended rest and recovery time the way she currently did she was an absolutely horrible patient. He couldn't imagine where she'd gotten that attitude from. It was like the girl was allergic to rest.

The work ethic was incredible for a seventeen-year old girl, but the persistence was at times a bit much.

"You are in no condition to even walk without assistance ojou-sama." Shibazaki said, "Working and training are far beyond you at the moment. You need to recover your strength. If you cannot even remove Ishizaki from holding you down, you cannot do anything."

She glared at her chief attendant but had to concede the point. Any other time she would have by now freed her arms and headbutted her way free of Ishizaki's efforts to keep her down before apologizing, thanking him for his care, and going on about her merry business.

But now she couldn't even budge him.

"Whoa."

Turning across the vast bedroom to the door, all eyes fell on Naruto who was busy watching Karin be held down in her own grand bed.

"I can come back if this is a bad time." He said, rubbing the back of his neck as Ishizaki got off of his employer to allow her to save some face, "I came to see how you were doing after the… well, you know. You were there."

"Quite." Karin said dryly, pouting to herself with her head set down on her pillows, "I have never been so thoroughly beaten and humiliated in my entire life. I am not one that is used to suffering defeat as you well know Naruto-san."

"How did you get in here?" Shibazaki asked as Naruto walked past him in the room. Ah, so that was where the stubborn streak from hell that she seemed to have developed came from. Naruto was notorious for never remaining in medical custody any longer than it took him to find a way to escape. That would not be happening today if he had anything to say about it.

In return, Naruto gave him a strange look at the odd question, "You turned off the security system, all of the merc guards are supposed to be dead or quit, and there's a gigantic hole on the side of the house." How was he not supposed to get in there?

There was something of a point to that logic. They were pretty much the only security left for protecting Karin, and as the other night had proven, even with a gun, the two of them were absolutely useless in stopping someone of their level in combat for even half a second. Anyone that could take down her entire armed guard could tear through them like tissue paper.

As painful as it was to admit as her caretakers, Karin was extremely vulnerable. Even if this particular assassin never came back, it wasn't like Juri had been the only person that would have seen her as a target for some purpose. Even if she fought it tooth and nail they would have to consider moving her back to her family's estate until further notice so that she could be safe.

"Shibazaki. Ishizaki." Karin said, mustering up whatever authority she could from on her back, unable to move out of bed, "Leave us for now." They looked to argue when she gave them equally stern looks, "If neither of you are doctors I have no idea what reason you would need to remain here for. If security is your concern, you should know by now that this man would never allow harm to come to me."

There was that unconditional trust of hers in him again. Admittedly it wasn't unconditional. He'd earned it several times over in the past. That still didn't mean that Shibazaki had to like it though.

Even so, he nodded stiffly and left his young mistress alone with her confidant. She was a smart young woman, and she could pick her associates wisely.

The door was shut and Naruto kept walking over to and around Karin's large bed that she was resting. All of the girls were basically confined to beds and chairs due to their injuries suffered from Juri, but they seemed fine for the most part. The look of complete disapproval of her current situation showed that Karin was too.

"So, I don't know which one of you girls to worry about more right now, but you're kind of winning 'Little Miss VIP.'" Naruto said, taking a seat on the edge of her bed.

"I feel so fortunate." Karin said sarcastically with red involuntarily staining her cheeks. Eventually she frowned and turned her brown eyes his way as she noticed him trying to size up just how injured she was, but she was covered entirely by beddings beneath her neck, "I will be fine. Shibazaki is over-exaggerating with his concern over my condition. I am stable. You have gotten up from worse in the past."

"Don't even try to compare yourself to me about something like this." Naruto said in return, "Do you know how hard it is to kill me? Someone couldn't kill me with a sure-kill technique that actually hit me."

"Trust me, I am well aware of this." Of course she did. Half of her last summer was spent fretting over his comatose form until he woke up out of the blue one day and got right back in the saddle, "But I cannot remain prostrate. I cannot be allowed to look weak. It will make my family look weak."

"I don't care about that, I care about you. Get some rest damn it." Karin looked away from him, but only to hide the complete reddening of her face at hearing him bluntly state such a thing, "You're all adorable when you're huffy and tenacious, but your organs are supposed to be slurry if you don't remember. I'll live here until you heal if I have to."

"And why in the world would you want to do something like that?"

"Because you don't have any guards, there's a gaping hole in the side of your house, and I could probably hurt you with a hug right now."

As she sat up in her silver pajamas and bunched her covers around her waist, a sigh escaped Karin at the realization that even her closest confidant wouldn't allow for her to try and push her current limitations by getting out of her prison of a bedroom. She could probably use a hug right then, whether it would hurt her or not.

Turning to look at him again, Karin pulled an edge of her bedding to the side and pointed down at the bed itself, much to Naruto's initial confusion, "If I am to remain here to rest, you will have to be the one to force me to."

He didn't want to force her to do anything, but then again she wasn't challenging him to make her stay. She was saying that she really wanted to have his company for a bit longer. The closest thing he would ever see from her relating to a pleading look.

Oh, he couldn't say no to his vain, prissy boss lady, especially with the demure little smile she gave him once he got into bed with her and allowed her to curl up against him.

"I am not made of glass Naruto-san." Karin groused slightly when she could barely feel his arms around her body, "You are well aware that I am tougher than this." She wanted some affection damn it. He was basically the only person in the world that would provide it. Her parents wouldn't and never really had in the past. Her body hurt, as did her pride, and she wanted to be able to let her guard down with Naruto.

"You're warm too Rin-Rin."

"I have been mostly restrained to my bed for two days by order of my doctors."

"Is that your way of saying that you know?"

For the first time in a few days Karin smiled as she threw an arm over Naruto's torso and set her ear against his chest. Such a strong heartbeat. That could easily become her favorite sound in the world, "It can be taken as such." She said, calmly relaxing against him, "I hate that I love this so much. I should not be so content in showing such weakness."

"It's not weak to like being with somebody." Naruto replied, fingers running over her bare back underneath her pajama top. God she was soft. He felt like he'd break her if he was negligent with his strength, but he knew better, "I'm glad you're okay."

A rather devilish chuckle came from Karin as she pushed herself up enough to look at his face, "Hmm… now do you see what it is like for us to see you so direly injured? It is not enjoyable is it?" She said, setting herself down to kiss his cheek before getting comfortable next to him again, "Like I said, I am fine. Or I will be fine anyway."

True enough. Her wounds would heal, her home could and would be rebuilt, and she would find a way to be stronger the next time. But Juri Han was an extremely dangerous woman. Karin had no idea how she managed to be driven off, and Cammy didn't either. All she knew was that Sakura had done something to ward her away.

"Naruto-san I want you to be careful." Karin said, setting her head in the crook of his neck as she shut her eyes, "I do not have a good feeling about this. I think there is more to this than we are able to see." Her home was assaulted and they didn't try to take anything? There was no attempt to steal anything of value or to kidnap any of them.

A fight was all that woman wanted, and she seemed to revel in every last second of it. What kind of enemy was that? A battle for destruction's sake? Was there anything else to it, or did she just want to fight for no other reason than a whim? She seemed to want to kill Cammy for some personal vendetta, but she could have attempted that when Cammy had gone home the next day.

Instead of waiting for when it would have been smart and easier with her being alone, Juri attacked with Cammy, Sakura, and Karin all in one place, and tore through all of her security detail in the process.

She was beginning to fret and for some reason Naruto could feel it as easily as if it were the wind blowing on him outdoors. He put a kiss on her forehead and held her close to calm her down. Everything was going to be okay. This wasn't even as close to being as bad as it could have been, "Just get some rest and heal. Don't worry about a thing."

XxX

(Some Time Later – Saikyou-Ryuu Dojo)

"There's a crazy bitch hunting the best ki-using fighters in the country and no one told me!?" An alarmed Dan shouted at the top of his lungs, getting the students of his dojo to cover their ears at the volume. Even Blanka held his ears and curled up into a ball to escape the screeching noise, "What the fuck? I thought we were cool!"

Naruto did not get a welcome return upon coming back to Aohura City the afternoon after he had helped ruin the floodgates and render the S.I.N. dam in India useless. A six hour trip through time and space didn't really prepare him to find every other woman in his life pummeled to hell.

Ibuki was dropped off in the mountains and Batsu was dropped off at home, as was Naruto, and it was there Naruto found pretty little Cammy quite roughed up and bandaged on more than a few places on her body, and that was just what he could see around her clothes.

She'd taken a fair share of wounds and a few cuts to say the least. She couldn't even lay down on the sofa in the living room comfortably without wincing every time she shifted around on it. Even holding Agent Jack seemed to hurt. The poor thing, couldn't even enjoy cuddling her kitty cat she was so hurt.

And then he'd found that she wasn't the only one that had taken a monumental beating. In fact, hers hadn't even been the worst as he found out the next day.

Sakura had gotten off the lightest. Bruised ribs, a concussion, a few nasty marks and discoloration on her face that would be there for a few days until she got her normally cute complexion back. She'd also suffered a very nasty case of exhaustion, but Cammy had told Naruto something that warranted checking into with her later after everything else got settled on the homefront. He went to go see her at home, but only got to see her for a bit from her open window because she was still getting bed rest on demand from her mother.

She gave him a smile upon seeing him and told him that they'd had it rough for a bit, but that she'd be back on her feet and as right as rain in no time. She was clearly on painkillers because even stuck in bed and looking wounded she was way too cheerful for just getting her ass beaten badly enough for a doctor visit.

Before she closed her eyes for a midday nap however he'd gotten a touch of bad information from her. Out of the three girls that had gotten hurt, the one that had taken it the worst was Karin. She'd suffered actual life-threatening injuries, ruptured organs, as a result of the little home invasion of her property.

The best doctors in the country were apparently in her mansion that was currently being planned to be reconstructed, watching over her and making sure she remained in good condition. But she was tough, and she'd be fine as well with time.

His ladies weren't the only ones that had been attacked though. Upon hearing what had happened, when he'd hit the streets afterwards the first place he'd gone to was to inform Sasuke, only to find out that Sasuke had already been somewhat aware of it due to the same woman hurting Akira a while before the others.

So when Naruto stepped into Genhanten that day Sasuke to tell Sasuke about it, the latter was already pissed without him even having to say a word. Needless to say he already knew. And that whole conversation was unpleasant, but it wound up with Naruto getting a travelling partner for the day at least while he made the rounds to warn anyone with potential in town to be on the lookout.

"Because you're not even close to being the best fighter in the country." Sasuke simply looked like all he wanted to do was leave, as if just standing inside of Dan's dojo was making him weaker by the second. Being surrounded by all of that weakness had to be infective, "You're not even the best fighter that lives in this dojo."

"I'm telling you now, so calm down." Naruto said, trying to stop Dan from being too much of a spaz. Sasuke probably would have kicked him through the front window of the dojo if he got fed up enough with him, "It hasn't been going on for that long, so now you can at least get ready for it."

In reality he'd only come to warn Blanka. If _good_ fighters were what this Juri woman was looking for she'd definitely leave Dan alone. Blanka wasn't safe though, because he was actually awesome. Which seemed contrary to what being awesome was actually supposed to do for you.

"You're some kind of super-assassins right?" Dan said, running up to both Naruto and Sasuke and grabbing their shirts, "Do something about it! I'll pay! I can't have this happening right now, I'm too young to die! My dojos are taking off all over the region! I-… I mean, I can't take the time off to hunt this crazy bitch down right now! I've got super-important training to do! I can't be bothered to-!"

Both Naruto and Sasuke punched him in the face to get him to let go of them. One purposefully hit him harder than the other and felt a momentary peaceful smile pass over his face before he hid it underneath his usual stoic expression. It can be left up to the imagination to guess who.

Naruto kicked Dan's body on the ground once to elicit a groan from him and ensure he was still alive/awake, "He's a super-assassin. I don't kill people for money." Did it piss him off about what happened though? Of course it did.

If some sadistic chick with a desire to hurt fighters ever felt froggy enough to try and leap at his girls again or any of his other friends he'd handle it then with extreme prejudice. But waging a manhunt or a womanhunt for this person wasn't in the cards at the moment.

"I'll kill that bitch for free." Sasuke said rather darkly, "The next time I see her I'm snapping her spine like a twig." Naruto backed away from Sasuke and even Dan crawled away on the floor. Too much, even for him, "What? You don't want payback dobe? What about what she did to your little girlfriends?"

"My 'girlfriends' are all grown women and some of the best fighters in the world." Naruto replied bitingly. Was he trying to imply that he didn't care? Big mistake, "They don't need me to get payback to make myself feel better. I'm sure Akira loves it that you're getting defensive and homicidal over her, but don't take it up with me teme."

"Say that again and I'll punch another hole through your chest you joke."

"Go ahead and try it. Grow your little wings while you're at it so I can rip them off again and shove them up your ass."

"Don't fight in my dojo!" Dan shouted as he kept crawling away out of the line of fire. The killing intent between the two had been steadily rising to an almost paralyzing extent, "…Unless you've got the money to pay for my renovations and add-ons. We need a hot tub, and tanning beds to attract the ladies to join!"

Naruto and Sasuke proceeded to have a rather tense stare-off until Sasuke turned around and walked out of the building altogether, "I'll deal with you later. Nothing's over yet. I'm finding Juri, I'm making her suffer, and then I'm showing you where you stand compared to me once and for all."

Naruto flipped him off from behind and shook his head as he watched him go, "…Jackass wants to go hunting, good for him." If what everyone thus far had told him about Juri was true, sooner or later he wouldn't have to look for her at all. She'd show up herself.

"Look." Dan sat up on the ground, two fist-shaped bruises on his face from both Naruto and Sasuke, "If you two are ever going to fight again, tell me so I can get a video camera and put it on Youtube. Do you have any idea what that kind of publicity would do for my chain of dojos?"

"…Just tell Blanka to watch out okay?"

XxX

"Mom… I'm fine." Sakura urged as her mother fretted over her by the front door. She was going to go back to school today come hell or high water. She'd spent enough time in bed doing absolutely nothing but resting from her exhaustion, "I won't train today like I promised, but I can't keep missing school. My grades are going to drop."

Sakura's mother didn't want to hear any of that, "Two days ago you couldn't hold your eyes open. Yesterday you couldn't hold a glass of water. Today you're going to walk all the way to school?"

"Yup!" Sakura chirped brightly, pulling on her shoes and picking up her schoolbag, "I can't lay around forever. I've got to get up and go eventually." And that eventually was today. As far as Sakura was concerned, exhaustion was just an excuse to keep from working hard, "I'll be fine mom, I promise."

Sakura's mother easily freaked out over many of the things that happened to her due to her penchant for fighting. It was just that Naruto had traditionally kept her safe from most of the potentially dangerous things that could have happened to her until it got even bigger than what he could handle alone. Sakura learned very quickly after things got as big as the whole attempt on Karin's life from the Dolls in school around a year ago that she didn't have to tell her everything, thus she didn't let her mother in on everything that had contributed to her most recent injuries.

Or that strange feeling that she'd had to kill her enemy at all costs with her full power that she didn't even know she had. She definitely didn't need to spill that to someone that didn't know anything about complete rage or wanting to kill someone so much it caused her physical harm to refrain from doing it.

A knock came at the front door that startled Sakura's mother, but Sakura herself could already sense who was behind it. Jumping up with her shoes on and ready to go, Sakura pulled the front door open to see her ultra-close friend Naruto standing there. A contrast to the usual of her ending up at his house to rouse him from bed, "Good morning Naruto! I didn't think I'd ever see-."

She stopped when she noticed Naruto leaning in and observing her face uncomfortably close. He wasn't saying anything and he was giving her that squinting look that he always did when he was focusing extremely hard on something he didn't understand. What there was about her face that he didn't understand, she didn't know.

Eventually he gave up and got out of her personal space, "I don't see it." He said with a shrug, "Don't sense it either."

"Sense what?" Sakura said, going outside to begin setting out for school with Naruto after that little moment of weirdness had passed, "What's the matter? You finally lose it from waking up so early?"

"Ha, funny." Naruto deadpanned before casually throwing his hands up behind his head, "Cam said that you did something to drive that Juri person off. Something about your skin getting darker, your ki being all dark and violent. But I really can't feel anything."

"Well that did happen." Sakura frowned at the thought of getting absolutely destroyed by an opponent that outclassed not only her, but two of her other friends with ease.

What gave her even more pause was the thought of the feeling that reverberated through her body once that power sprang free from her.

It felt so… _good_. Even then, the memory of something she knew was so bad sent a shiver down her spine. Enough to put goose bumps on her arms and visibly affect her otherwise… in ways that those around her could see if they were paying attention.

Turning his head to the side, Naruto had to block a nosebleed at the sight of Sakura's shirt tightening at her breasts, 'Okay, why did Sakura-chan get turned on just now?' _Really_ turned on, for no reason. It wasn't even cold outside on that day, so arousal was the only explanation available. He stared at her nipples so hard that he actually wound up walking face-first into a pole, "Ow!"

At least now he had an excuse for why his nose was bleeding.

Seeing Naruto make a battering ram out of his face snapped Sakura out of her own thoughts, especially when she saw blood spill down Naruto's face, "Naruto, are you alright? You didn't break your nose or anything did you?"

"No, I'm fine." Naruto said, holding his nose to keep from dripping any blood on his shirt, "So what happened?"

"I don't know. It's just that woman… she was absolutely despicable. She knew how much of a horrible person she was, readily acknowledged it, and didn't even have a reason for it other than just because she could." At least other bad guys had goals. Bison wanted the world. Rolento wanted to build a utopia.

Juri just wanted to raise hell just because she could. Because she liked doing so.

It made her so angry she had to bite her own finger at the thought of it. How could a human being be so callous without trying to justify themselves, or with an overreaching goal for their actions? She almost wound up bumping into something herself had Naruto not caught her and pulled her into his arms, putting a red blush on her face at being pressed that tightly against him, "Naruto, wha-?"

If he wanted to hold her that close he didn't have to be so abrupt about it.

"You almost ran into that guy." Naruto said as the person in particular walked past them. He was a very muscular old man with a very long white ponytail and a straw hat, wearing a pretty old-school haori, "Sorry about that. She's been a little out of it for a few days."

As he looked down at the teenage twosome, Gouken's eyes lingered on Sakura for a moment. He had been able to trace the source of that dark power a few nights ago to that town even though it had subsided. For someone like him it was simple to follow the lingering taint of the Satsui no Hadou.

The blond boy had come across it before in his own way, but now it was cast out. Impressive. But the girl, she was the one that had the current troubles with it. How did such a sweet little thing ever come across learning enough of his style branch to run into the Satsui no Hadou by consequence of such?

He couldn't just outright introduce himself to them though. Not only because even he recognized that it would have been strange, but because they were both clearly on their way to school, and it was important to obtain an education, 'What an interesting pair of children.'

The man turned around to the two of them, and for such a large man with a stern face had a very easygoing smile as he tilted his hat their way, "It is of no concern child. No harm done." Returning his smile with an additional nod, Naruto took Sakura the rest of the way to class.

What a cool old man. Most of the old people Naruto ran into were all crotchety and didn't like him much, even when he didn't do anything. Even when they didn't say anything about it he could usually feel it from them. But he didn't feel anything from that old man.

"**And you don't see anything wrong with that?"**

With what? He didn't feel anything.

"**Exactly. You didn't feel **_**anything**_**."** The Kyuubi persisted, trying to get his point across, **"When do we ever feel nothing around a person? Do you know why we are able to sense the people around us? It's because I can sense even the slightest malice and ill thoughts in a creature. Your little girlie there has it in the deepest reaches of her heart, but that old man… nothing."**

That just didn't happen. Everyone, no matter how minor it was, had a malevolent presence about them.

Except for that old man.

But when Naruto turned back to look for him again he was gone, '…Is it wrong to have that paranoid feeling again?'

"Naruto." Sakura said unsurely, directing her gaze momentarily down between them, "You're still holding my hand."

And indeed, while in the middle of his conversation with the Kyuubi, Naruto had been absentmindedly holding his best friend's hand all the way down the street, "Oh. My bad." It was just… he was so used to being close to her that it didn't register that he'd still been holding her after keeping her from walking into that old man.

He let go, and Sakura frowned when he did. She was just letting him know that he was doing something odd compared to how he usually acted, but she never told him that she didn't like him holding her hand. It made her feel like a little girl again, when she was in awe of his mere touch due to the chakra he had. She felt safe back then, no matter what. And that was something that she really felt she needed these days.

"Hey." Sakura poked Naruto in the shoulder as they walked through the front gates of their school, "When you had trouble controlling your Kyuubi powers, what did you do?"

The way he tried to get control wasn't really the best way that he'd recommend for anyone else to try with circumstances similar to his, "I went way out to the mountains and kept using as much as I could so I could train to control it better." It was still a work in progress of sorts, "…You don't want to try that do you? It's not really easy."

"**Heh."**

'Oh be quiet you.'

A thoughtful look came over Sakura's face at the thought of such a brutally direct method of dealing with her problem. How Naruto-ish. But she didn't think she could get mad enough to dredge up whatever had happened to her again. That had to have been a once in a lifetime thing.

Hopefully.

XxX

(Karin's Personal Manor)

Since they'd seemed to hit a temporary lag in the case of the exploded living animal cells case (Guile named it), Chun-Li sent a call in the direction of her favorite pack of slightly younger brats and wound up getting Cammy on the horn since she was normally the one at home during the day in Japan.

After being told of how someone had blown right through them and had attempted to kill her, it didn't take much urging from Chun-Li to fly on out to Japan just to find out what exactly was going on in their neck of the woods.

As she and Guile walked through the premises that had served as the site of the battle alongside Cammy, Chun-Li let out a whistle at the sight of the destruction wrought on the property, "And one person did all of this while three of you were here?"

"She was extremely powerful." Cammy said, still feeling the phantom impact of Juri's kicks smashing off of her body, "For the most part none of us were able to touch her until she got arrogant and Karin managed to set her up for all of us." Actually, even after that she was still arrogant, but was far more surgical in how she decimated them.

"Juri Han." Guile said, recanting what he could recall from memory in regards to her file that they'd pulled up on the way to Aohura City, "A South Korean national and a world-class practitioner of Taekwondo. Something of a genius since she was basically considered the best in the world at it by the time she was 15, but then…" He sucked his teeth and shook his head, "…Shadaloo. Long story as to what got her family their wrath."

Enough said. Bison had a knack for screwing and twisting up people way past what he needed to do to get what he wanted. There was no kill quite like overkill for that man. And he could hardly be referred to as a man. He was more of a monster.

"From there she disappears." Guile said with a snap of his finger, "That was a little over four years ago. Kind of impressive that a kid like her could do that as young as she was."

"I'm fairly certain I could do something like that at fifteen if what I can do now is any indication." Cammy said, referring to being able to disappear off of the grid without a trace as if it were something normal, "I'm only seventeen now… I think. That's what everyone tells me at least."

Chun-Li gave the sweet little scar-faced assassin a pat on her beret-clad head, "Most children aren't isolated from birth and conditioned into adolescence to be emotionally bereft super-soldiers though. You don't count as a regular girl dear." Was she pouting at not being counted as a normal girl? That was adorable.

"You sure about that?" Guile said as he could see the massive gouges in Karin's lawn as they walked up the upper portion of her driveway to reach her mansion, "I'm starting to think there's something in the water these days if all of these brats are getting the power to blow up tanks and whatnot."

"Extraordinary will always be just that though." Chun-Li said with a smile at the thought of the special youngsters she knew. It went past just the group of kids that they knew. Yang and Yun had it in Hong Kong, and Aohura City was a hotspot for kids with vast potential. But even so, "You can't find it everywhere-."

"-But it can turn up anywhere." Guile finished in her stead, "You need new made-up proverbs. You're starting to run out of them."

Construction was in its early stages, but apparently the front doors to the mansion were not the first things to be repaired as they walked straight inside without having to deal with such a thing. Even though she was supposed to be in bed, Karin was up and overseeing the construction to her own home, as was to be expected for someone like her.

"I am lucky that I have already had this land for a few years already." Karin said to herself with a sigh as she looked over the blueprints of the place and all of the places that had suffered catastrophic damage, "Two and a half years is enough time to wait for renovations is it not?" At that point she noticed that she had company and greeted them, "Oh, hello. What brings you here?"

Cammy walked up to her and got dangerously close, putting her hands on her to seemingly check her over, full-body. A mortified look came over Karin's face as Cammy even groped her chest,

Guile kept a stony face while Chun-Li seemed to be doing her best to keep from laughing at the blunt actions of the resident Shadaloo femme. Well at least she was only keeping such familiar touching and contact to her close friends. Karin didn't seem to be enjoying it though, however she was too stunned at it to do anything about it.

Karin's mind finally turned back on long enough for her to grab Cammy's hands and stop her actions dead in their tracks, "E-Excuse you." She said with as much pride as she could muster given the circumstances. If she weren't so hurt she probably would have retaliated rather violently.

Cammy backed away and nodded to herself, "You're still far too injured to be doing physical things. Why are you up?"

"This is hardly 'physical'." Karin said with a roll of her eyes as she tried to block out the memory of Cammy's hands basically molesting her, "I am not doing the work myself I am merely supervising it. Even though if I were working I would have finished cleaning up the foyer by now!" She shouted, making sure that everyone working in the room in question could hear her on purpose.

Where was Naruto when she needed his handy clones? They would have had it a quarter of the way finished by now. But how much did he really know about rebuilding houses? Oh well… you didn't always have the best around to pay for, and they were far past the her paying him for physical labor part of their relationship by now.

Looking around as Karin started to take them through to get a daytime look at just what had occurred there, they eventually came to the most ruined room of the house where not a single part of it hadn't been damaged by the fight.

"That Juri woman did all of this and none of you were killed?" Chun-Li asked. There didn't seem to be a foot of space that hadn't been cut into and/or burned with intense ki, "How?"

Even Guile had to admit, he'd have exhausted himself firing as many Sonic Booms as it would have taken to somehow mimic the destruction wrought onto the room, "How long did that fight last for her to do all of this?"

"A very long time." Karin said, remembering just how long they had been tormented for.

But Cammy shook her head, "It did, but all of this is the result of one attack from her. And that's not the most incredible thing." She said, walking to the only spot on the floor that didn't have a mark on it, "Sakura stood up in front of it and stopped it without moving from this place."

XxX

(Later That Day – Tamagawa Minami High School)

"I told you guys it would be easy to sneak back into the gym while everyone was running laps outside." A gym clothes-clad Ibuki said, leading the duo of Sakura and Naruto into the empty gymnasium of their school, "We've got 45 minutes guys. We're good to go. Rip this place up!"

Sakura didn't look very ecstatic, but it was her idea to see if she could trigger that angry state again to find out just what it did for or to her. She asked Naruto for help since he was used to angry, hateful energy running through his body, and Ibuki so that they could get away from the watchful eyes of the gym teacher that didn't trust them since they made his class look laughably casual.

Naruto checked outside of the doors heading outside before sprinting over to the doors that led to the hallway so that he could check to make sure they were as clear as could be, "It was easy to get back in here because I've got clones that can Henge into you two." Ibuki just stuck her tongue out at him in turn.

If she was really as strong as Cammy alluded to her being, it probably wasn't a good idea to do this in school. Or anywhere in town as a matter of fact.

But this was Sakura-chan. And he could and would never say no to Sakura-chan. She was smart enough to know herself, and she never asked him for anything even though she knew he would do anything for her, and she really seemed shaken up by whatever this thing was that she'd done a few days ago.

She assured him that she just wanted to see what it felt like in a calm state where her life wasn't at risk. She assured him that without a fight going on she'd have a clearer head to work with logically. That was fair enough.

"Okay." Naruto said, sitting down on the bleachers with Ibuki while Sakura stood in front of them. He wasn't really good at the whole teaching thing, but he had to try, "So the easiest way to pull up power like whatever it is you told me about is by getting mad. So get mad."

Sakura held her arms behind her back uncomfortably as she looked up and forward at her pair of friends, "I don't really know how to get that mad." She admitted as if it were something strange, "I've been really annoyed before, you've done it to me a few times, but I think the other night was the first time where I was really ever that angry with anything in my life."

Ibuki raised an eyebrow on her delicate features in a bit of intrigue, "Come to think of it, I've never seen Sakura-chan enraged before. She's usually really upbeat."

She was a very emotional girl. It was just that all of those emotions were traditionally positive. Ibuki could even readily recall several recent times when her own first thought was to kill someone instead of just defeating them and subduing them. Sakura never did that. The prospect of killing horrified her, even against the villains that they faced he detested killing as a possible solution.

Not knowing how to get mad? That was definitely a new one though. A girl that loved martial arts and was extremely competitive, but was a pacifist that never got enraged.

For someone like Naruto, it was extremely easy to get mad. There were plenty of things around that pushed his buttons. Things that he faced down regularly enough to know exactly how he felt about them. So all he ever had to do was think about the Kyuubi's chakra, and _everything_ that pissed him off in order to make it work. It was easier to do on some occasions than others, and the more tired he was the simpler it happened to be. It also never hurt that he could rage-train in the mountain woods beforehand to tire himself out prior.

A tired Naruto was usually an extremely irritable Naruto for various reasons.

"Get tired and mad." Naruto amended after thinking about his own ways to make accessing the Kyuubi's chakra easier, "If it's anything like mine, that'll work."

"Okay?" Sakura said, still a bit unsure but willing to go with a certain portion of it all, "So, do I go through my training exercises or-?"

"That'll take too long." Ever impatient, Naruto waved off that thought. She might not even get tired from it, "We're just gonna make you mad, and it'll probably make you tired while we're doing it too."

"How?"

"Well the first idea was that we were gonna kick your butt." Ibuki suddenly said, warning Sakura into a defensive stance, "You don't even look that surprised about it. We didn't say anything about that on the way out here did we? I could have sworn we were careful about talking that whole thing this morning."

"What whole thing?" Sakura asked in return, "We were in homeroom, Naruto was watching your butt while you were fishing through your schoolbag this morning, and you suggested that as the plan. Of course I figured it out. I was right there when you came up with it, even if you never said anything else about it all day." She sounded a bit irritated at some part of what she'd just said.

Ibuki turned to the male sitting with her on the bleachers and raised an eyebrow, "Did you really do that?"

"Yes, you're hot and we sit close enough that I can get away with it." Naruto said, crossing his arms red-faced at having to talk about ogling one of his pretty female friends in front of another one, "Can we get back to the reason we're in here now?"

"Yeah, yeah. You're lucky I don't feel like teasing you much today." Ibuki jumped up onto her feet and smacked her own behind one good time to mess with Naruto since she knew he was watching, but she also noted that Sakura was glaring at her a bit, 'Okay, maybe we don't have to fight her to make her angry.' "Naruto, fighting her isn't smart. She's still hurt."

She was, but Sakura didn't want to come off as weak in front of her friends. If she was strong enough to walk she was strong enough to do anything else she needed to, even fight hard enough to draw her own power out.

The thought of Sakura still being hurt did come to Naruto's mind, and he was skeptical to fight her in case they reinjured her… even though fighting her was the first and seemingly easiest idea he had to get the job done, "Well did you actually come up with something that'll work in forty minutes?"

To answer that question, instead of sitting back down on the bleachers, Naruto's lap was her chosen seat, "Give me a minute to think about it." She said, gently tousling Naruto's hair with her fingertips. From where she was sitting she easily managed to hold Naruto's head against her breasts while doing so.

"Can you think about it somewhere else?" Sakura deadpanned with her hands on her hips to hide her own ire at how forward the teenage kunoichi always seemed to be with Naruto, "Like off of him?"

"Why would I do something like that?" Ibuki said, not budging from her spot one bit. She even put Naruto's arms around her waist as she looked down off of the bleachers at her more morally stringent friend, "I've got the best seat in the house, right here." Noting that Naruto was giving her an odd look, Ibuki just whispered 'trust me' to him, "Naruto doesn't mind. We've had way more fun than just me sitting in his lap before."

"I don't want to hear about this." Sakura said, turning around with her arms crossed, "Can we just do what we snuck away from class to do? This isn't the place for you to get all touchy-feely with him."

"And when is it?" Ibuki retorted, allowing some of her own displeasure at her own romantic situation bleed into her speech, "The only time I ever get to spend any real time with him is at school, unless he does something all romantic and maverick like sneaking into my village and bedroom in the middle of the night, and I can't expect something like that at my every beck and call like you can."

She was originally doing it on this occasion just to anger Sakura enough to make it easier to trigger her distressed state. But quite honestly she herself was getting a bit tired of the judgmental remarks from Sakura, Karin, even their normal Kei who had absolutely no stake in Naruto's affections.

All of the other girls that cared for him had access to Naruto so much that she felt they took it for granted. Any hour in the day or at night, if they needed him or wanted him they could easily get to him. Just a single call and he'd be right there for them in mere minutes.

Ibuki couldn't have that. She could call to talk, and that was it outside of school unless she or him managed to pull some shenanigans to skirt around the authority of her ninja village. She loved that he made the efforts to see her such as travelling miles and miles away, sneaking into her home and her room, making her feel so special. But it seemed like the others didn't understand that. Naruto understood, which was why he accepted her as she was.

It was originally supposed to be an act to antagonize Sakura, but in reality she was the one getting a bit miffed and affected by what she was doing.

Sakura's face heated up at the thought of calling Naruto up and him appearing in her window in the dead of night. And from there her mind wandered forth, "I-I would never make him do something like that!" She eventually sputtered out defensively.

"I wouldn't either." Ibuki said softly, before smiling a bit, "But still, he'd do it for you without you even asking, if you'd just…" She shook her head and gently stroked Naruto's whisker-marked cheeks, "You don't know how lucky you actually are Sakura-chan. You've got it so much easier than me. It's not hard for girls like you or Karin, or even Cammy to get him to love you. But it's the easiest for you, 'cuz you were first."

Even as the subject of the conversation, for once Naruto had to keep his mouth shut. He didn't know what to say. There wasn't any 'it'll be alright' or anything like that he could spout to ease things down. Ibuki was a powerful kunoichi, but she was still a teenage girl and she got self-conscious just like anyone else.

How could he stop her from baring her heart like that, even if it wasn't directly to him?

"I don't love him like that." Sakura said quietly as if reciting a longstanding mantra to herself instead of defending herself to someone else, "He doesn't love me like that." That was the way it was. That was the way it always had been.

Ibuki just shook her head at Sakura, and not for the first time after discussing this topic with her, "I don't know what happened with you two before I met you. It has to be something if you won't admit it. But if you don't claim him and you won't even try, you can't say anything to me." And with that she lowered her face down to Naruto's and kissed him without a second thought to the matter.

God, she could do that every single day if life allowed it.

Sakura just stared with her mouth slightly open, unable to come up with anything she could say. Especially with the spectacle she was currently present to. He wasn't her boyfriend, he was her best friend. She told herself that every day for years. She even made an effort to turn her attention to another, but comparatively Ryu was infinitely more distant. He didn't seem to care about anything past getting stronger as a fighter, but Naruto cared about her from the beginning unconditionally.

Why was she the only one that had a problem with letting him know that she cared for him beyond being friends? None of the other girls had an issue with it at all. Even prickly Karin found it far easier to admit rather openly that she was enamored with Naruto.

And it hurt to think about him being someone else's, even when she kept trying to tell herself that they were friends… that it was his choice in the end. She was the one that looked at him first all those years ago and saw something special when people would have rather ignored him. He was in her heart damn it, and by proxy he was in the heart of her darker side as well.

"**She will not take what belongs to us!" **Sakura heard in the back of her mind, the words steadily getting stronger as they continued, **"Someone weaker than us cannot have something that has always been ours!"**

Sakura hardly noticed it herself, but her breathing quietly sped up and her chest heaved up and down even when she reached for her head at the splitting pain that came to it.

"_**We**_** are the strongest! Uzumaki Naruto belongs to **_**us**_** and no one else! We can and will crush anyone that has any problems with us taking what we want, and we will start with that harlot ninja-girl! Right! Now!"**

Pink ki began to form around Sakura's hands and she shifted into her stance to begin charging a Hadoken. The sudden shocking spike of her ki, beyond even the levels for her Shinkuu Hadoken, snapped Ibuki out of her reverie with Naruto once he focused back on reality as well and set her aside on the bleachers.

Sakura couldn't charge that much ki so quickly. It was more than she did for her strongest attack, the strongest attack that Naruto was aware that she could do.

Her body was engulfed in a shroud of dark red energy that made her form within seem evil and shadowed. Her glowing red eyes were only accentuated by this.

"Is this what she was talking about?" Ibuki asked, feeling a desire to disappear. To curl up in a ball and hide until the storm subsided so to speak. This was the girl she spent every day with? Impossible, "How… how could she think she could control something like this?"

She wouldn't stop staring up at her. It was like her gaze itself was trying to rip the life right out of her.

Naruto slowly started to stand up and walk down toward her. This was just like what radiated out of Akuma every second that he had been around the crushingly powerful warrior in their one run-in that he'd never forget; the Satsui no Hadou.

It made his organs quiver. But he wouldn't be wary. Not of his Sakura-chan.

"**Be careful brat…"** The Kyuubi urged, knowing that any warning he gave Naruto wasn't going to stop the boy from moving forward. She didn't know how to tear his soul apart like Akuma did. Only a mastery of the power would allow her such. Even so, she was now fully capable of turning him into a human ragdoll and overpowering him as he was now, **"She will destroy you if you make a misstep here."**

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto said as he carefully continued to move down to her, "Are you alright?" Was she even in there?

"Don't you come any closer to me." She threatened, stopping him in his tracks once his foot touched the gym floor, "Don't get any nearer with that pitiful output of power or I'll crush you just by standing here." To emphasize such, the floor beneath her cracked and dipped inward just from the increased intensity of her ki. Even the walls began to rattle, "I mean it."

Pitiful? Bullshit. Even on his own he had crushing levels of chakra, and everybody knew it. Still, she seemed to mean it from the killing intent flying off of her.

Naruto momentarily chewed on the inside of his cheek in contemplation before deciding that he wasn't just going to stand there, 'Alright, give me a quick boost.' Deeply concentrating as hard as he could to dredge up the Kyuubi's chakra without being in need of it or in any sort of stressful situation, Naruto eventually started blazing with fiery orange chakra around his body.

"**Be on your guard."**

Whether or not the warning was valid, he had been the one that allowed her to become this emotionally distressed on his watch, and he wasn't going to let her be alone like that, even if she was scary with power that she clearly couldn't control.

"Not enough." Sakura said, not even sparing him a glance away from her tunnel-vision focus on their kunoichi friend, "You know it's not."

In response Naruto took several deep breaths before his chakra cloak somewhat solidified into a bubbling red fox form as a tail emerged. It still got no reaction, so focusing even further, Naruto yanked yet another tail forth, his whisker-marks darkening and his canines becoming more pronounced as his eyes took on a wilder red tint.

That was enough to finally get Sakura's attention as she turned to him and slowly walked his way, her volatile dark red ki shroud subsiding enough for Naruto to see that her skin had darkened slightly. She was two skin tones tanner than his own form for some reason.

Before he knew it she'd thrown her arms around his neck and pushed her face into his collarbone, "There it is, that presence of instinctual hatred." She said to Naruto as she reveled in the feeling of her ki melding with his. It was chaotic bliss, "…You want to tear me limb from limb right now don't you? My power being this close to you… you can only perceive it as a threat.

It was true.

The very first thing that came to Naruto's mind due to the influence of the violent chakra hazing his mind over was to rabbit punch her and end her life while he had the chance. The thought of doing that to her just enraged him more. Thus to keep from ever acting on those impulsive and violent flashes he wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her against him intimately.

"You don't need to say it." Sakura continued in her darkly seductive voice that he'd never heard from her. She was like a wholly different person, "I know because I feel the same way. I want to destroy you… so badly. But I can't. We can't. Because we understand each other like this better than we can any other way. We're just too dissimilar normally."

The bonding of their ki and chakra swirled up in a vapor to the ceiling and seemed to be slowly eating through the ceiling as if it were acidic. Ibuki had no idea what to make of what she was seeing, but she didn't dare move. It felt like she'd draw the wrath of two predators upon her if she so much as twitched a muscle, 'They're smothering me with all of this energy.'

"Sakura-chan." Naruto growled out, barely able to control himself from doing… something to her. He didn't know what it would be, "This isn't you. Go back to normal. You can't control… whatever this is."

Sakura laughed huskily and pulled her head up to press her nose against Naruto's and look him in the eye, "I don't _want_ to control it. I feel good like this." She said to him, "You're mine. You know you're mine. And I'll move whoever I have to out of my way to keep you. No girl will take you away from me. If God reaches a hand down to pluck you back to wherever you came from… I'll tear God's arm off with this power."

No, this wasn't the Sakura he'd grown up with for years. She was getting drunk off of how good she felt under the influence of the Satsui no Hadou.

And he was getting drunk off of how good she felt under the influence of the Satsui no Hadou.

Even looking into her eyes and knowing that the power she was using was evil, all he wanted to do right then was tear her clothes off and take her right then and there. He was far past wanting to hurt her. He wanted to dominate that power and the girl along with it.

Going into the Kyuubi's chakra cloak made him hypersensitive to all of the malice and hate that came with the Satsui no Hadou, and the fact that he'd always been attracted to Sakura to begin with had that sensitivity manifest itself into something akin to lust.

Naruto's claws started to sink into Sakura's sides, but instead of cutting into flesh they only scratched into her gym shirt, "Come on… I understand you, and you understand me." Sakura said in a whisper as she shivered slightly at the sensation of Naruto's claws dragging lightly across her stomach. The same claws that were dangerous enough to rip into her were simply teasing her flesh at this point, "You can do it. It's what you want. It's what I want. Take me if you're strong enough."

"No…" Naruto said, fighting with himself to keep from throwing the girl on the floor and pouncing on her on the spot, "…Not like this. This isn't you." She was making it _so_ difficult to keep himself under control.

"Isn't it?"

"No."

"If I sound like Sakura, feel like Sakura… taste like Sakura…"

She slowly moved herself forward to kiss Naruto, coyly brushing her lips across his for a split-second before almost bashfully pulling away as if she were shocked. Before she could attempt it for real, a wall to the gym burst open with a large man flying in, "Sekugoshoha (Warping Strong Pierce Wave)!" He was almost impossible to follow until he reached Sakura and Naruto and separated them with singular palm strikes that forced the two away from each other.

The sudden separation of the two malevolent energies forced a shockwave to blow through the gym and burst out the windows near the ceiling, even cracking the walls in some places.

As the reverb started vanishing in the room, the muscular old man from earlier that day sighed and slowly stepped out of his stance from his previous attack, "That was simply too close. That almost got out of hand…"

He'd been giving some distance until he could rightly determine whether or not that girl was truly under the influence of the Satsui no Hadou. Needless to say, she was. And when he felt a second power flare up right by it he realized that there wasn't anything in that town capable of keeping both of them in check. The second was normally more controlled, but the first one was making it act up.

Almost to the point where two kids did something under terrible circumstances.

Naruto's head was swimming. Between all of the pheromones clouding his mind and the Kyuubi's chakra, and Sakura… he barely knew which way was up. Taking pity on him, the Kyuubi drew its chakra back to let Naruto easily clear his mind up, "What the hell just hit me?" It didn't hurt, it just threw him away with complete ease of motion.

Sakura felt similarly, but when she saw that she was no longer basking in the lovingly anarchistic glow of Naruto's chakra, the previously contained rage and hate that had been stilled by his presence came back full force and Sakura's Satsui no Hadou ki burst from her body, "And who do you think you are?"

"It is not who I am that is what matters little one." The old man said, calmly shifting stances into a ready position as he turned on the balls of his feet to face Sakura, "But for the sake of introductions you may call me Gouken. What matters however, is what you were about to do, or what that vile energy pouring from you was about to force you to do with that boy. Now what is your name?"

"The girl that's gonna kill you!" Sakura said before speedily blurring forward like a phantom, as if she were sliding across the floor.

The Ashura Senkuu.

Gouken had seen that speed technique and knew full well about it. Hers paled in comparison entirely against Akuma's, because it was instinctual and she had never truly trained to use it before. If he had his way she never would, because it was exclusive to the dark powers spilling from her.

Sakura wound up right behind him fist positioned to punch straight through his torso from behind, but as she struck true to end his life, Gouken's elbow of one of his arms moved behind him to block all of the killing blow safely, "It's no use!" He said before leaning a shoulder Sakura's way and hitting her hard enough to knock her down across the floor. Her body smashed into the wall and she angrily pulled herself out, "You cannot defeat me, even if you were at my level of skill due entirely to how you are fighting. Your body is simply unused to attacking with the intent to kill. You hardly know how, no matter how much of a rush the Satsui no Hadou gives you."

Finally with his wits about him, Naruto recognized him as the strange old man from earlier, only without the hat and haori, "Don't hurt her!" Naruto shouted, moving over to Gouken to reason with him, "I can calm her down, just give me a chance!"

Gouken just shook his head, "If you're saying that based off of the show you both put on from before you would be wrong. The Satsui no Hadou fuels the dark desires of the user, even if the person is as pure of heart as your friend. The only reason she had been 'calm' before was because you were about to give her what she wanted."

Thankfully he didn't have to verbalize just what that was as Naruto knew what he'd almost done right then and there. It most certainly would have been dark. She shook his will, and normally hers would have also been stronger, but both of their self-controls faltered in that moment together for some reason.

"Be at ease boy. I will not harm her." Gouken told Naruto as Sakura got back up, still as angry as ever, "Make sure that your other friend is alright. She hasn't moved since I've entered the room and she seems as if she can hardly breathe."

And indeed, Ibuki was curled up trying to shield herself from all of the killing intent that Sakura and Naruto had previously been throwing between the seats of the bleachers. She seemed completely terrified just to be there.

In the motion of a Shunshin, Naruto reappeared up to Ibuki's side, but she hardly registered his presence there, instead keeping her eyes on Sakura and Gouken, "Ibuki! Snap out of it already!"

"So much hate…" Ibuki said, speaking of Sakura, "… Does she really hate me that much because I like you? And that old man… I can't feel anything from him. That doesn't even seem possible. No living being has no ki to them at all."

You could sense birds in trees if you were good enough. Hell you could sense the tree itself if you knew what you were doing! But to feel nothing?

She was freaked out. Overwhelmed would be the best way to describe it. Ibuki had never faced the level of power that the others had. She hadn't stood in front of Bison with his Psycho Drive, an enraged Sagat, or even Vega at his most powerful. She hadn't been around Ryu's devilish dark ki. The closest she'd come to an imposing presence was a passing glance at Akuma's back just before he vanished.

"That's not Sakura-chan." Naruto tried to reason with her, but Ibuki wasn't having any of that. She knew better.

"Yes it is. It's not a part of her that we've ever seen, but it exists, just like it can in everyone else." Ibuki said, shaking her head. Was this her fault? Oh God, "Everyone has darkness Naruto. You do, I do, she does. I just never thought… it was this strong." She didn't want anything like this to happen, to come from one of her closest friends.

Sakura looked up over at Naruto consoling a distraught Ibuki, and that only angered her further, **"He's with **_**her**_**… again. Kill her, and that will be one undeserving weakling out of the way."**

She threw her hands together to charge her energy and started gathering massive amounts of rainbow-colored ki that started drawing in small debris from all over the room, "He's MINE!" Sakura shrieked as loudly as she could with her ki barely able to be held in her hands, "Tenmetsu Shinkuu Hado-!"

"_I_ am your opponent little one, don't take your eyes off of me." Gouken suddenly appeared behind a shocked Sakura and tapped her on the back of the head with two glowing white fingers that rendered her unconscious. She would have fallen to the floor had he not caught her with an arm underneath her breasts to stop her from falling forward.

Depending on which way she'd been facing in concern to the rest of the campus she probably would have blown the entire school away with that Hadoken had she fired it.

Such a shame. A child as pure as her tainted by the Satsui no Hadou, and not by choice like Akuma. The power from her anger subsided and her skin tone returned to normal, but the back of her clothes had the kanji for spirit carved into her shirt.

"Love can be just as dangerous an emotion as any other." Gouken said, saying a small prayer for the battle he had just fought against the distraught girl, "And as teenagers, people are more susceptible to a vulnerability of this sort than at any other time in their lives."

Ibuki let off one great shudder as the paralyzing pressure of Sakura's hatred left her all at once. She took a deep breath and held her chest with tears pricking at her eyes. That was the closest she felt like she'd come to staring at death in her life. Even when the Dolls had almost killed her she hadn't felt as helpless.

"Are you going to be alright?" Naruto asked, getting a nod out of the kunoichi after a second or two. With that he jumped down to Gouken as he seemed to be heading to the door with Sakura, "Thank you. I don't know who you are or what you did, but she's back to normal now."

Gouken just nodded and looked down at her, "This is the dark side of our fighting style. Those with true potential in it always find themselves at this crossroad. One is easier to embrace than the other, and it's the only side that you've seen thus far unfortunately."

"Your fighting style?" Naruto asked curiously.

"Years ago I trained two young men named Ryu and Ken, and started to train another man named Dan… but that did not work out." Gouken stated matter-of-factly, "Which one of them had a hand in developing her method of fighting?" He doubted it was Dan, because that man was probably never going to be strong enough to scratch the surface of real power.

Naruto wanted to say that no one did, because she did it all herself, but she emulated Ryu and used the way he fought as a base, constantly seeking advice and acknowledgment from him for her growth, "Ryu did. But I won't ever call him her master. He hasn't taught her anything himself."

"I see." He could tell that it was something that annoyed Naruto, but he didn't bring it any further than that, "Well perhaps I should see to her development. I cannot let someone that is not even properly trained to handle the allure of one side over the other to her own devices. One Akuma is enough."

Someone actually wanted to train Sakura? She'd been barking up that tree with Ryu for years to no avail. But the master of the man that she wanted to be her master wanted to help her? Naruto wished he could say yes for her, but it wasn't his place.

"I'll tell her when she wakes up." Naruto said, extending his arms to take Sakura from Gouken, "It might cheer her up." She didn't hurt anyone… but the gym was toast and they needed to get as far away from there as they could in a hurry, "How is she supposed to find you?"

Gouken hesitated at first due to the fact that he could vividly remember how dark Naruto's chakra had been when he'd tapped into the Kyuubi aspect of it, but the boy was quite obviously the closest person in the world to her, "I can find her. I can find the both of you very easily actually. Don't worry about that."

He handed the girl over to the youngster and with that he left through the doors leading to the hallway, as if there wouldn't be a hundred questions asked when or if someone saw him there.

While Naruto looked down at the slumbering Sakura, Ibuki carefully made her way down and watched Gouken as he left, "IS that old man for real? Can we trust him?"

"Not really."

"But you said Sakura would love for him to train her."

"I know, and she would… but even if I didn't want him to, even if that guy was bad, and even if he didn't give me Sakura-chan, do you really think we could stop him without destroying the entire school first?"

And that was the ten million yen question. He knocked a Kyuubi-charged Naruto and a Satsui no Hadou-engulfed Sakura away at the exact same time as if it was child's play, and he hadn't even been trying to harm them for a moment.

"**That human is just as powerful as the Akuma man. It is just nearly impossible for us to sense due to the nature of his power and how blank it feels."** Kyuubi told Naruto informatively, **"He would not be able to shut me off the way that he did to the girl since you have actual control, but he could handle more of me than you are currently willing to attempt to use."**

Thinking about things like that made Ibuki wonder if she was really ready to graduate from being a ninja-in-training after all. She readily acknowledged that Naruto was more powerful than her, but here he was saying that he basically couldn't think of a way to beat that man. Not as he was.

What was with all of the powerful people in the world?

"So I guess we should go back to class now right?" Ibuki asked before looking around at the gym and cringing. They were probably going to catch all of the heat for that one since there wasn't another group of people at the school that could possibly do that.

Naruto looked down at Sakura, over at Ibuki who still seemed quite shaken up by everything that had happened, and then at the room that they were going to undoubtedly get bitched out over the second people came back to check it out, "…Hell no we're not going back to class. We're going home."

"Ugh, I don't want to go back to the Glade of Ninjas already."

"…I meant my apartment Ibuki."

"Oh. Okay. Yeah, let's go do that."

XxX

(S.I.N. Department in the Chugoku Region of Japan)

"Seth, this eye is an overhyped piece of crap." Juri said, kicking at the steel walls of the room she was in. Her foot left a deep, devastating print where it had landed as she pulled it out and continued to pace around testily, "I _knew_ it couldn't stand up to any real heavy lifting. Not that I needed it to smoke any of those girls to begin with, but how is a girl supposed to cut loose and strut her stuff if the Feng Shui Engine can be overused that easily?"

To be fair, she'd run through about six different street gangs, an entire platoon of over fifty mercenary guards with firearms, and then three extremely high-level superhuman fighters that actually took some serious effort to defeat, all without pause or surcease. But then again that was also because she was just having too much fun kicking the ass of every would-be tough guy (and girl) that she could find.

On a screen in the room the very inhuman appearance of Seth was front and center for Juri to see, smiling in a normal, confident manner as if he expected her grumpy attitude, _"The eye will adjust to your, ahem, tendencies over time. You were the one that wanted to go out into the field after surgery without properly testing it."_

"True." Juri admitted, holding a hand on her hip as her foot tapped the floor impatiently, "Even so, I expected your _crack_ team of scientific minds to come up with something a bit more durable. You know I play rough."

"_Even so… the ki signatures you've brought to the safe point are very promising. One more than the other two you managed to get."_

"You're talking about 'Little Miss Bleeding Heart' that lost it when I told her why I do what I do right?" Juri said with a chuckle, remembering how she pushed Sakura's buttons enough to nearly make her bring down the mansion with one attack, "That was a pretty impressive freak out if I do say so myself. I should know something about violent rampages after all."

She didn't seem that special at first, but that all changed rather quickly.

"_I wasn't able to absorb any fighting technique worth supplanting into my own from them though. I already possess moves far superior to anything that they could give me anyway, so the only use they have is in regards to the BLECE Project. I need the most powerful, resilient natural ki that I can find as a base for keeping it all together."_

"You want me to kidnap the brunette?" Juri asked before getting a hopeful grin with a manic look on her eye, "I can kill Killer Bee first though right?"

"_We need to run tests to see if hers is too volatile to use. It's already clear that she couldn't control it when she used it on you. Collect more ki signatures in the meantime. I've heard there are superior fighters there that you've yet to come across, and I would be remiss were I not to say that I'm quite intrigued if any of them has anything to add to my dominant abilities."_

"More wanton asskicking and fun times? You've got it." This was the most fun she'd had on assignment since joining S.I.N. to begin with, "What else could I really ask for out of this job?"

"_I'm so glad you're enjoying yourself. I'll be expecting more top-notch results from you."_

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Gouken  
><span>Nationality:<span> Japan  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> Unknown  
><span>HeightWeight: 6'2/240 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> Unknown  
><span>Likes:<span> Martial arts, his disciples (Ken and Ryu), his deceased master Goutetsu, dumplings.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> His brother Akuma, Satsui no Hadou.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Teaching students.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Akuma  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Martial art rooted in Ansatsuken.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Gouhadoken (Great Surge Fist), Senkugoshoha (Warping Strong Pierce Wave), Tatsumaki Gourasen (Tornado Strong Spiral), Hyakkishu (Hundred Devil Attacks), Kongoshin (Diamond Body).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Kinjite Shoryuuken (Forbidden Rising Dragon Fist), Shin Shoryuuken (True Rising Dragon Fist), Denjin Hadoken (Lightning Blade Surge Fist).  
><span>Background:<span> Impossible to tell his age via records, Gouken is the older brother of Akuma who trained along with him under their original master Goutetsu. While the power-obsessed Akuma's method leaned heavily toward the killing side of the style, Gouken focused on the peaceful and spiritual portion and developed his own branch of the techniques. After witnessing Akuma kill their master for not fully embracing the dark side of their arts, Gouken set out his own way, founding his own dojo and eventually training Dan as his first student before casting him out upon realizing his motivations for training.

He adopted an abandoned orphan baby Ryu, training him as a son, and later took on Ken Masters as a student. Eventually he was found and challenged by Akuma and soundly defeated him, but refrained from killing him even at Akuma's insistence to do so. Eventually after sending an adult Ken and Ryu out into the world to continue their growth on their own, Akuma returned stronger than ever before and defeated him with the Shun Goku Satsu, presumably killing him in front of Ken's eyes who proceeded to bury him.

Gouken survived via the use of the extremely potent Power of Nothingness, a state of tranquil serenity beyond normal comprehension. With it he emptied his soul from his body during Akuma's final strike, but wound up in a death-like coma due to imperfectly performing the technique. It is the complete opposite of the Satsui no Hadou, only able to be used by warriors in his style with a pure heart that can find a way to replace their hate and anger with compassion and mercy.

* * *

><p><strong>Whoa…. And I'm done.<strong>

**Nothing worth mentioning to say today. I hope you enjoyed and I hope I entertained you for a few minutes. Now go find something else to occupy your free time… or something else to help you whittle away the hours at work.**

**It depends on who you are really, and what kind of job the latter has. And everyone reading this knows which one they are.**

**Kenchi out.**


	44. Vicious Cycle

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I don't own the IOC either or I wouldn't have made the dumbass decision they just made. Getting rid of wrestling for 2020… what the hell?

**Chapter 44: Vicious Cycle**

* * *

><p>"Dude." Batsu said, sitting by and watching Naruto take his turn in their preferred heavy-duty training area of the junkyard in the industrial district, "You seem off these days. What's going on?" He asked, and Naruto didn't say anything at first, instead choosing to shove his hand into the ground and force out a shockwave with the power of his chakra to chunk up a circle of rock around him, "…It's the Sakura thing again isn't it?"<p>

Naruto just sucked his teeth and pulled his hand out of the ground, blowing off the dirt on it. Having his clones do the day-to-day maintenance work of his techniques while he worked and went to school was paying off. He was getting better with the Rasenshinsen as he didn't need his clones to deal as much damage at a further distance anymore. Even the Rasenbakufuu was getting better as well.

He couldn't dwell on that though, since he had been asked a question, "It's not a thing Batsu. I told you already what I almost did." Sakura couldn't look him in the eye and she couldn't even speak to him. It had been three days.

Naruto really wanted to just patch this up so he could move along and find some way to nip this whole Juri Han assassin thing in the bud before it got out of hand like it unquestionably would. Sasuke probably had the right idea about trying to hunt her down, but he pitched his idea in the most ass way conceivable, turning Naruto against the idea almost on instinct.

Batsu didn't really see what he had to be so out of sorts for. Things had been explained to him quite clearly, "She wanted it."

"Her dark side wanted it, not her."

"You've got a dark side, she's got one too... so why don't you both hook 'em up and have a blast?"

"Because it's not really her consenting you jackass!" Naruto shouted at him, shaking a fist his way. It wouldn't have been right, and if his what his brain had been telling him was correct it probably would have been more about a carnal battle for dominance than any sort of expression of love or affection.

Batsu scratched his head and crossed his arms in thought, "Wait, wait, wait. You said that the Satsui no Hadou crap was the purest manifestation of Sakura wanting to do whatever she had to do to get what she wanted… all of that rage and anger and whatever the hell you were talking about."

He was admittedly tuning in and out after Naruto explained the whole him and Sakura almost having sex in the school gym part. That had been by far the most intriguing part of the story. Freaky-deaky powers or not.

"It is."

"So technically that would mean that the real Sakura _did_ want it… a lot."

Naruto stopped preparing to run through his next jutsu and actually stopped to ponder that. Satsui no Hadou acted on the user's dark desires. So that had to sort of mean that Sakura desired him, and then his brain turned off.

"Well what now? Why would it have been so bad to have happen aside from the obvious reasons of time and place?"

"…Because…" Naruto said before a quick chakra cloak of red engulfed his body and he shot out a claw of energy Batsu's way, "Boom! 'Tough actin' Tinactin!" With it he smashed Batsu off of the car he was sitting on and knocked him back several meters in the dirt, "Chakra Claw to the face! That's why!"

It was a rather childish way to change the subject. But it changed the subject to say the least.

"Oh you sucker-punching motherfucker." Batsu jumped back up to his feet and threw his school uniform top to the side, leaving him in a mesh shirt, "You're barking up the tree for an asswhooping!" He didn't even bother with the pretenses, quickly firing up into his Burning Vigor state if he would even have a chance of matching Naruto, "You're gonna tell me what your deal with that girl is if I have to break your fingers!"

Side effects of Burning Vigor mode included a much more aggressive Batsu than usual, which was actually quite a feat in of itself. But the angrier and more fired up he got in that form the stronger he became.

In response to Batsu's threat, Naruto turned his hands up with his middle fingers sticking up, and his chakra claws did the same as well as his chakra tail waved spiritedly behind his back, "Why don't you start with these then?"

"Someone check the clock." Batsu said cracking his knuckles, "'Cuz I believe it's go time."

"Boo…" Naruto jeered openly, "If you're gonna trash-talk do better than that."

If a normal person unused to making out fine details of such quick objects had been around to bear witness to this, it just looked like two messy orange and red masses colliding with each other again and again all over the junkyard.

Every so often, the naked eye of the common human would be able to see a full-body view of one boy or the other here or there in the middle of a sudden motion, but just as quickly it would go back to dueling masses and make one wonder if they were watching some weird, backwards game of Pong taken up to the highest speed level on the console.

In the end, a single clash sent the two figures flying away into a pile of stacked, flattened cars. It hadn't been a bit of technique at all. It had just been the two of them running into each other again and again until one guy got nailed with something.

The first to jump out and land back on the ground was Naruto, cheek smarting with a grand bruise that was already healing, "Nice punch you jerk. I didn't think you could keep up with one tail."

Batsu kicked an entire junked car out of his way before punching into his palm, his nose bleeding from Naruto's own attack, "I told you all before, I'm not getting left behind by any of you. Pull out as much of your monster chakra as you want, it'll just make me angry. And you won't like me when I'm angry." He finished with a smirk. Hopefully Naruto wouldn't get the reference.

"Lame!" Damn it!

"Shut up and fight!"

"Chakraaaa-!" Naruto shouted, putting Batsu on guard before another tail grew from his chakra cloak and both shot forward swiftly, "-_Tails_! Suck it!"

Batsu managed to fend off one, but the second one grabbed him around the waist and reeled him in right toward Naruto who was grinning toothily with a fist cocked back and ready to strike. Batsu's legs were still free to kick around and his foot collided with Naruto's fist, creating another shockwave and knocking him free.

Backflipping out of his previously dire situation, Batsu landed in a crouch while Naruto seemed to be hunched on all fours. Both were smiling at the other like idiots, because they were having a blast trying to kick the hell out of the other's enhanced form, even though one was facing increasingly dire odds when it came to possibly doing so.

Why was this fun? Because they were dumbasses, and getting into a superpowered slugfest for shits and giggles was entertaining. It just was. There wasn't any science or psychology to it. What were they going to do, _not_ abuse their hard-earned abilities for their own leisure? No way. What was the point of that? They were seventeen and eighteen years old, and they had the means, so there was no reason not to.

**"My vast powers..."** The Kyuubi said with what sounded like something of a sigh, **"Reduced to the plaything of an idiot and his equally mindless berserker of a friend."**

'Hey! This is training!' Naruto asserted as he shook himself out, 'Besides, you can't sit there and tell me you're not having fun too.'

**"...Fine. This is better than just sitting around."**

'There you go! And on that note-.' "Hey Batsu?"

"What?"

"…Three tails."

Why the hell was that so easy for him now? And with the formation of the third chakra tail the fun was over… mostly. For Batsu at least.

If nothing else it got him to stop asking questions.

XxX

(Some Time Later - Saikyou-Ryuu Dojo)

Dan couldn't believe it.

That morning when he'd opened up his doors for all aspiring customers… err, students, the last thing he'd expected was for a basic ghost of his past to show up firsthand and grace his studio with his nigh-blank presence.

"Uh… sense-." Dan stopped himself from referring to his master with respect upon remembering that Gouken kicked him out of his dojo after barely teaching him anything. He still resented the old man for that, "What do you want Gouken? Do you want a discount on lessons? Can't do it. I don't play favorites."

Gouken wanted to roll his eyes at his least productive student, but he remained respectful. This was Dan's dojo and he would show it reverence, the same that he would expect inside of his own, "Tell me, are you aware of a girl named Kasugano Sakura?"

"Ah, my best student!" Dan exclaimed, patting himself on the back, "She barely needed any teaching from me at all to go out and kick tail! That one's a real gem! I mean, I can still whip her six ways from Sunday, but other than that…"

Right. Sure. He could defeat Sakura. Maybe if her hands were bound behind her back? Oh no, but then she'd still have her legs free to stomp a mudhole in his ass and walk it dry.

Basically, Gouken just flat out ignored all of that empty boasting and continued on, only having chosen to pay attention to the portion of Dan's rambling that had any importance to him and his query.

"So you know her." Gouken stroked his beard in thought, "That means that you would know of Uzumaki Naruto as well." Was picking Dan's brain for an in-depth view of those two possible before he began training the girl? Every little bit would help him better teach her when the time came.

"Feh." Dan spat derisively, "I mean, he's an alright disciple of mine I'd say… but that still doesn't keep him from being a blindsiding, cheap-shotting, sucker-punching, self copy-making motherf-." Apparently he couldn't hide his lingering distaste at getting publicly smashed by Naruto behind a veil of lying about him being a pupil of his the way he could with Sakura.

"I understand your point." Gouken cut him off from verbally cutting down the teenage extradimensional ninja any further, "I would like to ask you, if it wouldn't be rude to request, to stay with you, in your dojo until I have finished my business here."

Dan's eyes gleamed. Finally. A chance at getting even and showing Gouken what a massive mistake he made in cutting him loose from his teachings so prematurely, "Of course sensei." Dan said, stepping back and squaring off with him, "Free of charge if you can beat me of course. And if I win, you'll teach me your secret techniques. The ones you've even kept from Ryu and Ken!"

"Very well then. That sounds reasonable." Gouken said, standing straight up with his hands behind his back, "You may begin whenever you're ready."

He could do this. He cleanly defeated the late, great Sagat! There was no way that man threw the fight against him out of pity! He could definitely beat a crusty old man like Gouken. Those muscles were probably all for show nowadays anyway!

With a veritable war-cry inspired by his own self-confidence, Dan charged his unprepared sensei head-on, set to show him just what he was made of.

Several hours later, Blanka would return from a bountiful day of exploring the city to find his unconscious best friend half hanging out of a back wall, and a strange old man sitting and enjoying some of Dan's stocked instant dinners for a meal.

Well, if nothing else he was able to look at it this way: at least this guy seemed nice enough to be a new friend.

XxX

(S.I.N. Private Jet – Hiroshima International Airport)

'Boy oh boy.' A very testy Juri thought to herself as she walked to a private hangar that was temporarily reserved for S.I.N. usage. Forgoing her usual combat clothes she wore more casual jeans and a cream-colored backless halterneck top with a deep front 'v' that went halfway down to her stomach, 'I wonder which one it is? How about the one being protected by all of the goons in white uniforms? That sounds about right.' She mentally jested sarcastically.

Upon reaching the hangar in question she was faced with a wall of said goons that seemed to wish to prevent her from getting any farther.

"And me without my employee ID." She said to no one in particular as they started to form up. Before they could even begin moving on her she got behind them in a matter of two seconds from where she'd been standing, "You all do realize that even if I wanted to do something to the plane and the person inside of it, there's nothing any of you weaklings could do about it… right?" She turned back slightly with a somewhat maniacal look in her eye.

It did the job though, and managed to get the rest of the would-be tough guys running security for the VIP onboard to back off. Good boys. She really didn't want to have to slaughter any useless people like that. It was a waste of effort.

Without a care she walked into the hangar and right onto the private jet where she found her smartly dressed boss sitting and seemingly waiting patiently on something. Probably her. She didn't care though. Pushing his buttons to find the limits of what the inhuman Seth would tolerate was funny to her. One thing was for sure, if he was going to conduct some kind of business with others he'd better have some sort of disguise or whatever meeting he was planning on going into was going to end very quickly in fear.

"You rang?" Juri asked with a facetious, sweeping bow that almost exposed her breasts beneath her loose top, "This was a two hour drive to get here from that city you sent me to so it better be worth the mileage."

Seth ignored the rather crass young woman and her impolite attitude, instead handing her a small file that she took from the advanced being to look through herself. Seeing her raise an eyebrow at what she was reading, Seth decided to speak, "Consider this another one of the worthless remnants from Bison's days of constantly trying to ensure his own continued survival with a new body. It was a failure though, much like Killer Bee, but these predated her."

"Blonde hair… blue eyes." Juri said, looking at the first picture available to see in the docket and finding a tall, well built man that seemed to be covered head to toe in various scars, "Hello handsome. But that archetype for a body seems really, really familiar to me for some reason. Makes you think doesn't it?"

"It does seem like M. Bison did seem to have a bit of a liking to the whole 'Aryan' outlook didn't he?" Seth actually let out a chuckle at that, "Be that as it may, this last… malfunctioning body is free and roaming, having escaped disposal like the others of his generation and for some reason has drifted into this nation now."

He believed that he was searching for something. But the only reason they picked him up was because he had placed himself 'on the grid' by legally obtaining a passport and other official papers signifying that he existed. That meant something along the lines of him not knowing of his own origin. How quaint.

"-And you want me to catch him for you." Juri tried to finish before he could say it, rolling her eyes, "Seth, honestly, if I keep doing these little snatch and grab missions for you I'm gonna lose my edge. I'd much rather focus on getting to Killer Bee so I can kill her instead of doing this."

"Oh I don't need him alive." Seth said, surprising her with his infuriatingly superior smile, "By all means, go ahead and kill him when you find him. What the scientists are going to do with him when they get a hold of him would end his life anyway, so better to leave it to someone that would at least enjoy it. As long as you bring the body back do what you will."

"I'm not really into killing some putz that wouldn't even know how to throw a punch straight." Juri had absolutely no problems with killing, but she really preferred it when her targets were capable of doing more than turtleing up and praying for divine intervention, "If he was just meant to be another body and was supposed to be disposed of, how good could he really be?"

"I can assure you, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the capabilities of the target."

"Whatever." Juri said airily, waving the file around aimlessly before turning to leave, "Make sure you've got transport for extraction ready. I don't want to lug a dead body around to a drop point all night long."

"Confident aren't we?"

"If your stupid Feng Shui Engine doesn't malfunction on me again in the middle of the fight I'll have it called in just after midnight."

Seth just chuckled again, "I'm sure you will. But don't underestimate this quarry. These extra bodies have a strong propensity to… survive."

XxX

Sitting in the back of a car that had been granted to them by Interpol for the duration of Guile and Chun-Li's stay in Japan, Naruto and Batsu seemed to be like kids being chided after getting picked up from school by their parents.

Batsu had a bloody nose, a mess of bruises, and an absolutely ruined school uniform, courtesy of the blond sitting next to him. Naruto had healed from the little wounds that had been incurred during the friendly little scrum.

"You nuked an entire scrapyard." Chun-Li said, sounding very unamused at having to speed down to the scene. She and Guile had been told that it was a matter of national security as a massive bomb had apparently gone off at the end of town, but when she got there she merely found Naruto and Batsu, apparently having clashed powerful attacks with the kickback being… rather destructive, "Do you know that they were about to call in the JSDF to deal with you, just to be safe this time? Then what would you have done?"

If the Japan Self-Defense Force really would have mobilized for little old them that would have been something praiseworthy actually. Enough weird shit kept happening around there that he was surprised that the armed forces didn't keep a vigilant watch on the town at all times.

But if they had been confronted at gunpoint by the good guys his greeting to them would have been rather straightforward, 'Welcome to Aohura City, where 'amazing' happens.'

Batsu had been the one to lose, overwhelmingly, but he still kept some of his edge even while being chided by the sexy Interpol agent, "…Nuked seems like way too strong of a word for what happened in the junkyard." After all, he still had his hearing after the most recent explosion.

"Now that weird tank we blew up the other week…" Naruto interjected suddenly, "_That's_ closer to nuked." A pair of debaucherous grins just couldn't be kept off of Naruto and Batsu's faces at the thought of their coolest and most up-to-date team victory.

"What are you becoming kid?" Guile said, trying to take shots at Naruto while he drove them home, "Destroying space-age tanks made by S.I.N., causing orange alerts in two different countries in one month... almost fucking high school girls on gym floors in broad daylight." He just had to throw that last one in there. It was his right as the boy's elder, "Yes, I heard about that. Shame on you."

Naruto just stared a hole into the back of Guile's head before saying anything. He could have argued, but he really didn't want to. Even if he knew Guile was joking, it wasn't something he wanted to get into with anyone other than Sakura herself, and that wasn't going to happen until making eye contact with each other stopped being awkward.

Naruto's face didn't change, but the inflection in his eyes did, and Chun-Li could see that through the rear-view mirror. If anyone paid close enough attention and knew him well enough, Naruto's eyes could tell an entire story of his emotions even when or if his mouth wasn't willing to. It wasn't his fault. In his case the eyes really were the windows to his soul.

Being the only one in the entire vehicle that one could deem 'compassionate ' in the least bit to other people, because Batsu and Guile were just too salty to get the point, Chun-Li was the only one willing to bring up the topic to him in a way other than boorish remarks about what would have been cool for him to do at the time, and belated jabs at his expense.

"You're going to have to talk to her about it eventually if you want to stay friends." Chun-Li remarked, turning in her seat to speak with Naruto. It wasn't a very surreptitious discussion, but Guile mostly didn't care about other people's personal problems and since it was already established to Batsu previously that Naruto and Sakura _didn't_ have sex he lost interest quickly, "Don't avoid her. That'll just make things worse between you."

He wasn't avoiding her. They still walked to school but it was still just so awkward. They didn't know what to say to each other. What did you say to that? There wasn't anything you could do to play that off. You couldn't act as if nothing happened after what actually went down that day. There wasn't any ignoring it or sweeping it under the rug.

If this was a problem that could be solved by punching things or blowing something up, Naruto would be right in his element. Matters of the heart and mind weren't exactly his forte. He winged it more often than not for those things and he somehow hadn't screwed things up in that department yet.

Of course, advice from someone that didn't first choose to solve most of her problems by punching them first and deducing why she punched it second was very welcome indeed.

"I'm not avoiding anything." Naruto said firmly as he sat back in his seat and looked passively out of the window, "Look. Can we just… do something? Something productive?"

"Sure." Chun-Li said with a happy smile, "We can drop you off at Sakura's house instead of at your place and you two can sort this whole thing-."

"I mean something productive about… S.I.N." He specified, cutting her off from continuing to map out a 'happy ending' plan that was not going to work a bit. Even if his 'something productive' was complete bullshit, it still had reasonable basis behind it, "Yeah, those guys. Do something. These aren't really good people. I don't know what they're all about, but if they're blocking off rivers in India what else are they doing? Open a case damn it."

"We already looked into it after you told us about it. There's an investigation pending." Chun-Li replied, glaring slightly at Naruto for changing the Sakura subject, but this was still important too, "Did you get any actual evidence, take any pictures, get anything important from this place, or did you just blow it all up?"

"Um…" They didn't really go inside. That was Ibuki's job. They were just meant to run amok outdoors and attract attention. She was the one that had skulked around inside and had caused the floodgates to open, "I still have the clothes covered in the black tank gunk from when we blew it up."

"…That actually might be useful." Guile admitted, ignoring the glare from Chun-Li over how Naruto successfully changed the subject. For someone that was bad at lying he was certainly good at avoiding having to talk about the truth, "Yeah, let's go check that out kid."

And since he was driving, he was the man in control. So they were going to be heading wherever he wanted to go, not where _she_ wanted to make Naruto go.

XxX

(Downtown Aohura City)

Sakura had very simple tastes as far as many things went. She liked clothes that were comfortable above things that looked expensive and valuable. She was a very good cook that liked to focus on making simple things as good as possible, which was why Naruto thoroughly enjoyed ramen that she made so much. She was diligent and focused in schoolwork, keeping straight-A's for the entirety of her school career.

If there was a weakness that she had, it was that she could be easily distracted and left to think deeply. She simply couldn't set thoughts that she felt were important aside, with a tendency to ponder things until there was no other place to go with them, and then she would do it all over again.

When she had something on the brain, it stayed there. And there wasn't anything she could do to clear her mind until whatever issue plaguing her was settled.

On this occasion though it wasn't something that the lovely schoolgirl was eager to face down directly.

Being his usual easygoing self, Naruto had tried to play it off and chalk everything that had happened between them in the gym that day up to a mutual chemical imbalance or something else when it came to her dark side, that he had affectionately dubbed 'Sunburned Sakura-chan' to try and get some sense of normalcy to occur once again. It didn't work.

She couldn't look him in the eyes after what she'd almost made them do.

The heart wants what the heart wants, no matter how much the head tries to rationalize that it isn't a good idea. It just so happened that her heart had a propensity to become so strong that it overrode her rational thought.

It made her come off as a girl that she really wasn't, and it really rattled her. What Naruto must have really thought of her. And Ibuki… oh God, she needed to apologize. The thought was mortifying.

When she was distressed, Sakura trained extra-hard, a habit picked up from Naruto and her own work ethic, but her body couldn't hold up at wicked paces nonstop every day the way that Naruto's could and she had to stop eventually and relax.

Even when relaxing she couldn't let her mind settle too much and busied herself with some roadwork, endurance running through the neighborhood. She wound up running after school for far longer than she'd originally intended to, for hours, and went far farther than her own neighborhood, venturing in a direction that would not carry her past Naruto's apartment due to her fear of facing him.

The constant pain in the back of her throat from the running was a welcome distraction from her already distracting thoughts. At least she could focus on something else, optimizing her cardiovascular conditioning in the most grueling manner that she could at the moment. Just so long as she didn't stop. If she stopped they'd start again. Those damned thoughts.

She wound up running into the middle of the city, without stopping or turning her eyes away from straight ahead of her path.

"You seem like you have a lot on your mind young one."

Running past the corner of a building she stopped suddenly after hearing someone say something to her. So engrossed in her own thoughts was she that she almost stumbled into the street upon coming to a stop to face the man that had spoken to her, "You!"

Gouken was leaning partway out of the door to a building. Dan's dojo as a matter of fact. Good lord, what in the world was someone like that doing there? Actually, what was she doing there?

Oh man, she ran all the way to Dan's place? That was around the middle of town! Her mother was going to chew her out later for being gone for so long.

"Oh no." Sakura fretted, pacing around in her exercise clothes, "I should have only been gone for an hour, not three. I'm so dead when I get home." She was still a teenage girl with regular teenage girl issues no matter what it was that came along with it, "Sorry Mister…" She said, realizing that she'd never gotten his name after the first inauspicious meeting that they'd had.

"Gouken." The old man said kindly, choosing to step outside of Dan's establishment to converse with the girl that he wished to teach, "Thinking so hard about whatever seems to be bothering you is very unhealthy child. But I can guess what it is."

"I'd rather not talk about it with someone I don't know." Sakura said, face turning red as her eyes directed themselves toward the ground, "It's kind of personal. It's really only my business and someone else's." She just had to get up the nerve to talk to him about it directly.

Gouken nodded and remained silent for a moment, "Dear, do you know why you wound up wandering here of all places when you could have ended up anywhere else in your city?"

"…Probability?"

A laugh of all things came from the style master, "No, not quite. Fighters in our style find it very easy to locate each other based on the familiar pull of others trained similarly to us. I can tell where all of my students are at this very moment." He could feel where Akuma was too, but he didn't deem that important at the moment, "It was how I found you. Dan as well."

Okay, admittedly she could sense the complete aura of nothingness from Gouken and was fairly certain that if she went forty blocks in any direction she'd still be able to, but that was kind of an outrageous thing to state, "I can't feel anything like that from Dan. I never have." Ryu and Ken, maybe, like when they were in Thailand, but other than that… not so much.

"Well there's a very good reason for that, but since I'm staying with him for the time being I really shouldn't say." Gouken said under his breath before shaking his head, "Either way, you came here because of that. I don't know if you were informed of it or not, but I would like to train you properly." Sakura's face reflected deep shock, "For you to have come as far as you have all on your own, that shows remarkable talent, and I simply couldn't forgive myself if I let someone as pure of heart as you to fall prey to the allure of the Satsui no Hadou."

"Is it really that bad?"

"If you had fired the Hadoken that you had been charging at that girl and I hadn't stopped you, you would have destroyed the entire building we were in and everything in the direction you were aiming in for a quarter mile. Think about it."

Neither of them said anything for the longest time while Sakura did indeed ponder it all over. Her face slowly descended into a frown and paled until she finally shook herself out of her musing. Gouken had said the 'magic word' before bringing up her dark side after all, "…Okay, so you said something about training?" She said, trying to sound bright and sunny despite her own internal turmoil.

As long as it sidetracked her from thinking about her actual problems for the time being it was ideal, until the combat-adept lass was ready to look Naruto in the eye again with some kind of measure of pride.

"Let me tell you something about what lies within you."

XxX

(Elsewhere in Aohura City – Genhanten)

Gen's idea of a vacation from Hong Kong did not include attending to the day-to-day running of the restaurant of his namesake. That was what he paid Sasuke and let him stay out of China to run the Japanese end of the assassination racket for. But the boy was more irritable and grouchier than usual lately, because of his one run-in with Juri Han.

He was obsessing over using their underground connections to find her, since he knew that someone had heard of or dealt with her before.

The restaurant was settling into an early evening lull in the time just before people that had been working all day would go out with their families for dinner, so Gen had some time to go up to the room that Sasuke was using as his quarters since Gen had stolen Sasuke's actual abode from him for the duration of his stay in Japan.

All that was in the room was a single futon and a light. Even more Spartan than his actual room's setup was as eerie as that was. And Sasuke sat in the middle of the floor, tapping away at the keyboard of a laptop.

"Boy, what did I tell you about obsessing over things?" Gen said, sleeves covering his hands as he placed them together in front of his body, "It will only lead you to ruin."

This wasn't some Itachi pipedream that he couldn't reach from this world though. This was entirely different. The person here was very reachable, she had pissed him off in a rather personal way, and getting her back was a very, very obtainable goal that would probably make him feel much better about himself after he did it.

"I'm not obsessing." Sasuke said, not looking up from his personal computer and the prepaid cell phone at his side. Damn it if he'd admit it but Naruto's burner phones were a great idea that he was going to steal, "This is actual work. She's buried after a certain point when it comes to records on her. If she weren't a psychopathic bitch that I'm going to set on fire with a smile on my face I'd say I was impressed." He was about to head to Tokyo and putter around there. Hopefully he'd stumble across something.

"Are you getting laid?"

"…What?" Sasuke actually stopped and looked Gen's way as if he'd grown a second head.

"It's a simple question." Gen said before repeating himself slowly, "Are you getting laid? By that Akira girl that's got you all out of sorts over her injuries. I can't think of why else you would care this much about anyone getting injured. You didn't care this much when Yang and Yun got beaten up by your friend Uzumaki and his ninja girl."

Sasuke didn't even care when he'd found out that Gen had leukemia. At the age of fourteen he actually laughed at him all those years ago when he'd found that out. He didn't even wait to get behind closed doors first. He did it in the middle of Gen's Genhanten restaurant in Hong Kong, out loud, in front of customers.

He truly, truly despised that man.

"Yang didn't even get beaten up that badly and Yun completely deserved the Rasengan he got from Naruto." Sasuke insisted with a glare, "That was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen him do. I _told_ him not to pick a fight with the dobe." He continued, setting his computer to the side, "Akira didn't do anything to get singled out the way that she did other than being around me at the wrong time."

"Which leads me back to my original question of are you intimate with this girl?" He inquired while stroking his long white beard.

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response you old son of a bitch." Honestly, Sasuke caught enough of that crap from Naruto and his idiot friend Batsu whenever he was around as well. He didn't need to hear it from someone he wanted to kill as well, "Get out."

"I've seen her. She's quite lovely and just your type. Why not take her out? Do you not like women?"

"I'm going to piss on your grave when you die."

"I'm getting cremated you miserable brat."

"Great. I'll do it myself and piss in your ashes then."

XxX

(Early Evening – Naruto's Apartment)

"Holy shit." Guile said as he held up the remnants of one of Naruto's outfits from the mission to India and set it on the kitchen table. He had to wait for Naruto and Batsu to thoroughly wrap the table in plastic wrap first, the reason being that it was covered in some thick, black residue, "Kid if you were wearing this I think you might want to go to the hospital and get yourself checked out for radiation poisoning or something."

It looked like some kind of waste from some sort of generator of energy, and Naruto talked about a future tank, so future equaled nuclear stuff in the mind of Guile.

Exhausting the last of the plastic wrap on the table, Naruto threw the empty container aside, "No. I was gonna burn it, but I didn't want that black and white fire thing to happen again around here so I just sealed it up and kept it until I figured out what to do with it."

Dropping the clothes on the table, they let out a strange audible thump as if it weighed something significant, "What the hell is this, dark matter?" Guile asked, looking at the black residue on his hands that remained just from just holding the suit up, "I'm going to need some damn Lava Soap or something to get this crap off aren't I?"

"Yes." All of the teenagers in the room, including Naruto, Batsu, Cammy, and Ibuki who had been spending her afternoon there with Cammy, said simultaneously as they all pointed over at Naruto. He had to shower for two days with the heaviest duty soap he could find to finally get all of the black stains off of his skin.

"Oh wow." Chun-Li said, having taken the initiative to run a chemical composition on what comprised the residue on Naruto's beat-up clothes, "Oh this is bad. Or good. I can't tell yet. It's a matter of perspective really. Guys, there's a chemical trace in here that has a signature familiar with the agent of a bio-weapon." The same bio-weapon they'd come across in Brazil.

"Bless you." Ibuki said in turn before realizing that this was supposed to mean something, "Wait, a bio-weapon? That stuff is supposed to be biological?" But Naruto had been covered from head to toe in it when he'd come back… and some of it remained on his skin for a day or so afterwards as well, "Ew."

"Yeah, some sort of new chemical weapon being designed." Guile said, crossing his muscular arms sternly, "We're not able to locate the manufacturer or what the point of it is supposed to be for, but everyone that had been found infected wound up blowing up. Their pressure points exploded from too much ki being forced through all of the spots. More than the human body can take." And then everyone slowly turned to look over in Naruto's direction.

"…" Naruto had been busy snacking from a bag of chips in his cupboard when he'd heard that and had frozen in place with crumbs around his mouth and on his cheeks, "…Am I gonna die?" He asked fearfully with a mouthful of chips before dropping the bag.

"Oh, poor baby!" Ibuki cooed, grabbing Naruto's head while his eyes went wide, noticeably affected. Dying in a fight on his feet was okay with him. Dying in some hospital bed coughing up blood while his body slowly exploded on itself was most assuredly not cool, "I'll find a cure, I swear I will, or I'll be right by your side when you go!"

"You do know I'm gonna explode right?"

"…I'll wear a tarp?"

Batsu, who had been raiding Naruto's fridge for something to drink, slowly shut the door and began backing out of the immediate area altogether, "Oh… man. So he's got some kind of super-sickness like SARS… or bird flu… or a staph infection." At that point a cough came from Naruto as Ibuki kept holding onto him, "See! It's already too late!"

"A chip crumb made me choke you bastard! Fuck you, I'm not sick! I feel fine, 'ttebayo!" Naruto replied heatedly, voice hitching a bit, thus taking a good amount of the bite out of his statement.

"That's how it starts! One second you feel great and then BOOM! T-Virus for everybody! Well not in my town you don't!" Batsu picked up a kitchen knife and shakily held it in Naruto's general direction, "Quarantine him. Quarantine the shit out of him like in that movie… what's it called? Quarantine. Sorry bud, it's you versus _everybody else_ in Aohura City and everybody else outweighs one teme."

"I don't think he's sick." Cammy interjected from where she was looking at all of this over the back of one of the couches in the living room. Her head tilted to the side slightly in thought as she pondered it over a bit more, "…Then again I don't think he's ever been sick, so how would he or anyone else know or not?"

"Cammy!" Ibuki exclaimed, "Get over here and hold him! This could be his last night on Earth and he needs to know that he's loved!" Cammy blinked and was about to jump over the couch to do just that if that was what was going on until another person interjected and stopped her.

"It's not infectious like that!" Chun-Li eventually snapped, taking the knife out of Batsu's hand and hitting him over the head with the flat portion, "It's not airborne or passable by contact with an infected!" She then quickly turned her eyes Naruto's way and tacked something on for his benefit, "…If he even has it to begin with, which he probably doesn't!" She added, holding the knife in Batsu's direction before he could fly off of the handle again.

"So I'm not gonna die?" Naruto asked, sitting on the floor and letting Ibuki rock him with his head against her sizeable bust. Despite being consoled he was still not feeling very motivated to remove himself from her tender mercies.

"The chemical was in the system of the victims. There was nothing from contact. It was put into their bodies somehow." Chun-Li said, tapping her foot on the ground impatiently. She loved them like siblings for the most part, but there was something wrong with them all, "Getting covered in whatever gunk did that to your clothes isn't enough to contaminate you. At the very least you'd have to ingest it as far as we've seen."

"Well this all happened when we were attacking that S.I.N. dam." Ibuki commented, still enjoying her Naruto time while she still had free reign to do so, "It was their tank. So that means that they were the ones that made up the bio-weapon you guys are looking into as well right?"

Both Guile and Chun-Li shared a glance between each other before the former spoke, "S.I.N. you say?" Well that was very interesting, but they couldn't do anything about it with something concrete. They'd wind up investigating it quickly, as soon as they could now that they finally had something to latch onto, "…Thanks kids. I've got an idea, and I think you can help."

Yes, they had a good track record of solving problems without the need for gathering evidence and all of that other frivolous stuff. Sure it tended to be a little destructive, but hey, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

While he was already planning in his head on what he and Chun-Li could do to start gathering evidence on S.I.N. to see just where this rabbit hole led to, Naruto was still concerned with something a little bit more pressing.

"…So am I still gonna die or what?"

XxX

(Somewhere Downtown)

Citizens of the city were giving a rather large, imposing-looking foreigner quite a bit of space as he walked down the street wondering just what he'd gotten himself into.

He had short blond hair that was slightly spiky in the middle like a faux-hawk and had several scars clearly visible to all on his right brow, under his left eye, on the bridge of his nose, and on his chin. He wore a casual leather jacket and black jeans with a travel bag over his shoulder.

'Why did I figure that coming to Japan was a good idea?' The man thought to himself as he stared at all of the signs that he couldn't even hope to read. His eyes kept panning down to a simple translation book, but it wasn't doing him much good, 'That girl. That girl from the tournament. She… there's something about her. Something familiar. I have to find what it is.'

Which was why he was in Japan. From the interview she gave on-air during the Second World Warrior Tournament, she had a distinct British accent, but she lived all the way in Aohura City, Japan, which was a sharp contrast to how she spoke such clear and fluent English.

Aside from that, there was just something about her that pulled at his mind the entire time he'd watched her matches, and he didn't know why. That probably would have sounded a bit weird if he'd told someone, but since his caretaker died he didn't really have anyone to talk about anything with.

Nor did he really have anything to talk about. He'd just been found in some destroyed facility in France one day when he was a young man, and when he'd woken up from whatever had happened to him he couldn't remember a thing, not even his own name. He was taken in for the most part by the odd soldier in and given the name Abel for some reason. But then the man disappeared and that was how it had been since then.

That wasn't important right now. What was important was finding the girl that he was looking for. She couldn't be that hard to locate. She had a very particular appearance, one that wouldn't be common at all in Japan, especially with that scar on her cheek.

If only he knew how to ask around for things. He did not speak a touch of Japanese at all. That probably should have been something he considered when he'd set up the trip to leave in the first place. And this wasn't even a large city.

"God, finding you was so easy." An exasperated female's voice said, speaking up in order to be intentionally heard, "This really wasn't worth wasting my time over."

The man turned to look for the person and found a very particular woman smirking and waving at him on the same public street, standing on a traffic light of all things as she looked down at him.

At this point by now, the few denizens of the town that were on that particular block were so accustomed to high-level battles taking place all over that clearing the streets had become something of a practiced science. Before the foreigner had even known it, he was out there alone. He hadn't even noticed.

"You were searching for me?" He said, blue eyes sharpening on the suspicious woman. So far she was the only person that had tried to speak to him in any language that he'd understood; English.

"Yep." Juri said, "Walking around in the middle of town like this all day, you're not difficult to catch up to even though I'm new here too. So do you need someone to show you around?" The look on her face was comparable to a cat that had just eaten a canary… or was about to.

"I see…" Even so, there wasn't much that the French foreigner could do without prompting. All he could do was tread lightly, "Well in that case, would you point me in the direction of a person named Cammy White."

If anything, Juri's grin spread wider across her face from the smirk that it had been before, "I'll do you one better. I'll bring her to you."

"You would do what?" That was hard to believe.

"Yeah." Juri said, jumping down from her previous perch, "I mean, after I send both of you to hell you'll meet up down there somewhere eventually." She said with a casual air, "Maybe you can meet up with Bison too while you're at it… have a gigantic Shadaloo reunion while you're roasting down there."

And now the man was more defensive as ever, dropping his bag onto the ground to prepare himself for something, "Excuse me?"

"Nothing to be excused for." Juri said covering most of her face and grin with her hand, "I'm gonna kill you, but don't worry about it. At least no one'll miss you. You're just one of Bison's failed experimental spare bodies after all, and it's not like he's around to use you anymore."

"My name is Abel." The man said, taking great offense at everything she was saying, "I'm no one's experiment."

"Not anymore duh! I just told you that you were a failed one, or aren't you listening?" Juri laughed, "At least Killer Bee was smarter than you and useful enough to actually get a name before Bison tried to get rid of her. Between you and her I guess the bastard was really losing his touch at genocide if you both got away."

Abel just stood there blankly and blinked before narrowing his eyes and piecing what he could together, "You know of where I come from?"

"I know enough honey." Juri preened, shifting around in place to loosen up, "Whatcha gonna do about it?"

Abel took off his jacket to reveal a white t-shirt and muscular, heavily scarred arms. Throwing the garment away he stood up in what looked to be an active grappling stance, "I'll do whatever I have to in order to get that information from you."

Juri clapped her hands thrice before jumping and spinning in the air, landing in her personalized ready stance for fighting, "Finally! Let's get this show on the road!" First and foremost she sprinted as fast as she could directly in Abel's face, right in between his arms that had been prepared to grab anything that came close.

She was so close and had done it without warning so quickly that he could clearly see the color of her eyes, shimmering with mirth, before he ever even chose to grab for her or react in any way. When he did, he managed to get nothing but air as she had already jumped straight over him, landing on his back and springing back onto the sidewalk.

What could you do about that? Abel was perplexed. He'd never trained with anyone that speedy before. It was uncanny, almost comparable to fighting a hummingbird in human form. It was the closest comparison he could make.

"Mmm…" Juri said, sizing Abel up as he looked her over trying to break her down before they wound up clashing again, "Nope. I'm not very impressed. And here Seth was telling me that this would be entertaining."

"Entertaining?" Abel said before lunging at her to initiate his own attack, "There isn't anything entertaining about a fight! It's about surviving! It's terrifying!" Before anything else he leapt at her in a swift sideways spin, swinging his leg with crushing force, "Coup de Pied Volant (Wheel Kick)!"

Juri's eye flashed for a split-second before she bolted right out of the trajectory of Abel's well-aimed kick, "Kasatushi (Deathly Killing Stare)!" There was a myriad of movements she could have made after doing so, but she was more interesting at watching Abel's kick smash the concrete and force a split from the point of contact thirty feet away. Maybe this would be fun, "I know that fighting is supposed to be terrifying! That's what makes it fun!"

"Fun?" Abel said, facing off with her once again, "What kind of creature are you supposed to be, a demon in the guise of a woman?"

Close enough.

"Heh." Juri's body started to quiver slightly, either in rage or excitement, Abel couldn't tell, "Learn to fight like me, and you'll realize just how boring _everything_ else is!"

Before Abel knew it, Juri was right back in his face again, and this time she didn't do it just for show to prove that she could. Her leg snapped upward at a seemingly inhumanly flexible manner, kicking him right under the chin and lifting him off of the ground slightly until he landed neatly back on his feet, head swimming and jaw throbbing.

Bringing her leg back down, Juri swung it and her entire body around in a spin kick that nailed Abel again and knocked him out into the street.

So far all Juri could say about Abel was that he could take a few kicks and get back up since that was what he was doing. His one offensive attempt had potential, and it probably would have endangered someone else, but not her.

"You're just way too inexperienced." Juri said as Abel got back up, bleeding from his left side, especially from the arm where he had a very nasty case of road rash from landing in the street, "You've got moves, and the way you're conditioned it's clear you were one of Bison's spare body experiments, but you're not used to taking on real opponents."

Abel didn't say anything, just diligently preparing to fight some more, despite the beating he was starting to take, 'There's got to be some way to land a blow against this woman. Somehow.' As he thought that, he wound up taking another kick as Juri slammed her leg into his stomach again, 'How can she…?'

Jumping up from where she'd posted her foot in Abel's body as a step-up point, she basically slapped him three times with kicks from her other leg that knocked him back again onto the hood of a parked car on the side of the street.

"Hah!" Juri licked her lips and jumped high into the air before suddenly rocketing to the ground, leading with her leg straight out to drive through Abel, "Shikusen (Flash of Suffering)!"

Abel rolled off of the car and onto the ground just as Juri kicked down on it so hard that her foot pierced the hood and punched the engine out through the undercarriage onto the ground. That would have run him through like a spear, no question about it. He'd have been meat on the chopping block.

From where he'd rolled onto the ground, Abel immediately hunkered down, grabbing underneath the car and with great and clear effort proceeded to easily flip the car over upside-down with Juri still standing on it. Once again, she was impressed and saw a spark of something there, something that Seth had been referring to when his eyes temporarily turned pure white with black sclera, but even so, "Still just way too green to contest with me!"

Juri flipped off of the car as it was being flipped through the air and landed on the side of the building as the car rolled down the street. As her feet touched the wall her legs bent before springing off at Abel again. A kick that she swore was about to hit him clean in the head and possibly remove it was stopped by both of his arms in a cross-guard that let off a shockwave from the impact.

Backflipping off of the block, Juri landed to find Abel right in her face, fist moving forward to drive straight through her body, "RAAGGGH!" The shift in Abel's eyes represented something that Juri's cybernetic eye felt was quite familiar. It was an unnatural enhancement of his normal ki. Why was that so familiar?

Oh whatever.

Once again, Juri cheated him out of his attack landing, blurrily moving into the air with Abel's arm fully extended from the punch that he'd thrown. While it definitely would have dealt her a devastating injury had it landed, now all it did was give her an opening to do something incredibly cruel.

Quickly dropping down, Juri threw a flipping ax kick that tore through Abel's arm at the forearm like it was part of a paper mache piñata, only candy didn't come out of this… just lots and lots of blood.

She wasn't all speed. When she wanted to sacrifice speed for power in her kicks, it was a deadly trade-off.

Abel dropped to his knees, blood spilling freely from the stump that used to be his left arm. Instead of screaming at the top of his lungs in pain he seemed to be going into shock, shaking badly and staring at the injury with dilated pupils as he hyperventilated.

Juri just clicked her tongue and walked circles around him, "I see… I see. I know why Seth wants you back. His cute little BLECE Project, you're a key to it. That little extra burst that you had at the end there, that wasn't yours. Not all of yours anyway."

He never said anything about leaving him alive though, so she wouldn't. Lifting her leg overhead to finish the job in one smooth stroke she then had to turn to use a kick to bat away an admittedly feeble ki projectile thrown her way.

She would have batted it away had it not dispersed in midair before even reaching her.

Alright, who was the dead chump that threw that, pathetic as it was? Apparently it was some loser in a pink gi throwing a tantrum at his shitty technique.

"You think you're gonna kill someone in my town? Not while the best in the world is right here!"

XxX

(Moments Earlier)

"Stupid master…" Dan said as he walked back home to his dojo from a convenience store, "Ate all of my snacks… got rid of all of my beer. 'Taints the body' he says. Feh." And he had the gall to give Sakura lessons in his studio, after he'd told him that she was _his_ prized student.

Granted none of that was true whatsoever, but was he really that hard to believe? He was a great teacher! All of his other students said so. Then again none of them could bust a grape with a punch before paying for his training. Some of them still couldn't, but hey, at least they felt better about being themselves!

Quickly draining the remainder of one of the cans from his newly purchased six-pack, Dan had a decent alcoholic buzz going as he immediately opened another can and started guzzling it down. He had to finish the whole thing and the rest of the six-pack before he got back or Gouken would just throw the rest out since he didn't want alcohol in a place of martial arts.

He was going to be _wasted_ by the time he got home.

"RAAGGGH!"

Hearing a guttural yell, Dan's natural sense of wanting to spy on fighters to see if there was anything someone did that was cool and easy enough to steal and say was his from Saikyou-ryuu took over and he sprinted off in that direction to find what it was. Wiping his mouth off he decided to sip at another beer while he ran. Bad idea, but one couldn't dwell on that.

Not when he came across a man on his knees in the middle of the street, blood streaming from a lost portion of arm like an open faucet, and a very pretty woman in somewhat revealing clothes walking circles around him and looking quite pleased with what he figured to be her handiwork.

Just because she was lithe and lovely didn't mean she wasn't as nasty a fighter as they came. He knew firsthand that women were usually the meanest sort to go against.

Which meant only one thing with the alcohol giving ego a bigger boost than usual.

It was hero time.

Without pause, Dan dropped his bag and his beers and charged down the street before cocking his arm back to hurl his best ki attack her way, "Gadoken (Self-Taught Fist)!" And oh baby, it was on target.

The girl turned around to face the thunder head-on, but there wouldn't be any stopping this hurricane. Hibiki Dan was a force of physical nature.

And then his Gadoken dissipated in the air as if it were nothing.

'Damn it why does that keep happening!?' Dan shouted, stomping his foot on the ground before he realized he had the girl's attention, "You think you're gonna kill someone in my town? Not while the best in the world is right here! Imma deck you in the schnoz!"

Juri just stared at Dan before lowering her leg from trying to block Dan's last attack, instead shoving Abel over onto his side with her foot, "I'm sorry, that's a new one. And you are?"

"Hibiki Dan, Aohura City and Japan's most valuable human asset!" Dan said, pointing firmly at Juri, "Now leave that guy alone! You already know you can't beat me even with the axe you used to cut his arm off! That's why you threw it away!"

By now Abel had recovered from his shock enough to know that there was a third person with him and Juri, even though he was still laying down in the street and bleeding out into the nearest open drain, "She didn't use an axe…"

Dan just looked over at the wounded Frenchman in confusion and then back to Juri, "If she didn't use an axe or something sharp to hack your arm off, how'd she cut it off?"

Neither Juri nor Abel said anything, but Juri just flexibly lifted up her leg and foot in clear view of Dan and wiggled her pink painted toes with a smirk on her face. The blood from slicing off Abel's arm was still all over the lower portion of her white pant leg and her bare foot.

He then remembered everything that Naruto had told him about the apparent powerful fighter that was out to possibly target certain notable fighters in town, and realized the fact that she fit the profile that had been described to him very well. Flawlessly so as a matter of fact.

"No…" Dan said, his accusing hand beginning to shake, "No." Why did all of the freaks of nature have to come to Aohura City to fuck shit up? He needed to move somewhere where fighters sucked, because this was ridiculous.

"Yes." Juri replied, reveling a bit in the air being taken right out of Dan's sails. He turned around to run, but before he managed to make it five steps she cut him off by speeding right in front of him, hands on her hips rather provocatively, "You walked into the wrong party."

Frightened at what he'd gotten himself into, Dan let out a girlish scream and threw a punch as hard as he could that Juri stopped with the bottom of her foot. In one slick motion, she pushed his hand and arm down and popped her foot back up into his face with a trio of rapid-fire kicks that he didn't even see.

Dan stood up for a moment before falling down onto his butt to look up at her. She didn't even care about his existence as she walked past him to go back over to Abel and finish the job, "I'm not wasting my time with you. Look at you, you're so smashed you can't even stand."

"Maybe…" Dan said as he got right back up and wiped at his nose, "But I'm not that drunk!"

"Being drunk would at least buy you an excuse for getting back up." Juri muttered to herself before turning and throwing a kick that hurled a purple/pink ki wave low in his direction, "Fuuhajin (Wind Breaking Blade)!"

The ki attack flew low, and cut chunks out of the street before Dan jumped into the air over it, "I'm gonna autograph your face with my fist!" Letting out a war cry as he tried a flying punch while falling her way, he was completely surprised when he was stopped again by Juri's foot, this time with her catching him at his chest flat on the bottom of it, "How did you-?"

"I don't even need my eye to avoid you." She drawled lazily before spinning around and driving Dan into a small crater in the road with a slam of her leg, "What an embarrassment." Juri wiped off her pants as Dan twitched in the fresh new pothole in the street before turning her attention back to Abel, only to find him missing altogether, "What?"

There was a blood trail, but it led to his jacket that he'd discarded at the start and then disappeared, so the bastard must have used that somehow to patch himself well enough to get somewhere safer to hide.

For someone that didn't know much about practical street fighting, Abel was a quick study, or at least had one hell of a survival instinct.

"Damn it!" Juri shouted, stomping her foot on the ground hard enough to punch a hole through the asphalt. When she heard the sound of Dan clawing his way back out of the crater she'd made with his body she turned back around testily, "_What_?" She asked venomously.

'It's time for the strongest move I know.' Dan thought to himself, showing the violent marks of battle on his frame, 'If I can beat Sagat, this chick should be a snap to finish with this one.' Pushing himself the rest of the way up, Dan ran right at her with his fist ready to strike, "Saikyou-ryuu rules! Hisshou Buraiken (Certain Victory Villainy Fist)! Di-!" He wound up running right past Juri when she sidestepped him and tripped him with an outstretched leg.

She didn't even turn to look at him as he fell face-first to the ground with enough force to crack the road. A hard head was what he had to his benefit if nothing else.

"Tch." Juri dusted her feet off on Dan's gi as if he were an entrance mat and walked away from him. Even wasting two minutes on that clown was too long for her. She walked over to Abel's severed arm and picked it up off of the ground before walking away with it, "This should shut Seth up even when I tell him what happened."

There was no way that Abel was going to be able to get very far with a severed limb, and Seth was going to be in Japan for a week or so to broker more leverage and worldwide standing for S.I.N. with some 'business deals', so he would be occupied and wouldn't try to bust her ass over this.

A week was more than enough time to find the broken Shadaloo toy and finish him off.

XxX

He had to get away. That woman was a terror. He needed medical attention in a hurry or he was going to meet his end, 'She knew something… about who I am, or was.' It figured that the only person he'd ever met that could give him some background on himself was out to kill him.

Were it not for the timely intervention of that mentally challenged, weird alcoholic man he would have died. Who knew that Aohura City had such a man-of-action homeless population?

And he ran. He ran as far as his lungs would allow him to go, and that was farther than he figured he was capable of. He amazed himself with how far he was able to go. Miles. At least he figured he'd gone miles. He lost count as he grew weaker and his blood started soaking through his jacket.

Either way he continued forward, no longer running, but basically stumbling along at this point. No hospital. He'd be too easy to find in a hospital. That would be the first place someone like the kicking girl would check for him. She was no fool.

His vision started to blur as he continued to walk, leaning against the wall of the building he was against as he continued along. The blurry figure of a human being filled his vision and a voice rang out in his ears despite how muffled it sounded to his weary mind. Either way, he still couldn't understand Japanese. Hopefully they'd understand something other than French.

Before he blacked out he only had one thing to say, "No hospital… please."

Damn it, why couldn't anyone helpful speak to him in something he could comprehend?

XxX

(Moments Earlier)

Sasuke was in the middle of walking home from visiting Akira, much to Gen's amusement, but he just death glared the bastard all the way out the door as he left that evening. At least by now she was up and moving around, so that was much better than she'd been a few days ago.

All he was doing now was enjoying the tranquility of the night before he wound up back in the living hell of staying in Genhanten with Gen. The day that he decided to go back home would be the best day that he'd have all year.

'What's with the blood smell?' Sasuke thought to himself until he was able to see someone walking down the street, leaning against the wall of a building. His building. His window. Damn it, he was bleeding on his window, 'Why does this shit keep happening around my property?'

Some blond guy (of course he was) with scars all over his body looked like he'd taken one hell of an asskicking, and his left arm was covered in a black jacket that was soaked with blood.

He looked up at Sasuke weakly before uttering something in English, "No hospital… please." And that was all he got out before falling down on his face where he didn't move again.

Sasuke just stared at him for half a minute before sighing and making to drag him into Genhanten to try and save his life. No hospital? He could respect that. And he couldn't rightfully let someone die in front of his property. Business would tank forever when that got out to the public.

"Come on." Sasuke said with a grunt as he tried to do his best not to leave a blood trail with Abel's body as he took him inside and dragged him up to the living quarters portion of the restaurant building, "…I guess I'll hose off the window and sidewalk outside after I get Gen to make sure you don't die."

Well at least for once this had absolutely no connection with Naruto or any of the people that surrounded him.

Yep. No connection to a single one of them.

XxX

"Achoo!"

Naruto's eyes popped open in his bed when he heard the cute little sound of Cammy sneezing. He had been sleeping, but good manners to the sweet young lady just happened to be common courtesy. Rubbing his eyes with one hand he smacked his lips and blearily looked over in the dark of his room, "Bless you Cam."

"Thank you Naruto." She said before returning to her previous activity of trying to go back to sleep with a small yawn.

The only thing that could be heard in the room for a few beats happened to be the ticking of the clock in Naruto's room due to the quiet of the night, but eventually Naruto's eyes turned Cammy's way despite the fact that he couldn't see a damn thing, because he could feel her basically attached to his entire left side.

As was normal for when Cammy slept, she was not wearing a stitch of clothing, finding doing so uncomfortable. She had enough trouble sleeping peacefully with her constant nighttime faded memory spots without adding another problem to that on as well.

"Cam, when did you get in my bed?" A sign of his adjustment was just how calm he was with a clothes-free Cammy hooked onto him.

He could swear that a big pair of bright blue eyes were looking at him in the dark from right at his side. He could totally see the adorably innocent expression on her face as clear as day as well, "About two hours ago?"

It made sense. All of that stressing out over dying via a biological explosion sort of made him waste a lot of energy, so he was pretty tired that night. It would have been pretty easy for someone he trusted like Cammy to slip into his bed.

"What's the matter?" Naruto asked his lovely roommate blearily, still somewhat stuck in the haze between being awake and asleep, "Did you have another blurry Shadaloo flashback nightmare?"

"Not this time. I just have a very bad feeling that a lot of terrible things are about to happen."

She probably didn't even notice it herself, but Cammy's hold on him tightened a bit and he pulled her in closer to try and comfort the confused little femme. And it did make him grin when she sighed contently in return. She was getting better at expressing emotion and the like even if she was unaware of it yet.

Whatever. Anything that was wrong could wait until daytime to be solved. It was so peaceful outside? How bad could anything be right at the moment?

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Abel  
><span>Nationality:<span> France  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> Late 20s-Early 30s (Birthdate: Apparently November 5th)  
><span>HeightWeight: 6'6/187 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> A  
><span>Likes:<span> Dogs, Fei Long movies.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Oysters, Shadaloo.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> Sewing.  
><span>Rivals:<span> N/A  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Wrestling, Judo, full-contact Karate, and other mixed forms of martial arts.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Coup de Pied Volant (Wheel Kick), Marseilles Rouleau (Marseilles Roll), Tornade Jeter (Tornado Throw), Changement de Direction (Change of Direction), Ciel Tombant (Falling Sky).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Sans Cœur (Heartless), Sans Ame (Soulless), Haletant (Breathless).  
><span>Background:<span> Found many years ago in an abandoned Shadaloo base suffering from amnesia, Abel was saved by a man that knew the technique Sonic Boom, but this was all he could get from the situation. Lapsing into a coma, upon awakening Abel was taken in by the soldier that died recently, leaving him a warning to avoid Shadaloo to keep a peaceful life. Months later, during the Second World Warrior Tournament he caught sight of a very young woman competing that he felt some sort of connection to. With no family or anything keeping him from doing so, Abel decided that he could not go on without knowing something of his past and where he came from, choosing to go forth and seek the young woman out as a start on his journey to find who he is. A skilled fighter, when it was determined by his caretaker that Abel had a knack for combat, possibly as a mercenary they surmised. He was quickly taught all of the man's combat skills and given the chance to learn even more, easily picking it all up and blending these styles into a vicious style of martial arts. At times Abel can lose himself to the adrenaline of battle and go into a combat-high trance. He will regain his senses in the aftermath, not able to remember anything that occurred while he was 'out'.

* * *

><p><strong>So I just heard that they're taking wrestling out of the Olympics come 2020 if they can't be convinced otherwise. What the fuck man? That's one of the few sports in the damn Olympics outside of the basketball that I actually really DO care about. And for what? For what they're keeping in without a fight?<strong>

**It's an actual original Olympic sport too, one that still has relevancy. What the hell are kids going through college on wrestling scholarships supposed to shoot for when it comes to a damn 'shoot for the stars' pipe dream now other than getting a base for MMA? And I can tell you from personal experience from doing both that most wrestlers that aren't standout athletes (even some that are) are suckers for guillotine chokes and other neck-based attacks. **

**Doing that to wrestling in the Olympics would basically kill the sport in this country at its highest level.**

**Man that makes me mad. I'm actually really pissed off about that.**


	45. Remain in the Light

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. If I wound up randomly shooting a Hadoken one day while going through the motion for it I swear I'd probably die on the spot from a heart attack. I'd never live long enough to profit from it.

**Chapter 45: Remain in the Light**

* * *

><p>A stern knock at his front door roused Naruto from his slumber at six in the morning. Thus, the local law enforcement were greeted with the strangely intimidated sight of Uzumaki Naruto with bed-head over his eyes, a white tanktop, and orange frog-patterned boxers opening his door like a zombie.<p>

"Uh…" The first of the two officers said as he and his partner looked at each other and then at Naruto, "We have some information that might be relevant to you. You might think it's pretty important."

Since when did the police ever tell him anything about anything? It was usually the other way around. And then after they didn't believe him he usually had to handle the whole thing within his own house so to speak.

So when they came actually bringing something that they thought was important to Naruto, he quickly rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and woke up, "Really? Why are you guys telling me though? Cops don't like me." He and the company he kept were basically vigilantes… at best.

"Actually we do. Or we want to anyway." The second police officer said, chiming in, "You make our job a lot easier when it comes to the big criminal activities. We have to go through miles of regulation and red tape to get anything done, so having someone like you handle things works usually."

"You get the job done for sure." The first officer said, "It's just that you destroy so much stuff. That's the problem. Someone has to sign off and deal with all of that after you do it you know."

When the police destroyed private property the city paid for it. When someone like Naruto or the multiple superpowered people in the town destroyed private property, who paid for it then?

They had a point. Perhaps he could start finding ways to deal with domestic threats that didn't end with nearly as much collateral damage as it did? They might sanction the things he did if he could. That would make taking missions a lot easier.

Okay, he'd hear them out. They'd taken the time to come and see him anyway. Other than that they seemed like alright enough guys. Pretty young officers, so he probably didn't have to expect much snark and cynicism. Why not be friendly?

"Sure." Naruto said with a shrug as he scratched at his scalp and grinned at them disarmingly, "What's up you guys?"

Now at this, both of the upstanding officers of the law looked at each other rather nervously before one of them decided to just get it over with and tell him what they'd come to say, "We think that Cammy White has been killed."

At that, Naruto's blue eyes went wide as he stared at them, "What'd you say?"

"The girl that lives here with you." One of the men said, "In the early hours of the morning we found a massive amount of blood all over Nanahouhou Street. Blood tests showed that it's similar to only one other kind of DNA in the area. Hers."

Naruto took a second to let that sink in before slightly tilting his head in confusion, "That doesn't sound right."

"I know it's hard to believe, trust me. I saw that girl go during the tournament, she's like a buzzsaw, but there are a lot of strange things happening to people all over town that are supposed to be strong."

"No." Naruto said, cutting him off before he could start explaining his side of the reasoning further, "I mean that doesn't sound right because unless she was sleepwalking and I'm so numb I can't feel anything she didn't go anywhere last night."

This time it was the turn of the policemen to be confused, "What?"

Naruto just turned and yelled back into his apartment, "Cam! Come here!" It took a moment, but then they heard the sound of someone getting out of bed and then of footsteps down the hall before Cammy peered tiredly around the corner with sleepily drooping eyes, wearing a rather oversized shirt as she looked at the officers and waved at them with nary a scratch on her, wondering if Naruto had done something worth being arrested for, "See?"

She was such a pretty little thing, even in the morning. And that was definitely _not_ her shirt, they were absolutely certain of it, which extended their imaginations a bit when Cammy turned around to return back to the room to get a little more sleep.

"Nice." One of the officers said before the other one elbowed his partner, "Ahem, well that leaves us with a problem then, because there isn't anyone else in any database with DNA that comes even close to hers. Local or otherwise."

"You guys are being kind of vague." Naruto said, rubbing his belly idly, wishing he had some breakfast, "You guys are talking like what you found isn't 100% Cam's DNA."

"Well it isn't. It's damn close though, but there are a few things. For one bloodtype is different, but it was close enough that we went out of the way to give you a heads up." Well there was a benefit to the fact that police officers happened to be fans of his. A perk of taking on Karin's initial request of trying to become the greatest fighter in Japan.

He idly wondered how that was going for a moment before quelling the thought, keeping it from raging out of control like he knew it would due to the habit of his ego. More important things were afoot than his own delusions of grandeur about how awesome he was.

There was someone walking around with a _seriously_ close match to Cammy's genetic material, and they'd apparently left enough blood on the streets to make the police think that she'd been killed in a violent street fight.

"Huh." Naruto said, with a pensive look on his face before nodding, "Thanks then guys." The officers tipped their hats to him before departing from his door, allowing Naruto to close it behind him, "Well, I know what I'm doing today." Finding some way to locate the trail of someone that had a more than passing connection to Cammy.

Speaking of whom, was it too late to shack back up with Cammy for an hour before he actually had to be up for school?

XxX

(That Afternoon – Saikyou-Ryuu Dojo)

"Yeah I was all big and heroic last night." Dan bragged to the green-skinned jungle man Blanka who was listening raptly to his friend's exaggeration of his role in last night's affair while enjoying a blended fruit smoothie, "You should have been there Jimmy. I was so badass. That Juri Han chick isn't as tough as that Uzumaki kid was saying."

He wasn't really lying to Blanka at all, as impressionable as the feral human being was, "That so cool Dan! You really save somebody?" What Blanka did not know that Dan neglected to mention was that he had gotten his ass kicked. But withholding information wasn't necessarily lying though.

"Yep." Dan said with a big, shit-eating grin, bandages on his face not compromising his story one bit despite his wounds, "It's just a day in the life… when you're awesome like me." He turned and called out brazenly to his former master in order to get a rise out of Gouken, "Do you hear that old man? I'm a national damn treasure! The biggest man in town!"

"Yes, impressive Dan." Gouken said to try and placate the flamboyant pink-clad martial artist before turning his attention back to Sakura as they were in the midst of mind-clearing meditation, "Now my dear, you need to find the root of your desires."

Sakura's eyes popped open as her face went red, "M-My desires?"

Her desires weren't the kind of thing she wanted to think about when the sun was up, the lights were on, she was in public, and was nowhere near a bed.

Gouken went unaware of this as he stroked at his beard and continued his clarification, "Yes. What you want. What is it that consumes you to the point that you are willing to kill and destroy your friend?" He already knew it, but she needed to be able to openly admit it.

Well that was kind of straight to the point wasn't it? Sakura wasn't going around spilling her guts to the person that it was all about, so what made Gouken think that it was cool for him to outright ask her about it? She hadn't known him for that long.

"Uh, that's kind of personal isn't it sensei?" Sakura said, trying to come up with some reason to keep it to herself. She was a good girl with traditional values, which meant that her business was meant for her and those close to her that she trusted with sensitive things like that.

"That's the problem." Gouken stated firmly in a slightly booming voice that echoed when it really shouldn't have. Not in that room should anything he'd said should have echoed, "This is why it so readily came forth from you the other day. You're not denying yourself the things you desire most, you're ignoring your feelings altogether and setting the thoughts that plague you aside. That is very unhealthy."

"Most other people do it." Sakura defended, albeit a bit weakly. She couldn't sense Gouken… technically, but the apparent void of nothing that seemed to emanate from him was more telling than the most authoritative aura would have been, "They put aside things like that for reasons too."

Many reasons.

For their careers or things related to that.

Because it's not timely for whatever they want to do with their lives.

To please others around them.

Or in Sakura's case, because she had such a fear of screwing up the things that she already had, the things that she loved, that she didn't want to try and take the chance to get what she wanted most.

"Most people also don't have darkness in them that tends to take over when they openly deny themselves." Gouken retorted handily, giving her a one-eyed look, "If you cannot admit it to me, a man that has absolutely no reason to judge you and no personal connection to you outside of training you, you cannot admit it to yourself, who it really matters to. Admitting your own weakness and shortcomings in all of their forms is the first step to learning how to utilize the Chikara no Hadou (Surge of Power)."

"I thought your power was called the Kyomu no Chikara (Power of Nothingness) old man." Dan pointed out, getting Blanka to whip him up a fruit smoothie of his own to enjoy. It really cut down on power usage when your best friend could generate thousands of volts of electricity for kicks, "You trying to throw my best student off?"

Sakura's eye twitched at being called Dan's best student, what an insult, but she stayed her tongue out of respect for using his dojo to train with Gouken for free, "Nothing of the sort, I can assure you." Gouken said with a good-natured and hearty laugh, "No. The Kyomu no Chikara is merely the pinnacle of my own study of our style. The peak of my own branch of it. The Chikara no Hadou is a necessary step that must be taken to develop that far."

"But what about the Satsui no Hadou?" Sakura asked concernedly. What about that? It was the entire reason she'd opted to take the training. It scared the daylights out of her that she could lose herself to her inhibitions, "I need to learn to control that don't I?"

"Only my master Goutetsu was ever able to properly control it without becoming a raging demon of a human being." Gouken said with a shake of his head, "My brother Akuma, it can be said that he mastered it, but instead he lost himself to it. He's letting it consume and drive him. But he doesn't care about that. He's content as long as he continues to grow in strength and battle powerful enemies that can challenge him."

"Naruto fought against that person before!" Sakura said, remembering just how awful Naruto had been hurt all those months ago, "Isn't he strong enough already?"

"It's never enough. The Satsui no Hadou only exists to consume and destroy. It is the darkest portion of human nature, concentrated in the trained ki of our warriors." Reaching out, he set a hand on Sakura's shoulder, "As human beings we all have darkness. It's just a matter of how that darkness manifests in each particular person. Akuma's drive is to find an opponent worth unleashing his full power against."

How selfish.

What was it about being strong that made people want to be that way? Sakura would probably never understand it, even with her own little touch of insanity steeped in her soul. She didn't want to be that way, it just happened.

"Your friend is lucky to have lost a battle to Akuma and survived the ordeal." Gouken claimed, standing up to pace about with his hands behind his back, "He doesn't fight against enemies without doing so with full intent to kill. I can't imagine that my brother would have left him alive."

That was the thing though. Akuma _didn't_ leave Naruto alive. He didn't even leave him for dead. Akuma figured that he'd stricken him down with his final attack. No one else that had been hit with it had actually survived. The attack was not just on his body, it was on his very soul itself.

The Kyuubi had performed a rudimentary form of necessary separation between his and Naruto's connection to allot them enough wiggle room to barely live through the Shun Goku Satsu. The damage for the technique was split between them, with Naruto's body taking the physical portion and the Kyuubi within him taking the spiritual half. Had Naruto taken all of it, both parts of the Shun Goku Satsu, he would not have survived.

Of course that just meant that he was strong enough to endure a blow such as that from Akuma, and that would spell nothing good for the boy's future if the mystery of how he endured intrigued Akuma enough to get him to seek Naruto out again.

It wouldn't bode well for Sakura either as he would try to cultivate her Satsui no Hadou in order to bring up another potential worthy challenger for him one day.

A spark of a feeling flared up in Sakura's heart, exclaiming in her mind that if someone like Akuma wished to take Naruto away she'd sooner kill them first, and that shocked her. It was loud! She'd had bad thoughts before but they were so easy to quell and suppress before, just a matter of asserting mentally that whatever the ill-boding thought was wasn't right.

This one was insisting that she crush, kill, destroy. That the only thing that mattered was making sure that she could have-.

"What's plaguing your mind girl?" Gouken asked, taking note of a shift in Sakura's demeanor. She'd stopped trying to focus entirely on their previous endeavor of establishing a meditative baseline for her in order to listen to his explanation, and in the middle of it he'd felt the slight jerk of her emotions. He already knew what it was, but she needed to openly admit it before she could begin learning in earnest, "Fine. Until then we will work on your technique to give your mind time to clear."

XxX

(Meanwhile – Karin's Manor)

While resting up while healing from her injuries tended to make her go stir-crazy while her home was being rebuilt, at least the downtime allowed Karin more artistic pursuits such as the rekindling of her attention to the piano, which she had neglected to practice intensely with ever since fighting became the crux of her focus when not working.

In between the work that she was constantly doing, having to go to school, and the fighting-related trouble that occupied her she'd had no chance to play in quite some time. Even while she was supposed to be looking in on more of the Kanzuki Zaibatsu's to-be business arrangements in preparation for meeting with her father on their family lands, she needed to take a break as well and catch up with the current concerns of her friends.

"So that is why you requested the services of my doctors to get a sample of Cammy-san's blood." Karin said in understanding of the explanation she had just received as her fingers danced across the keys before her, letting music spill out through the vast halls, "I must admit that it is rather disconcerting that there is another, shall we say, copy of that detestable man Bison out in the world."

"Well whoever it is might not be a threat even if they are evil." Ibuki commented as she lounged on a nearby couch, slinking her body over the armrest languidly. God, Karin's new furniture was comfortable and she was just fine with breaking it in herself, "If whoever it is lost enough blood to the point where they thought Cammy was killed, I don't think they got far from where the fight took place."

On the way to Karin's house after school that day they'd passed by the road that the apparent fight had taken place on and noted that it would be closed for some time.

The pavement all along the sidewalk and in the street was torn to shreds with pretty deep gaffs in the ground. A lone car on the road had been overturned and seemed like it'd been in a speedy accident, and the entire front wall of a building was busted open by said car somehow hitting it on the second story.

It was being cleaned up at the time, but there were just some things that you couldn't finish sprucing up by the time school let out. Not like Karin's mansion, which was being rapidly reconstructed to the point that the main issue was now going to be what she would do with the revamped interior design that she needed to see to.

"Well my clones checked all of the damn hospitals in town." Naruto said, walking into the room with Cammy who had a bandage on her arm from having blood drawn just a few moments ago, "No one came in with unexplained blood loss related wounds last night or this morning, so whoever this is, they're still out there."

"I wonder why Sakura isn't here." Cammy idly wondered as she took a seat and poked at her own arm momentarily, "I don't remember her ever missing anything like this happening before." Sakura was usually there for the odd occurrences that they got themselves involved in.

"She's still avoiding Naruto after her dark side almost got them both to have-." Ibuki stopped referring to the recent incident in the school gym when she felt Karin's fingers plunk down heavily on a few keys as her killing intent rose, "-Nevermind. We all know what happened." The chesty kunoichi didn't want to draw the ire of the well-to-do heiress and her nigh inexhaustible resources.

Naruto slid in on the piano bench next to Karin, but she pretended not to pay him any mind as she refocused on playing the instrument at hand, even when he scooted closer to blatantly try to get her to speak to him. She was a bit miffed at the fact that a perfect storm of hormones and tension almost resulted in her chief 'frienemy' Sakura basically mating with Naruto on a gym floor like animals, but she couldn't justify it enough to be outwardly upset. It was something beyond their regular control, and that was saying something because Naruto had extremely good self-control.

That didn't mean she couldn't be passive-aggressive as hell about it though.

But she found it difficult to do so. She couldn't. Maybe in the old days it would have been easy to give Naruto the cold shoulder, but there wasn't enough ice left on her heart to spend on trying to mess with his head. And it was downright adorable when he started trying to plunk on keys in an effort of trial and error.

God help her, why was she about to say what she was going to say? It made no feasible sense for her to do so, "…You should really speak to Sakura-san about what happened to you two." Karin said softly, quietly beginning to play again once Naruto's hands left the piano, "It is not healthy for the two of you to leave such a thing up in the air between the two of you."

At hearing that, Ibuki perked up curiously. Even Cammy seemed to be paying rapt attention to the heiress and her soft-spoken words. Was Karin actually trying to encourage Naruto to go and repair what was screwed up between him and Sakura? Why would she do that?

Ibuki and Karin full-on acknowledged one another as rivals in the ongoing 'subtle' struggle to procure the delicate affections of the man between them. Both of them also acknowledged that Sakura was probably more dangerous in this instance than either of them were separately to each other. And something had occurred that had caused an awkward rift between Naruto and Sakura. So why would Karin coax Naruto to make a move in order to try and fix things quickly?

She asked herself that, and she already knew the answer. It was because it didn't feel right without Sakura there with them.

"Sakura-chan doesn't want to talk about it." Naruto said with a sigh as Karin continued to fill the room with music, "If she doesn't want to I can't force her."

A scoff came from Karin in turn as she rolled her eyes, "Yes you can Naruto-san. Sakura-san would do anything for you that you asked of her. You simply never request anything difficult of her. You hardly ask for anything difficult from any of us as a matter of fact."

Of course he didn't. He never even asked Karin, a young woman with extreme means, Ibuki, a highly skilled kunoichi with the backing of an entire village of ninjas supporting her, or Cammy, a powerful assassin-trained girl indebted to him that would do anything for him, for anything. He asked Ibuki to go with him to India, but that was more for her than for him since she often stated that she wanted to travel more.

"I don't spend time with all of you girls because of what you might be able to do for me." Naruto said in a bit of a deadpan.

"Right." Ibuki said, relaxing in her chair once again as she inspected her nails idly, "You like spending time with us because you're a healthy, hetero young man, and we're all sexy."

"That's not why I hang out with you either." But yes they were all very sexy, "I don't pick the people around me just because they can do stuff for me. You're all special. There's something about all of you that I like." Ibuki placed her hands on her own chest and smirked, getting Naruto to roll his eyes, "That's not what I meant." Again though, they didn't hurt one bit, "I was talking more about personality."

Karin's sheer force of will was probably the most impressive thing about her, enough so that she was able to stay viable as a powerful fighter without open access to ki or some other abnormal ability to bolster her skills the way seemingly everyone else did. As far as pure martial arts went she was more polished and refined than any of them. She seemed frosty to people that didn't know her, but once one did get on her good side her traits were rather endearing, and she could be sweet in her own way.

Cammy was perhaps the most inherently innocent girl that anyone would meet in their life, method of fighting notwithstanding. She was a very smart girl with a large propensity for empathy, but was socially awkward due to the combination of amnesia and probably due to the life that she'd lived before ever meeting them, causing her to come off almost robotic at times. She seemed like she was still finding who she was, and for some reason it was just something that appealed to Naruto.

Ibuki had more spirit than any other girl he knew. She was a kind girl, if not a little blunt, but that was one thing that Naruto really liked that about her. They always managed to find a way to have fun together, even when they were in the middle of something that could probably kill them. It was just the way that they were together. The fact that she was a ninja somewhat like he was and that she was exceedingly hot were just bonuses.

There probably wasn't a more positive influence on Naruto's life than Sakura had been. She was oftentimes patient and disciplined in regards to him when she'd had every right to lose her temper or give up on helping him get along. So often she'd been cheerful and upbeat in the face of some terrible things that had happened around them. She was the first concrete thing that Naruto had managed to latch onto, someone he'd found that made him want to protect something precious, even if he wasn't in his world anymore.

"I know that, as does Sakura-san." Karin continued to explain with surprising tolerance and serenity, "But she is frightened and embarrassed at her lack of control. Unlike you, who has had time to come to terms with your own dangerous power, hers are new to her. This is not an issue that can be solved by giving her space Naruto-san. This is about you, thus you must be the one to reassure her. To soothe her mind."

"She's training with Gouken about it, even right now." Naruto said, placing his own fingers on the piano to try and play again, this time with a rather pleasant music coming forth this time. Karin was surprised, but even so a soft smile found its way to her lips upon seeing that he somehow managed to remember some of what she'd been playing earlier, "I mean, won't I just distract her?"

"Even so, there are more things that you can do to help than he can." Karin said, "In the end, all he can do is assist her in dealing with her Satsui no Hadou. In order for any of that to work her mind needs to be settled. As she is now, you are the one that can fix this."

After a moment of contemplation, Naruto stopped trying to play by ear and looked over at Karin. She wasn't smirking at him knowingly or giving him a stony look to mask something, she was just giving him a smile. That was rare.

It was because she believed in him. She would never say that he was the smartest, but when it mattered he always seemed to do the right thing by her and everyone else.

Not minding how it looked due to it being in the privacy of her own home for the most part, Karin quickly kissed Naruto on the cheek. Had they really been alone she would have kissed him far more intimately, but she was still demure when it came to letting her guard down in public, "I-I believe in you after all."

'Bitch!' Ibuki thought to herself, watching Naruto blink in surprise at the sudden gesture from the wealthy young woman, 'She was _not _supposed to have the heart to do something like that in front of other people, even if it's just us.' The only time Karin was ever reserved in her personality was when she endeavored to try and show a softer side.

After a few more minutes, Naruto got up to leave with Cammy, only really indicating in an oddly reserved manner that she was going to hit the streets for a while and look for some kind of hint of what exactly was going on, and he was going to go somewhere safe to train as he was close to yet another major breakthrough.

Once he was gone, Ibuki cast her eyes over to Karin who had gone back to her previous activity of playing the piano with, this time playing Polonaise in C minor, "You mind telling me what the hell that was supposed to be just now?"

"I am quite certain that I do not know what you are referring to Ibuki-san." Karin said calmly focusing on the music, "Enlighten me if you would not mind doing so."

'Enlighten her' she says, "You know Naruto's a total softie on Sakura-chan. Why'd you tell him all of those things?" Ibuki asked, bristling a bit at how she seemed to play on Naruto's empathetic demeanor when it came to all of them, "She's going to be stuck on his mind now. I don't get what your plan is."

"I do not have a 'plan' as you say." Karin replied, ceasing in her playing to turn around on the bench to address Ibuki, "I believe I have made it very clear what I want. But if I win him by default because my rivals are indisposed I will not have earned him properly. Naruto-san will be mine the right way, and not by process of elimination."

"So you told him all of that to get him to talk to her out of the goodness of your heart." Ibuki raised an eyebrow skeptically. Karin was usually greatly opportunistic and all about the bottom line, no matter how she got it, "You're as ruthless as they come. That really doesn't seem like something you would do."

"I know." Karin groused with a frown on her pretty face. Whatever happened to 'All I need is victory'? When did she lose that? She already had a bit of an idea as to what the catalyst for that change in mind set happened to be, "…I blame him. He did this to me. Damn him."

"You're still in love with him though."

"Oh hush and help me prepare to depart." Karin said, changing the subject entirely, "I need to return to Tokyo tonight at father's behest. He did not tell me what the nature of my visit was meant to be, so I suspect this will be another one of his tests to keep me from inheriting the Kanzuki Zaibatsu."

Ibuki huffed, but quickly got over it. It did her heart some good to know that she wasn't the only person that had to put up with constant tests and trials just because she was a kunoichi. So she could help Karin get ready to go for hers before she headed back to the Glade of Ninjas.

"So your parent's place… how big is that?"

"200 acres."

"…"

"Oh, my apologies. Were you asking about just the mansion or all of the land together?"

"Why?"

"Because 200 acres is only just the mansion itself."

XxX

(Genhanten)

Abel awoke with a numbness in his body to some kind of chatter of a language that he didn't know how to speak. He didn't even bother trying to keep up with it, instead trying to figure out where the hell he was.

The last thing he remembered was limping away from the scene of an asskicking. Oh, and that girl with the kicks cut his arm off with one of them. That was going to be a problem later.

Opening his eyes he couldn't help but let out a pained groan even though he couldn't feel anything. That got the talking to stop as the low light of the room he was in filled his eyes, "Oh, would you look at that Sasuke. Your guest is awake. Impressive." An old man said in English, probably for his benefit.

"You said you gave him enough sedatives to keep a horse down for three days." A vastly younger male voice said in return, "And with his arm like that he should have been out for way longer."

The smell of good food filled Abel's nostrils and he tried to sit up only to be pushed back down forcefully. As his vision cleared he could see a rather small, but still rather intimidating old man holding him there with a mere finger, "Moving around right now would not be advised young man. You've been through quite a bit from the scope of the injuries you received. My apprentice found you outside and we've overseen you for the last sixteen hours."

"One more time, I'm not your apprentice you old bastard." Turning his head to the sound of the other voice, Abel saw a young man with his arms crossed leaning against the doorframe of the room they were in, looking rather detached from everything.

Abel looked between the two of them before staring up at the ceiling, "Merci. Thank you, I mean." His arms felt like lead, but Abel was able to lift the left one that he wanted to see up in front of his face to find that from the forearm down he had a stump. Strangely this didn't affect him as much as Sasuke and Gen thought that it would have, "Damn woman… who was she?"

"That's what I want to know." Sasuke said, pulling a chair by the bed and sitting down in it, "You were beaten badly last night, so how? Who? Why?" He was giving off the impression that how he answered would determine the extent of his hosts and their hospitality, "I'll know if you lie by the way."

Who were these people?

Either way, Abel had no reason to lie, "I was attacked by a woman that utilized many kicks. So fast and strong. So dexterous." He could see the expression on Sasuke's face change, but he didn't speak, prompting Abel to continue, "She said something about me. That I was a clone, or a spare body for experiments."

Sasuke didn't care about any of that. The first part of what Abel had said was the only thing really of interest to him, "You fought Juri Han. Where is she?"

"I-I don't know." Abel admitted, "I took an opportunity presented to me by a distraction and fled. I ran as far and as fast as I could until I blacked out from loss of blood." Which was when Sasuke came across him, "I wouldn't look for her if I were you, if that is your intention. That woman is the most dangerous person I've ever met in my life… and I'm a mercenary."

"You're not me." Sasuke returned rather rudely before getting up from his seat, "I'm a ninja." He walked out of the room and grabbed a manager's jacket before preparing to head back downstairs, "You can stay here until you think it's safe I guess."

"You're not going to make him work?" Gen asked with a smug smirk as he followed Sasuke out to continue pestering him, "You're getting soft boy. Such mercy."

"Tch. How can we put him to work?" Sasuke asked flippantly. 'Mercy' his ass, it was practical, "He can't fight like this, and he's covered in scars, not counting the fact he's missing his left hand That's not really something we can put out front as a waiter or a greeter."

"Wait." Abel got Sasuke's attention before he left entirely, "I still need to find someone so I'll ask you. Do you know a young woman that I'm looking for?" Sasuke stopped and turned to look at him, wordlessly giving him permission to continue with the query, "I know it's a long shot to ask a random person like this, but if you could point me in the direction of Cammy White I would be very grateful to you."

Sasuke gave him a dry look, mouth slightly opened in disbelief before he palmed his face and continued onward, "Ugh… my Kami…" Forget running the restaurant, he was going to go somewhere and train.

Gen chuckled silently at Sasuke's displeasure at remaining connected with Naruto's group and the crap that they got into. Apparently it was just something he was going to have to get used to, 'The boy pretends that it bothers him but he's shown more spark and interest in the last year than he has since I've known him.' "You'll have to forgive Sasuke here." Gen said to Abel, "He's not really a 'people person'. I'm not either admittedly, but I believe I'm better than him."

"I can see that." Abel said, keeping his serious expression on his face, "…You're still rather unnerving though, I hope you don't mind me saying."

"Not at all." The old legendary assassin said with a scary leer at the Frenchman as he moved his hand through his wispy white beard, "I would have probably been insulted had you felt otherwise. Heal to a satisfactory extent and we will see what can be done about your little search."

It wouldn't be much of a search… because they had an address, and most of the people close to her with the exception of the wealthy blonde girl had a tendency to stop in there and try to get discounts on food because Naruto was friends with Sasuke, but Abel didn't need to know that.

Not yet anyway.

XxX

(That Evening – Naruto's Neighborhood)

Naruto had trained for a few hours in solitude, which wasn't really solitude because he had his clones as company, and he'd gotten into the work ahead of him at the Kyuubi's behest. The overpowering fox was a serious taskmaster, forcing Naruto to flex his chakra control muscles to learn what it was meaning to teach him. The new jutsu that it had developed solely for Naruto to use with its help.

Apparently lasting over six months without demonic help, surviving all of the crap he had to endure in the process made the Kyuubi gain respect for him since he still never slowed down. As well as the fact that he went out of his way to cure the taint that was separating them when he didn't have to, saving the biju from spending the rest of Naruto's life in the dark. Helping him like this was apparently its way of paying him back.

It was a shit-ton of work. Monotonous, tedious, paint-by-numbers work to get the motions and the process down. But it was going to be oh so sweet when he would finally be able to execute it in a full-scale battle.

However when practice ended and he started heading home his mind wandered again. And he had to pass by Sakura's street to reach his own abode. As his relationship with the Kyuubi started to improve, he got better at naturally sensing the ki/chakra signatures of others, especially his friends and loved ones. And he was unconsciously moving toward one ki in particular that was getting stronger and stronger these days.

His mind wasn't the only thing that chose to wander, as his feet did as well, and they brought him right to the back fence of Sakura's home.

"This is so weird. I can't go in right now." Naruto said to himself as he stared at the high fence, "…Fuck it, I'm a ninja. This is what we do." With that, he jumped up and over in one bound and wandered his way to the back of Sakura's home and looked up.

She was hanging around right at her window looking down at him the entire time before giving him a wave and a little smile, "I sensed you coming. Sensei helped me get my ki reading ability down better so… ta-da."

"I can't sneak up on you anymore?" Naruto asked, still standing down on the ground.

"No, you can, it's just harder now I guess. Especially for you, you've got so much."

A silence lingered between the two of them before Naruto got sick of it. Let it never be said that the young man wasn't brave and social, "So can I come up? Is that okay Sakura-chan? I really wanted to talk to you anyway."

Arms resting down on the windowsill, Sakura sat her chin down on them and let out a sigh, "Yeah. Yeah, you can come up. Come on." She surmised that it would have to be like pulling a band-aid in this case. If she kept putting it off it would be worse when she had to deal with it. She wanted things to go back to the way they were anyway.

In one more agile jump, Naruto landed on the bit of roof right beneath her window before sitting down under it, his back against the wall and his head against the bottom edge of the sill. Sakura reached a hand down and ran it messily through his hair one good time, eliciting a grin from both of them as they looked at the moon and sobered their moods back up.

"So all these years and you're not gonna talk to me about what happened?"

"I don't know what to say Naruto. You were there, and you know what we almost did." Once again, at the thought of it, Sakura's face turned red, "What she almost made us do with each other."

"'She' being Sunburned Sakura-chan." Naruto added cheekily, getting a sharp tug on his yellow locks for the trouble of it, "Ow. I'm not gonna stop calling your dark side that. It's nicer than just calling it your dark side."

"I guess."

From her response, it was clear that she still wasn't easy with talking about it. Naruto often took great pains to keep Sakura from feeling uncomfortable, but since this was placed before them here and now he was going to get them over it, even if he had to drag her along kicking and screaming the entire way… proverbially of course.

Well… maybe literally too if it really came down to it.

"So what's your trigger?" If they were going to go and get into this whole thing, beating around the bush would make no difference. Thus Naruto went straight for the jugular right off the bat, "If I was just a little bit cockier I'd say it was just me, but you did it before too. So it can't be just me that made you go off."

"It's passion over the things I love." Sakura said, face red and trying to bite back the comment that Naruto was plenty cocky enough to make that estimation, "That Juri Han girl made me so angry, someone that was so strong and only wanted to use that power to hurt people just because she could… she was abusing martial arts, something I love."

It made sense. Sakura was a passionate girl. She energetically put everything she had into the things that she did and always had, be it schoolwork, training, fighting, helping others (namely him early on), or anything. It was one of her most endearing traits.

She did indeed love fighting, and she had always been significantly enamored with it all. She held it in high esteem. It was the strongest influence in her entire life since it had given her most of the things that she loved, and she felt that people with power had something of a responsibility to use that power the right way, to use it fairly. It was her concept of the inherent good of mankind that she wouldn't stop believing in.

Juri basically scoffed at that whole concept and stomped on it with cleats. Her approach to her revenge was petty, as she was lashing out at those that had absolutely nothing to do with her past woes. She even claimed that Bison was already dead. She just wanted to take that rage and hate she had and unleash it on something, and wouldn't even try to justify herself in what she did.

But then what about the day in school?

Knowing that this was next, Sakura slowly removed her hand from going through Naruto's hair and continued, choosing to look up instead of down at him, "And then there's you I guess." She had to take a deep breath to muster up her remaining courage to speak, "Naruto, you're my best friend. Not my best friend that's a boy, you're my best friend period. I know everything about you." She then stopped and peered down at him questioningly, "Right?"

"Yeah, you do now." She didn't for most of their friendship, like the dimension-hopping stuff, but she knew enough to say that much before, "Honestly."

"-And you know everything about me."

He did indeed. For years; he knew the games she liked and hated, her hopes and dreams, what made her laugh and smile, what grossed her out, that she vastly enjoyed white chocolate over regular and dark chocolate and subsequently enjoyed White Day as one of her favorite holidays as a result especially due to her birthday being the next day, that despite her skills as a fighter she was still very self-conscious about her techniques, and the same went for her femininity as a fighter despite being so beautiful.

He knew everything he needed to know and more, because he'd put in the time to learn it all, whether he was aiming to or not.

That wasn't to say that he didn't know personal things about the other girls because he did, but he knew what they let him know. He knew more about Sakura. The other girls still had things they kept from him, things that they hid from everyone. If no one else knew something in particular about Sakura, Naruto knew.

"What are you getting at Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, turning his blue eyes directly up to stare at her as she kept her eyes on the sky, "Come on, don't let up here." She was doing so good getting it all off of her chest. The last thing they needed was for her to go into circles or hit a dead end and clam up.

"I'm passionate about you." Sakura blurted out, not knowing how else to say it, "Even when we were little I was. I trusted you first, I liked you when people tried avoiding you, I wanted to help you back when you didn't know which way was up around here. I don't know why. I saw you fight once and that was it. I thought you were amazing."

"Wow, really?" Naruto grinned and chuckled up at her even though she wasn't looking down, "I like to think I used to suck when I just showed up here. Compared to now anyway."

"I hated that smile you'd give off when you wanted to convince me and others that everything was alright, I wanted you to smile for real." The more Sakura spoke the more passionate she seemed to get as she carried on, "I wanted a good friend, and I got one. More than I thought I would."

"Sakura, you still won't look at me in the eye." Dropping the honorific from her name was proof that he was getting serious. In over five years he'd not refrained from adding the –chan on to her name even once.

"…I don't know what we're supposed to be! I liked you, but I kept thinking it was just because I thought you were strong, and I didn't want to be that kind of person, so I let it go." And apparently switched romantic focus to Ryu when they were fourteen, "But other people know how special you are now too-." Namely women. Very beautiful women, "-And then we drifted apart for a bit, and you almost died, then you talked about leaving to find a way back to your home again, and I couldn't go this time. And all sorts of things."

Culminating with Ibuki basically claiming him right in front of her, which wound up being the straw that broke the camel's back. She basically wound up screaming that he was hers loud enough to break every window near the roof of the gym before trying to launch a Hadoken at the kunoichi with enough force to possibly take the bulk of the school with her.

"If I admit I really feel love like that about you I'm going to screw everything up." Sakura said, leaning her face down into her folded arms on the windowsill again, "Ibuki-chan, Cammy, Kanzuki-san. They'll… I don't want to think about it."

Before she knew it she heard movement come from Naruto and felt his hand rest on the back of her head, getting her to look up and see him with a rather empathetic expression on his face. As she was she still averted her eyes away from him, "…Oh Sakura-chan." Naruto said comfortingly before sighing and abruptly headbutting her in the forehead, "That doesn't make any sense at all." He said in a just as comforting voice despite what he'd just done.

Poor Sakura had fallen onto her backside on the floor in her room, holding her forehead, "Ow! What the-? Did you just headbutt me? Oh my God, you just headbutted me!"

"Yeah, I did." Naruto said, poking his head through the window and the curtains to see that Sakura had been in pajamas for the night the entire time they'd been talking, "Because you needed that. You're doing it again. You're thinking too hard about things you can't control, like with Guy not liking who I am as a ninja back in Hong Kong, or like when Akuma torched me."

"I can control this. They're my emotions." Sakura pouted with puffed out cheeks as she continued to rub what she hoped wouldn't be a bruise. Did he have to do that with the stupid metal-plated headband on?

"Apparently you can't says 'Sunburned' Sakura-chan." Naruto got inside of her room and sat down on the windowsill, putting his shoes back outside where he'd been a moment ago, "You don't control emotions. Just because you don't want to feel some way doesn't mean that you can act like it's not there. You've got to accept them."

Sakura pulled her legs up to her chest as she kept sitting on the floor against her bed, "Would you come over here?" The resident ninja got up from the sill and walked right over to her bed to sit down, leaning against her headboard. Sakura squirmed closer to him and sat between his legs pressing her back against his chest, "Do what you did when we were thirteen, when you showed me what ki was supposed to feel like."

"Why?"

"My dark side likes the feeling of the Kyuubi's chakra. I like the feeling of yours."

Arms snaked underneath her breasts around her stomach to hold her, Naruto shut his eyes and set his chin on the top of her head before channeling chakra through his entire body and passing it through Sakura's. Her smaller frame relaxed against his and took in the feeling of the powerful energy. Even he felt content enough to let himself go limp in the embrace.

The feeling of his chakra from her perspective was even stronger and richer than it was from years ago, so much stronger. And it was still just as comforting. If it was possible to be addicted to someone's life energy, Sakura believed that she could possibly be addicted to Naruto's. It was making her comfortable enough to fall asleep right there.

Barely thinking about what she did next, with half-lidded eyes Sakura's hand reached up to Naruto's cheek and she craned her own head to the side to lock lips with his. It wasn't anything chaste that lasted for just a moment, it lingered.

It lingered for a while. Sakura's hands latched onto Naruto's and guided them underneath her top onto her bare skin, more or less giving him permission to have free reign with her body when they finally broke apart softly, "Hm."

"What?" Naruto asked as they set their heads against each other, "What's up?"

"For some reason I always figured kissing you would taste like ramen spices or something."

"Should I be insulted by that? What, are you disappointed?"

"No, it was just a thought I've had for years." Sakura started undoing the buttons on the front of her pajama blouse and gave him another peck on the lips as his hands rose a bit farther onto her chest, getting a little excited shiver out of her as her eyes turned red for a split second, "So do you wanna blow my back out now, or later?"

"Whoa!" He _did not_ see that coming from her of all people, ever. Ibuki maybe, if she got really worked up, because she was extremely blunt, but Sakura wasn't.

"I'm so sorry! I don't know where that came from!" She really didn't.

"No, don't-! I mean…" Naruto said, taking a moment to figure out just what he wanted to say. How was a seventeen year old young man to smoothly convey his thoughts in a completely reasonable manner, "I mean, d-do you want to? Because I can totally stay, and Cam'll be fine by herself tonight. I'm just a few blocks away."

Sakura stopped and looked to the wall of the room closest to the door before wondering just how much sound could get through them, 'Let's see… mom's room is all the way down the hall, but Tsukushi's room is right next to mine. Still, the headboard isn't facing the wall that way. So if I can keep my mouth shut I think we should be fine.'

Being a virgin she didn't know how the whole thing would go for her, but she'd have to bite a pillow or something if she couldn't keep it down. At that point she stopped and thought to herself that she was trying to break down the physics of having sex in her mother's house and getting away with it. And she was supposed to be such a good girl.

The sound of a loud rumbling crash in the distance disturbed anything that was possibly about to happen as Sakura fell out of Naruto's grasp and out of the bed as if they'd already been caught in the act. Tough girl that she was, she jumped right back up and redid the buttons on her blouse, "W-What was that?"

"I don't know." Naruto growled as he crossed his legs to hide his erection angrily while he went to get up and check out what the commotion was, "But I'm pissed about it." That came from the direction of his apartment, and he could feel some strong presences there, and not just Cammy.

"Uh the police will handle it won't they?" Sakura really didn't want to leave. Even if it was the responsible thing to do, playing neighborhood watch wasn't the game she wanted to get into at the moment.

"Sakura-chan…" Damn him and his hero complex. Speaking of complexes, that was coming from the direction of his apartment. He could see the smoke from Sakura's window.

"…You're right." The brown-haired femme had to admit begrudgingly. The police wouldn't show up for ten minutes at least, and they couldn't leave something alone if it was really dangerous. People with power had to use it to help others after all, at least that was what she believed with all of her heart, "Ah, you go ahead though. I'm gonna go put real clothes on."

XxX

(Minutes Earlier – Naruto's Apartment)

Abel had to come up with some way to thank the scary old man Gen and the crotchety younger guy Sasuke that ran the restaurant he'd been allowed to recover at. Sure, he was still a little (very) injured, but he had to do what he'd come to Japan to accomplish. It wasn't like he had to be one-hundred percent to find out some answers to some questions.

Either way, while interrupting Sasuke in the midst of his training, he wound up getting an address scribbled out onto a post-it note and promptly left to find the location given to him.

He didn't expect the place to be such a plain apartment complex in such a casual residential neighborhood, but hey.

Slowly taking the flights of stairs to the appropriate floor due to still being rather loopy and out of it due to his wounds and the drugs that had been used to dull his pain, he still made it to the appropriate door and knocked on it.

It was a rather strange time for someone to be receiving callers, but hopefully someone would answer. And to his luck someone did, the someone that he had been looking to find. Curious blue eyes peeked through a crack in the door before opening it up most of the way.

"Yes?" Cammy asked in an English accent that let Abel know for certain that he had the correct person, "If you're here to talk about a mission of some sort, Naruto is away but I'd be happy to listen to what you have to offer as work." She didn't know what to make of this person, as he seemed combat-adept. He was covered in scars, and was he missing his hand?

Abel didn't know what to say at first, but quickly got over his shellshock, "No, no mission. I came here to see you actually." Because that didn't sound strange at all.

"Uh… huh." Cammy said unsurely before stepping outside and shutting the door behind her, "I hope it's not to kill or mentally enslave me. I've gotten quite enough of that lately." There was a bit of an edge to her voice but she didn't make a move against him yet, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

"No, nothing like that." Abel defended waving his hand(s) defensively as he took a few steps back, "It's just, I know this will sound strange, but I feel something familiar about you. Does that sound odd?"

"Yes." Cammy replied without sounding a bit concerned or put off. She never really did seem to, "Yes it does. Who are you?"

"Aww…" A rather sensual, yet sadistic voice said, standing scarily close to the two of them without their noticing until right then, "You found your cousin. Or should I say your little sister? Which one's more appropriate?"

Cammy didn't need to wait or even turn her head to confirm who it was before she hurled her entire body in the appropriate direction, body cloaked in purple ki around her legs, "Spiral Arrow!"

In a single lunge, Cammy instantly covered the distance from her doorstep to the railing overlooking the outside of the complex. Her target jumped directly up to avoid the attack, while Cammy kicked the heavy railing hard enough to take the whole floor's worth of it out, sending it flying off hard enough to clear the sidewalk, street, and bust the front fence across the road.

"Gee kitten, are you still mad about the last time I saw you?" Looking up over the ledge, Cammy saw Juri sitting casually on the edge of the roof looking down at her, "It wasn't anything person-… okay, that's a lie, it was totally personal."

"That woman." Abel said, gritting his teeth in anger, "What are you doing here?"

"I followed you stupid." Juri revealed as she walked around on the roof, "Did you really think I didn't know where you wound up last night? I'm just not going to attack a building with Gen and Uchiha in it. One of them already would already be a tough enough fight and the other one's Gen… enough said."

Luckily for her, Abel was a quick enough healer that he left the following night to finish his task of locating Cammy. Two birds with one stone as it were.

Adjusting her hat on her head, Cammy dragged a thumb across her cheek before preparing to engage the wicked woman in battle, "I'll stop you here." With that she jumped up and swung herself over the ceiling and onto the roof in one nimble motion, "What do you mean about that man and I?"

"He and you are both spare bodies of Bison back when he was obsessed with finding strong enough bodies to house his soul and his Psycho Power." Juri explained liberally, as if the information was a mere trifle for her to know, "You get it now?"

"Clear as day." Cammy said before quickly rushing down her dangerous opponent fearlessly. Her first attempt at a kick was matched with Juri's own spin kick, and was overpowered by the latter's kicking ability, sending her to the ground, "Damn it."

"You couldn't beat me with three people taking me on at once." Juri taunted as Cammy got back up, "You fighting me by yourself? This is going to be quick."

Even someone that was oftentimes incorrectly accused of being devoid of emotions like Cammy found it impossible to keep from smirking at that moment, "What makes you think I'm fighting you alone?"

"Who else is helping? The one-armed wonder down there?"

"Hazanshu (Supreme Mountain Kick)!"

A powerful flip into a falling kick smashed into Juri and the roof out of nowhere, pounding the Taekwondo expert into the pulverized mortar until she leapt out of the dust and debris, looking no worse for wear, "Tch. You call that a kick?"

Dusting off her pantyhose-clad leg, Chun-Li moved closer to Cammy to stand with her in her own fighting stance, "Well admittedly it's not my best. Would you like to see my best?"

Juri opened her mouth for a cheeky rebuttal when she felt another powerful presence flare up energy dangerously close to her, "Flash Kick!" Juri turned around and backflipped out of the way, barely avoiding a powerful, blurry kick that almost tore a part of her off.

Landing in a crouch, Juri's eyes darted between the three carefully, "Alright, don't think that you're good at stealth or anything. The only reason I couldn't sense you two until you were that close was because my eye couldn't pick up your ki. How the fuck did the two of you even get here so fast?"

A proud Chun-Li stood up straight and puffed out her chest, "We figured that if you really hated Cammy that much, you'd eventually come after her again, so we staked her out until you did." She was happy because it was the first time in her entire career that a stakeout actually worked in such a short period of time.

Guile was the cooler and more collected of the two as he shook his head, "You're saying that like we sat out front for a week. It was barely over sixteen hours, after the kid called us and told us about the guy with Cammy's DNA spilling blood all over the place last night."

A small, humorless smile came to Juri's face at the point being made of how they more or less anticipated her without knowing where she was, "Yah, I should start covering my tracks better, but it's never really been a problem before, honest."

"It's gonna be one tonight! Sonic Boom!" Guile swung both of his arms inward, hard and fast enough to launch a spinning crescent wave of yellow-blue ki at Juri faster than a gunshot.

Unfortunately it wasn't fast enough to catch her unaware. Juri dodged it even before it really left his arms and by the time it exploded off of what it wound up hitting, she was right in his face, "You think? But unless that thing fires like an automatic you're never going to hit me with it." Her foot stepped on the exact place where his arms had crossed to fire the Sonic Boom and with a second motion she'd swiftly kicked him in the face in the motion of a backflip.

"Projectile attacks won't work on her if she sees them coming." Cammy warned after watching Guile's failed attempt at one on their enemy.

"Grr." Tough as he was, Guile got right back up and readjusted his jaw, ready to keep on going, "I fucking noticed."

Chun-Li and Cammy locked eyes with each other for a split second before both moving ahead to attack together. They didn't have much in the way of actual teamwork, but they'd seen each other fight enough to know a little something about how they both worked.

The last time multiple people fought against Juri the only one that could sort of keep up with her speed was Cammy, as Karin and Sakura weren't quick enough to do so. With Chun-Li that problem wouldn't exist. Many others _would_, but the tandem tempo of the two women wouldn't be one of them.

And the odd man out in this equation happened to be Guile, who could only rub at his eyes as he tried to keep up with the sight of the three blurs, blue, green, and purple in color, darting and leaving massive cracks in the rooftop with every move they made. The fact that he was used to operating fighter jets made him able to do so without suffering motion sickness, but reacting physically to it all was something else entirely.

'I'm not even going to try catching up with that.' The American airman thought to himself. Eventually though, one was thrown out and Guile was fast enough to make the move needed to catch it, snagging Cammy out of the air. The confused girl sported a kick-shaped bruise on her cheek before she realized what had just happened to her and the pain from her injury set in, "You alright?"

She glared at the ongoing fracas and was set back down, "I am not losing to this woman again." Cammy tried to time her move accordingly and jumped into the air when she thought she could figure back into the fight, "Cannon Strike!" Abruptly dropping from the sky like a ki-enhanced anchor, Cammy landed in a crushing kick, barely missing Juri who had to stop fighting with Chun-Li in order to dodge her, "Damn it!"

Taking advantage of Juri's momentary lull in the speed she was moving at, Chun-Li was able to overtake her and get behind her. Missing her first attempt at a spinning kick, Chun-Li kept the momentum going and spun through in a series of spinning low punches that Juri had to block with her shins to prevent from harming her.

On the other side, Cammy launched a haymaker of a punch right for the neck, but this too was blocked. For once however, in order to prevent injury Juri had to actually use her hands to protect herself, "Okay this is more of a nuisance than the last time." She then went wide-eyed when she felt the women latch their hands down onto her limbs, leaving only her left arm free "What?"

"Guile I swear to God you better not miss!" Chun-Li shouted as she shut her eyes and held on as tight as she could to keep from getting kicked off. She had seriously underestimated just how strong Juri's legs were due to the baggy pants, "Hurry up!"

"I got it!" Guile held his arms out, exposing his chest as he built up an extensive amount of energy between them and lunged directly at Juri, "I'd love to see you dodge this!"

The living bonds holding onto Juri kept her from evading, no matter how hard she tried to struggle free, 'Was this their plan the entire time?' They'd been apparently staking her out, so it wouldn't have been farfetched at all to figure that they'd come up with a coordinated method to defeat her if they'd been waiting on her, 'I am not going to go down to an eyesore of an attack like that!'

With her left eye she could see how much latent ki was being amassed for whatever Guile was doing, and she knew what it was because she'd studied him, studied Chun-Li, and studied Cammy.

She still had one arm free, and with Chun-Li latched onto her legs with both hands her head was free. Not for punching of course, that would take too long. A good eye gouge was always a good way to deter someone.

And if she held on anyway at least she'd be taking an eye home with her when she took the hit from Guile, even if it did kill her.

Juri's fingernails frantically raked Chun-Li across the face around the eyes, forcing her to turn her face away lest an eye actually be reached and injured. This loosened enough of a grip on Juri's dominant leg for her to kick it free and lift it up into the air overhead, "Feng Shui Engine, trigger!"

"Sonic Hurrica-!"

With her body momentarily hypercharged with unnatural energy, Juri lowered her leg in a powerful ax kick that slammed the point of her heel onto the surface of the roof instead of an adversary. The point of impact let loose several rippling shockwaves of pink energy that emanated outward in an explosion.

Due to the damage that had been wrought on the structure beforehand and the force that she generated, enhancing her already lethal and dangerous power kicks five times over, the lowering of the boom so to speak caved in the entire roof onto the top floor with a resounding crash. Needless to say, Guile's footing was disrupted and he took a plunge along with everyone else, rendering his attempted coup de grace null and void.

Was it vastly dangerous to do such a thing considering the folks directly below them? Yes, but Juri couldn't have cared any less about it. She'd been in danger, and she did what she had to do to escape, health and well-being of others be damned.

Amid lots of coughing, Cammy pulled herself up off of the floor, moving aside slabs of ceiling that she'd fallen down with. How terrible, "Oh my, that should have worked. It would have worked if she hadn't gotten a leg free." Juri had enough pop in her power kicks to tear the roof down? That didn't seem consistent.

Time for a bit of analysis.

One second Juri could kick several times in the blink of an eye, the next her leg could do the best impression of a wrecking ball that Cammy had ever seen but it was slowed to the point where it was on par with her own significantly slower kicks.

So she couldn't put abject executioner-style force into her faster attacks that were guaranteed to more often than not hit, and her heaviest attacks that would cripple, maim, and kill didn't have the speed of the others.

Perhaps she didn't see that as clearly the first time because of all of the blows to the head she'd taken.

Dusting herself off as best she could, Cammy noticed a bit of movement and smiled when she saw Agent Jack Bauer scurry out from underneath some debris and shake his feline fur out, apparently only mildly annoyed that the top of the building had just come down all around him, "…He really is indestructible just like Batsu said."

Hearing rustling and crumbling, Cammy raced to the site of the sound to see that Juri had leapt from the wrecked apartment to an adjacent rooftop while people that weren't injured in the calamity took to the stairs to get to the street and to safety. Hearing a sharp whistle, Cammy turned towards Guile to see him fashioning his hands for a catapult boost.

Next to him was Chun-Li who was clutching at her right leg with a grimace on her face, scratches marking up her skin around the eyes, "Give me a second and I'll be ready to go again. We've got to capture her and figure out what her deal with S.I.N. is. What they're aiming for."

"You still want to capture her?" Guile asked, "I'd settle with killing her personally. Wouldn't lose a touch of sleep over it." He gestured his head to the citizens, "I'm going to go help the people since I blew my shot at her, now go get her half-pint."

Cammy nodded and breaking back into a run she allowed the blond soldier to send her flying, allowing her to easily clear the gap to the next roof, flipping and spinning in an untraceable pattern, "Hooligan Combination!"

Juri grinned and crouched, trying to get the timing down pat as purple ki built around her legs, "Oh this is gonna hurt… you. Fuuhajin (Wind Breaking Blade)!" Flipping in the air like a pinwheel, Juri knocked Cammy higher into the air with series of rolling kicks before landing and planning to finish things, "Good nig-."

"_You're taking too long again. You said you would be finished by now with retrieving the rogue copy, you're almost twenty-four hours late."_

Blowing off Cammy as she soared through the air and hit the ground, stunned by the counterattack, Juri touched at a comm. device in her ear and sighed, "Seth, do you want it done fast or do you want it done right? I've already got tons of the guy's blood, but you want the whole thing right?"

"_It doesn't matter any longer. What you have is good enough to move the BLECE Project forward if we're right about the DNA of the previously liquidated clones. I need you in Tokyo. We're leaving Japan after I conclude one meeting. Viper is coming to pick you up now, so wrap things up and be on that transport or else."_

"Or else… what exactly?" Juri said, letting it drift in the winds as to what exactly would befall her if she disobeyed.

"_Or else I'll remove _my_ property from your eye socket with my bare hands while you're still conscious."_ Seth replied, _"I won't tolerate S.I.N.'s innovations in human performance being used by a disobedient."_

"Listen, I'll-!" Any rebuttal she could have offered to the contrary of her boss and his threat/request. Her trusty Feng Shui Engine eye picked up two _extremely_ powerful power sources, about to put her six feet deep if the sudden crushing presence of killing intent she felt was any indicator, "Shit! Kasatushi (Deathly Killing Stare)!" Activating the power of the eye, she turned and actually managed to see the two attacks about to destroy her skull in split-second frozen time before she blurrily dashed directly above where the two attacks were aimed.

Both Naruto and Sasuke canceled their respective Rasengan and Chidori once they realized Juri had moved, instead forcing the two to meet in something of a totally unplanned high-five of sorts that they proceeded to ignore had just happened.

Sasuke looked over between Juri and Naruto. While he wanted to hurry up and stab a hole through Juri, there was something… off about Naruto. It took a moment for him to put his finger on it, "Are you sneering?"

"Shut up teme." Naruto said, glaring heated daggers at Juri without tearing his eyes off of her.

"What are you mad about?"

"Let's see. She's been hurting my friends, she just destroyed my apartment, and she kept me from having se-!" Naruto cut himself off before he divulged just a smidge too much information, "-Don't worry about it! What the hell are you doing here?"

"I got called here." Sasuke said, turning his eyes down to the street to find Abel standing amongst the crowd of displaced people, giving the Frenchman a faint nod of acknowledgment, "From your landline actually."

"Meh." Naruto would worry about all of that at a later time. Right now, the only thing he could deal with was what was in front of him, "I'm guessing this is Juri Han."

"A pair of world-class hottie fighters." Juri said, tapping her index finger on her chin, "And they're both interested in me. How lucky can one girl be?" No matter how much confidence she exuded, she knew what those two were capable of. Taking both of them on at once didn't leave her very confident of her chances to defeat them to say the least.

"Oh it's way more than two." Naruto said, making a cross seal with his fingers, "No way out. Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" In a large puff of smoke, a whole company of Naruto clones appeared on the roof with him and Sasuke.

"You couldn't take the two of us on in your wildest dreams." Sasuke stated. He stood strong and ready to go. This was what he had been waiting for.

Either one of those boys had a claim to being the current world champion, and as little as pissant martial arts tournament titles meant to her nowadays, it was still something that a fool would have tried to ignore. It wasn't like they'd earned that claim picking prizes out of the arcade claw machine.

No, she did not want to tangle with both of them. One at a time, with time to recover between bouts? Maybe, she'd probably be into that test. Both at the same time? Not a chance. Not unless she absolutely had to, and she really didn't have to.

Juri held a hand to her ear and smirked at the sound before speaking again, "I _can_ be a little bit luckier I guess. My ride's here."

What the hell was that sound? Propellers? Was a chopper coming?

Looking up, both Naruto and Sasuke, along with every other person in the neighborhood, saw a descending V-22 Osprey aircraft with the S.I.N. logo of an open eye over an outline of the world. Only it was absolutely massive, even for such a vehicle. Armed with a pair of miniguns mounted on the belly, they were spinning up and preparing to fire… presumably on the two of them.

"Shit." Naruto said before taking off in a Shunshin-boosted sprint to grab Cammy, just as the guns started firing and tearing through his clones, "Shit-shit-shit! Cam!" Who brought something like that to Japan? Ever? For anything? Who'd they have to bribe or threaten to get that into the country? Forget the police coming to establish order, where the hell was the JSDF?

The force of the guns pulverized the building while Naruto and Sasuke hotfooted it as quickly as they could over the edge and down the side, Naruto doing so after he managed to scoop up Cammy and get her out as well. It wasn't a reinforced or remarkably tough building, and with the miniguns it was quickly turned to swiss cheese from top to bottom.

The entire time this occurred, a line was lowered to Juri that she grabbed onto to be lifted up onto the craft, blowing a kiss to the people she had been fighting, "Bye-bye for now!" She crooned out over the sound of the Osprey propellers and the roaring minigun, "I hope my boss appreciates the ki samples from all of you!"

Bullets didn't stop flying until the original target building was completely unrecognizable. The rain of shells kept going even while the Osprey flew away, heading out of the city.

Naruto landed on the ground and set Cammy down who gave him a smile and a grateful hug before they walked over to Guile and Chun-Li, "So I'm gonna go ahead and say the stakeout worked."

"Not well enough because we didn't catch her." Chun-Li groused, glaring up at the departing airship, "Damn that woman. She turned the top of your apartment building to rubble with a kick." She hadn't been aware that Juri could generate that kind of force from what she'd been told about the fight in Karin's mansion.

Sasuke just glared at the Osprey with his Sharingan hoping that it would somehow spontaneously burst into flames. Preferably black flames, "…If there were storm clouds in the sky I'd shoot that goddamn thing down." His muttering to himself was drowned out by the sirens of the arriving Aohura City PD who reached the scene in force.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Naruto said, waving his hands to get attention from Chun-Li who had flashed her Interpol badge to grant everyone necessary as much immunity from police scrutiny as she could, "Say that again? She did _that_-." He pointed over at what was left of his former home apartment complex for emphasis, "-With a kick? One kick? I'd have to pull a Rasenshinsen or pull out some Kyuubi chakra to do that!"

Odama Rasengan could do it too, but that would have done more. It would have turned the entire apartment complex into a stack of karate demonstration bricks. That was neither here nor there though.

"Well I did kind of trip and fall while I was holding a Sonic Hurricane." Guile pointed out with Agent Jack somehow on his shoulder before turning away from everyone, "Don't you brats judge me. The roof was coming down and I can't fucking levitate."

Cammy put a hand on Naruto's shoulder and tugged on his clothes to get his notice, "I think I figured out most of her abilities. I'll defeat her when we fight again. I know I will." The determined little soldier then made kissing noises to Agent Jack to get the cat to jump from Guile's shoulder into her arms, "Won't I Jack? Yes I will."

"Well that's great." Naruto said, throwing his hands into the air in exasperation, "You didn't catch the S.I.N. girl, and my home is gone. There was a lot of good stuff in there. Sasuke-."

"No. Hell no." Sasuke said before Naruto could even ask him the inevitable question, "I've got enough problems with Gen and that French guy staying with me. You and the girl aren't freeloading off of me too. Over my dead body."

"What French guy?"

"The huge French guy that's been standing five feet away this whole time idiot!"

"Ah, my name is Abel." Said Frenchman input lamely, feeling quite a bit out of place. He'd seen most of that fight and had done what he could with his battered body to help the regular folks evacuate when the first apartment started coming down, but for the most part he could only just watch, "Nice to meet you."

Naruto and Guile stared at him bluntly before the American airman spoke up, "Why's this guy here? Why's he covered in scars? And why is his hand gone? Come to think of it why do you know anyone French?"

While Naruto and Sasuke broke back into controlled arguing, Cammy walked over to Abel while holding her cat, "So you're supposed to be like me?" An older clone body?

"I suppose so." Abel said looking down on the tiny girl, "I don't know any details other than what I've been told however. You would know more than me." He then looked down at Agent Jack while trying to find something substantial to talk with her about and a bit of a distasteful look crossed his face, "…I am more of a dog person myself though."

Cammy just stared at him for several moments before walking away, "I'm not sure that I like you right now sir." 'Brother' or 'cousin' or not, dogs sucked as far as she was concerned. Abel was in disbelief at the frank conclusion to such a short conversation.

Clearly neither of them were master orators, so at least they had that in common.

XxX

(Onboard the V-22 Osprey)

Juri chuckled to herself as she walked to the front of the aircraft where she found the Battle Suit wearing Crimson Viper sitting in the cockpit piloting, "So, Crimson Viper I presume." They'd never met in person as Viper was more in-tuned with the science and development side of S.I.N., while Juri did the dirty work, "I thought this model wasn't being mass-produced yet."

"It isn't." Viper said, keeping her eyes on her flying, "It's still incomplete as it needs to be fitted with heavier weapons than the guns to sit above the other models that are already on the market for military purchase, but it's complete enough for what Seth wants it for now."

"What does he want it in Tokyo for? He's got his damn jet flying him in from Hiroshima."

"It's part of a show of force. For what I don't know. Seth never tells anyone under him all of his plans." That was just the way the man was; paranoid to a t, and not for lack of a good reason.

"Ooh, sounds fun. To who?" Viper briefly turned her eyes from the skies to see that Juri was lazily leaning over the back of the passenger's chair, tapping her foot on the metal floor, "Aww, come on, we're partners on this mission aren't we?"

"Did you complete the last mission?"

With a sigh, Juri brandished several vials of blood between her fingers and with another sleight of hand made them disappear just as fast, "Yeah, yeah, I've got the DNA from Bison's clone." She would have rather completed the entire assignment and taken his whole corpse, but hey, she was a perfectionist, "You know he named himself Abel of all things? How lame."

Viper couldn't get a good read on just what made Juri Han tick. At times the woman seemed as calculating and as callous as any mastermind she could have thought of, and she always seemed to have the wheels of her mind turning to achieve something in particular. What it was she couldn't figure. But most of the time she came off as little more than a sadistic teenager. Granted, Juri was a sadistic teenager that loved destroying enemies in battle, but for some reason she felt like she saw it all as some sort of game of strategy.

Just a game. How serious a game it was to her was not expressly known.

"Hah, what kind of 'partner' would be worth Seth's time to actually reveal himself in person?" Juri asked, purple eyes dancing in interest and mirth, "He never does anything in person."

Viper had to put her musing of the woman's characteristics aside for the time being. It wasn't the time or the place to get into such a thing, "He's never had to because S.I.N.'s influence and power usually does all of the talking for whoever is the head. But now S.I.N. is trying to establish… some sort of working relationship with the most influential and wealthy conglomerate in all of Asia."

"That's just rich." The female destroyer of men laughed, "Hm, he's meeting with the head of the Kanzuki Zaibatsu on their isolated land?" That was going to be a real blast, "I wonder how Kanzuki Daikenjuro'll react to a gigantic white-blue synthetic human being the head of the most powerful arms company in the world."

It promised to be priceless, whatever the reaction would be.

* * *

><p><strong>Well I'm hurt again for the umpteenth time in the last twelve months. Not any worse than I usually am, but when you lug a camera and lighting equipment around for several hours on a given day, having cracked ribs really, really doesn't work out too well for you.<strong>

**I'm gonna get that fucker back though. 290 pounds or not. What's 100 pounds?**

**He's not really a fucker though, he's actually nice, and a friend of mine… but I'm still going to take a piece out of his ass somehow when we spar again. I wasted my damn Spring Break licking my wounds, and I'm getting my pound of flesh back. That doesn't make me a bad person.**

**And this has absolutely nothing to do with writing a story, so I'm going to stop now. Until the next time folks.**

**Kenchi out.**


	46. The Art of the Deal

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I'm going to try and pitch a video game idea to Capcom involving the latter.

As far as I know they've never tried it yet, and if they buy it you'll all definitely know, because I'll post a notice anywhere that all of you would possibly look and you'll never hear from my black ass again.

**Chapter 46: The Art of the Deal**

* * *

><p>In the early dawn, the vast halls of the Kanzuki Mansion were dead silent with the exception of the workout compound where the thunk of a machine firing tennis balls followed by the smack of a racket smashing into them could be heard.<p>

Karin had woken up so early that even her ever-loyal and ever-present attendants Shibazaki and Ishizaki weren't even awake to report to their posts of exclusively seeing to her. That was fine. Neither of them would have been worth the effort of requesting them to have a match against anyway.

Due to the lack of equipment in her family home adequate enough to train her body for combat appropriately, Karin had decided that she would do something fun instead for that morning's training and chose to play tennis.

It was strange, and it occupied her mind while she effortlessly hit back balls from the machine's highest setting. She had always figured that her father Daikenjuro was more powerful than she was. He'd been practicing the martial arts before she'd been born, and as she grew up she'd always perceived him as being stronger than her. When did that change?

She hadn't noticed or even thought about it before. Perhaps it was just because he was her father and she held him on this pedestal of being better than her, or perhaps it was his own attitude on how a girl couldn't be smart enough or strong enough to inherit the zaibatsu in his place and keep it running smoothly.

She detested Daikenjuro, but she was certain that she loved him too… somewhere, but he'd always been so hard on her. Her mother Nadeshiko was kind and loving to her, infinitely more so than her father, but she was also the consummate trophy wife that never ruffled her husband's feathers, so there wasn't much support of any substance coming from there either.

Karin did love them though… at least she figured that she did. She felt _something _akin to attachment, even if it was always made clear that her father wanted a boy instead of a girl.

Granted, it had been a long time since Karin had been on the estate of her family. Ever since she had first decided to head to Aohura City and do her own thing while preparing to take her place as the heiress of her father's corporation she hadn't been back to the domicile of her younger days. It had been around three years since she'd been there.

She'd seen her parents plenty during that stretch of time of course, taken extended visits at some vacation places with them, reported to her father on the business things she'd managed to secure for him, gone to shows and gatherings all over the world. All sorts of things.

There was a reason she hadn't gone back home for any sort of extended stay though. Aside from the fleet of nannies, butlers, and stewards that raised her over the years (eventually settling on Shibazaki and Ishizaki), she had basically no parental guidance.

Her father, the only thing she could ever remember him really doing was showing up to test her and watch her progress. She did what was expected of her and always excelled because if she didn't and if she had failed at any endeavor set before her by her father he would have cut her out of one day controlling his company. This was why any time that she did anything praiseworthy it usually got a response from her of it being natural, because it was. She wasn't allowed to screw up or make mistakes.

Thinking of this exact fact of her life, Karin gritted her teeth and smacked back a shot sent her way. The hit was so powerful and well-aimed that it punched right into the cannon of the machine and broke through half of it, also rendering the ball entirely obliterated.

Oops. She was supposed to have been holding back so that she didn't break the things around her.

And her mother loved that game. She'd have to make sure that got fixed before Nadeshiko noticed. Either way, with something expensive completely destroyed due to her far-greater-than-normal strength, Karin decided that it was her cue to depart and hit the showers.

She should have brought someone to come with her. That would have been more fun than coming alone. Shibazaki and Ishizaki were good to her as it was their job, but they weren't the least bit fun or entertaining. At least if she'd brought Naruto under the bodyguard guise things could have been fun.

Damn her and her benevolence to send Naruto out to see to Sakura instead of requesting his presence with her for the meeting. That was Sakura's only freebie. Everybody got one, and Kasugano Sakura used hers the previous night from her.

Well she wouldn't be there for long. She'd hear what her father requested her presence for, deal with it, and go back to her personal manor in Aohura City until she was needed again. The sooner the better she hated to say as she got out of the shower and put on a new white and red tennis dress for the long trip back to her quarters.

'I had almost forgotten just how vast the family mansion was.' Karin thought to herself as she stood out alone in the halls after finishing her short workout and getting herself together for the morning, 'There was a time when I could go days without seeing my parents, even though we lived in the same home.'

Perhaps that was why she had no problems taking up residence alone in the much smaller mansion at the edge of Aohura City. Sure, it was laughably smaller than the Kanzuki Estate, but it was homier. It didn't feel lonely there the way that it did here, despite the fact that she knew for a fact that her parents were there. They greeted her after her helicopter had landed and bid her goodnight, but she knew she probably wasn't going to see her father until breakfast was served and then after that she would only see him for the meeting.

Then she would head back to Aohura City again until the next time she was requested to return home. That was turning out to be her actual home. The people there that she spent time with actually saw her every day and seemed happy to see her more often than not. They didn't see her as untouchable aristocracy. With her friends she was just Karin.

If her parents were aware of the fact that she actually enjoyed the company of mere commoners, and that Uzumaki Naruto was more to her than just a similarly-aged bodyguard… ooh that could get ugly.

Her father would be so royally pissed. And she would probably love it if the fallout weren't guaranteed to be so nasty.

"I never thought I would say such a thing, but perhaps this home is too large." Karin grumped to herself as she got into an electric cart solely meant for transporting one's self all over the mansion in a somewhat timely manner, 'It really has been quite some time since my last stay here if I'm no longer used to moving around this way.'

The phone in the pocket of her dress went off while she drove, getting her to fish it out and quickly answer it, "Yes father?"

"_I need you by my side today to watch the meeting I'm going to finalize today Karin."_ Daikenjuro's powerful voice said over the line, not even sparing her a 'good morning' or any other courtesy greeting before getting right to brass tacks, _"It begins in two hours after our guest arrives on the premises."_

Two hours. Got it.

"I understand father." Karin said, almost robotically trained to respond to him in such a manner. Goodness, where did her backbone go? She was supposed to be fierce and confident. An heir to the most powerful company in Asia was not supposed to be diffident, "Is there anything in particular you would like me to wear for the meeting?"

"_No. You're meant to observe and learn in the capacity of my daughter, not as an active participant. Learn how someone of your to-be station is meant to close a monumental deal."_ As if she hadn't done her fair share of them herself in the past, _"Wear whatever you like as long as it is respectable, but be present and prompt to greet the VIP alongside me."_

"As you wish." An abrupt end to that call came and Karin went silent and even stopped thinking to herself all the way to the main kitchen and the grand dining table where she found her mother cheerfully awaiting her, fully dressed in a flowing black and silver outfit that looked like it cost more than Naruto made in a year, "Good morning mother."

"Karin dear!" Kanzuki Nadeshiko had short blonde hair and a beauty mark just above the corner of her mouth. Despite being middle-aged she had reached that age gracefully, still extremely lovely despite being over twenty years Karin's senior, "Oh, let me look at you! It has been so long since I have been able to see my child in the daylight."

Nadeshiko was where Karin got most of her facial features from, although she got the sharpness of Daikenjuro's eyes instead of the emotive roundness of her own.

Karin couldn't help but smile as her mother held her by the chin and fussed over her, asking if she had been eating properly and when she was going to find a suitable gentleman to marry so that her father would calm down more, amongst other things, "Mother, I am fine." Karin stressed, gently removing Nadeshiko's hands from her so that she didn't harm her by accident, "Things are well, and I am… happy."

Nadeshiko let out a relieved sigh and held her daughter's hands before moving them back to the table to take a seat as the help began bringing out plates and silverware to prepare serving the meal.

There really was a closer relationship between mother and daughter than father and daughter, and it was something that Karin always knew about even if none of them ever said anything about it. If only the relationship between father and daughter was even half as pleasant.

"I'm afraid Daikenjuro won't be dining with us this morning." Nadeshiko said with a wistful expression, "He's getting all sorts of things prepared for his meeting later today. I don't remember seeing him this excited about work in quite some time." She noticed that Karin had nothing to say about that, merely keeping her eyes to the table, "Oh darling… I wish you weren't so hard on yourself when it comes to your father."

"Like I said, I am fine with it." Karin said with a weak smile, "I am used to it. For something I have been dealing with ever since I can remember, it would be rather silly if it began affecting me now." She was too tough to let something like this turn her to jelly after a lifetime of scrutiny and criticism.

Nadeshiko smiled sadly and reached out a hand to stroke her daughter's cheek, "You mustn't feel that way. You're wonderful just the way you are. I have always been proud of you."

"Thank you mother."

"Now if only we could find you a proper husband."

"Mother…" Karin said in a voice of warning.

"What? Out of all of the young bachelors that you have charmed per your father's request there has to be one that you would find suitable."

There was, but it was one that neither her mother or father would find as substantial marrying material for a family such as theirs.

XxX

(Aohura City – Hotel Room)

"Achoo!" Naruto sneezed before rolling off of the twin-sized bed that he had been sleeping on to fall onto the floor, "Ow! Motherfucker!" He quickly sat up with sleep in his eyes and his hair in a greater mess than usual, "I _hate_ twin-sized beds! What does that even mean? It can't fit twins of anything!"

Due to his home being turned into a demolition zone the night before by a Juri Han kick, with Sasuke barring him from staying over, with Batsu all the way across town with no room at the inn so to speak, and with the air between him and Sakura still being too dangerously amorous for a sleepover, Naruto and Cammy were allowed to stay in the hotel that housed Chun-Li and Guile.

He had to sneak himself and her into the room, but that was easy compared to how the rest of the night had gone before that.

Upon hearing Naruto fall out of bed and subsequently curse twin-sized beds with a blood-feud kind of hatred, Chun-Li opened the door to the attached bathroom, wearing a towel around her hair and otherwise nude body as she observed him grumbling to himself, "Good morning to you too little brother." She said dryly in greeting.

"Tch." Naruto got up off of the floor and sat down on the bed that he'd slept in that also housed the still slumbering Cammy, "…I hate these wimpy little beds. I used to fall off of Sakura-chan's all the time when we were kids."

"Oh really now?" An impish grin spread across the Chinese Interpol agent's face as she sat down on her own nearby bed with her legs crossed. She wasn't going to give the kid a free show, "Are you upset because that bed's too little to sleep with Cammy on?"

"I did sleep with Cam on that bed." Naruto said while pinching his nose shut so that he could get used to the picture in front of him. It was too early to be getting messed with.

"I meant the other kind of sleeping." Chun-Li said, idly buffing her nails on the front of her towel while simultaneously forcing her assets to give a little jiggle, "You know, the kind of 'sleeping' that doesn't involve any actual sleep."

Naruto just looked at her intently for several seconds, eyes drifting all over her body as he did, "…Are you getting laid? Seriously, I want to know. Because every time we hang out you've got to mess with me about doing Cam at least once like it's something to talk about."

"Oh, I'm just teasing you." Chun-Li said, reaching out to pinch Naruto's cheek, "It's losing its novelty since you stopped being embarrassed about it so I probably won't be doing it for too much longer. Just let me enjoy it."

Naruto rolled his eyes and lifted one of his hands in capitulation, "Alright, whatever nee-chan. You might want to put something on though."

What? This was her hotel room to begin with. She wasn't about to have her state of dress dictated to her by someone around four years younger than her, "Cammy's not wearing a stitch of clothing." Chun-Li said with a bit of a pout, and as if she could hear that she was being talked about, the sleeping Cammy turned over underneath the covers, giving her back to the ongoing conversation, "Double standard much?"

"Cam _never_ sleeps in clothes." Naruto pointed out in return, "But whatever. If you want to walk around here all morning trying to give me a heart attack that's cool too."

"Aw, got a crush on your big sister now too?"

"No, but sexy is sexy damn it."

A knock came at the door to which Chun-Li immediately answered with a 'come in'. Guile proceeded to walk into the room and nearly turned around when he saw the lack of clothes on Chun-Li,

"Seriously?" Guile asked, getting a hapless shake of the head from Naruto before he let it slide. For a woman that was so professional in the field, Chun-Li loved ribbing people at odd times of the day, "Anyway, we've finally got some backing with the upper brass about S.I.N. at last to investigate them. We've got some leaked info that Osprey that turned your apartment complex into a pile of rubble was heading out Tokyo way before they disappeared."

Leak? What leak? Who the hell was going to leak anything about them? But still, fine. Lots of things were in Tokyo. Big whoop. That wasn't much to go on. There was a big chance that they were going out that way to begin with.

"Okay." Naruto's dull reaction was to be expected. 70% of the key things about modern Japan to begin with were situated in or around Tokyo, "That's like saying that a fly is hanging out a manure field. There's no telling what kind of shit it's there for."

"They weren't just running away though kid." Guile said, rubbing at the American flag tattoo on his bicep before pulling out a comb, "Why would they have possibly run away? In that thing they could have turned all of us to hamburger meat and left before anyone else even got there."

"Speak for yourself." Naruto said with a cocky grin as he ran a hand down Cammy's bare back, eliciting a content sigh from the little assassin, "I shot down an attack helicopter with my bare hands. I totally might have been able to take that gunship on."

"Right, because you were doing so well against it before it left." Chun-Li said sarcastically, pulling on Naruto's whisker-marked cheek again until he tried to bite at her fingers, "Ooh, you're grumpy in the morning aren't you?"

"Trust me kid, a chopper and an Osprey are two completely different things." Guile said as he combed up his eraser hair style, "But here's the thing, where do you think they could possibly land that damn thing?" None of them were pilots and none of them knew, but Guile did, "Since we're finally allowed to investigate S.I.N., authorities would be all over it if it landed anywhere in Tokyo now."

So where was it? It was going to Tokyo… and then it wasn't. It didn't just up and disappear. It wasn't a stealth aircraft at all.

"The door's open so I guess we just head on in." From outside, the door cracked open with a pair of pretty brown eyes peeking inside, "Good morning! Good morning!" Ibuki chirped cheerfully as she walked in dressed in casual clothes of a mauve skirt and a frilly white blouse instead of a school uniform, "So, since your house got pulverized I guess we're not going to school today, right?"

When Ibuki had showed up that morning in the neighborhood for school she was promptly filled in by Sakura as to what had transpired during the night and had quickly changed into more comfortable clothes before heading with Sakura to where the blonde housemates had stayed for the rest of the night.

The near-relations that were almost had between Sakura and Naruto were passed over in the explanation of course.

"Ibuki-chan!" Sakura chided as she wandered in behind her wearing a white sundress decorated with pink and orange flowers, "You don't say something like that to someone that just lost their house!"

"Meh, I don't really care about _my_ apartment Sakura-chan." Naruto said, taking the air out of Sakura's sails as Ibuki bounced over and jumped at him to give him a gigantic greeting hug that he returned fully, "It's everyone else's on that floor. We'll be fine, but what about everybody else that lived there?"

That was the thing that really pissed him off.

He had enough money stashed away to afford somewhere new to stay when he found it. It wasn't like the other folks had a bunch of different prospective crash points to spend the night at until a new place of residence was located.

He and Cammy had Batsu's place, Sakura's house, he could probably pressure Sasuke in letting him sleep in the restaurant, E. Honda in Tokyo had a pretty sweet pad, and then there was always Karin's mansion.

If she didn't have enough room at that place for Naruto and every last clone he would ever create, there was something wrong there.

Speaking of the pretty little she-devil in human form… she was conspicuous by her absence.

"Why is Chun-Li naked?" Sakura asked with a raised eyebrow as she finally noticed the fact that Chun-Li's modesty was only covered by a towel. Slightly affronted at the fact that she was the only one being pointed out on this, Chun-Li opened her mouth to rebut until she was cut off, "I don't need to hear why Cammy's naked. She always sleeps like that."

So why did everyone have to bring up her lack of clothes? It was annoying, "…My room."

"Are you trying to give Naruto a heart attack?"

"So where's your rich friend?" Guile asked, noticing that they were two short. Batsu's was explainable. He was on the other side of town. Karin lived at the outskirts, but she was usually extremely early for everything she chose to attend, "I figured that she would have been front and center after hearing what happened."

"Karin doesn't even know because she's not even in Aohura City." Ibuki informed everyone, "I saw her off last night when she left. She went back to her parents' property for something about doing a meeting with her father with some person named Seth."

Like an animal that had heard something threatening coming her way, Cammy perked up and pushed herself up on her hands abruptly, scaring Ibuki right out of Naruto's lap, "Did you say Seth?"

"Oh my God, don't ever do that again!" Ibuki shouted from where she was instinctually clinging upside down to the ceiling with her ki while holding her skirt down, "I almost threw weapons at you!

"Did you say Seth?" Cammy repeated, staring up at Ibuki while leaning on Naruto and using his body as a cover for her own, "It's important. Did you or didn't you?"

"Yes, Seth. That's the guy's name." Ibuki confirmed as she dropped back down from the ceiling neatly. She had been talking and training extensively with Karin the previous evening… and she was actually a rather pleasant person to spend time with alone, something Naruto had clearly picked up on before anyone else, "That was the only thing about the meeting that Karin knew. Her dad's a real jerk and doesn't think she should know anymore since she apparently isn't good enough to close a deal with whatever business the guy is running."

Sakura walked over to Naruto and Cammy's bed and sat down, putting a hand on the girl, "What's wrong Cammy?"

Cammy tapped her temple with a finger as she tried to dredge up some useful memory from last night that didn't involve Juri outclassing her in battle again, "That horrible woman said something last night before the aircraft destroyed the building next door to our home. It sounded like she was reporting to someone in the middle of the fight."

_"Seth, do you want it done fast or do you want it done right?"_

And she'd departed in an S.I.N. aircraft.

An S.I.N. aircraft picked up Juri, heading to a place outside of Tokyo. Apparently her boss was named Seth, a person that was about to meet with the Kanzuki Zaibatsu, Karin's family's company.

It might have just been the paranoia over the fact that whenever events like this happened they never ended well, but both Sakura and Cammy due to their close proximity to him let out a shiver of lust when they felt an extremely primal spike of Naruto's chakra that gave both girls goosebumps even though everyone in the room felt it.

Naruto just started shaking his head as it all started sticking together in his head, "No." He said flatly, "No, no, no. Our luck isn't that bad. I'm not gonna lose my house, get cockbl-…" He stopped himself from blurting out something personal once he got a look at Sakura's reddening face, "…-I mean miss our target, _and_ lose my boss lady in less than a day."

Bad things came in threes, but at some point these kinds of things had to get absurd.

No. It wasn't happening like this again. Karin was tough enough that he normally wouldn't worry so much, but it hadn't been that long ago when she'd been hurt. Her injuries had been far worse than anyone else's, and she wasn't him with a biju in her belly. She had to heal like a normal person, and she wasn't 100% yet. Hell, if she was 70% he'd have been surprised.

If something serious was happening she was in serious trouble.

"Okay." Guile said, breaking the tension as quickly as he could before Naruto could start to rant as he was wont to do in times of duress, "I'll see what I can do to get something together to get us out there fast. Now to everybody not wearing clothes… go put some goddamn clothes on!"

XxX

(A Few Hours Later – Outside of Tokyo – Kanzuki Estate)

Per her father's demands, Karin met him on the third helipad on the roof of the estate, waiting for their guest to be flown over from the airstrip where their personal aircrafts were to land. Karin hadn't changed clothes from her tennis outfit, but she figured that it appealed to her father, making her look like the cute, dutiful little daughter of the economic powerhouse instead of the business shark that she actually was.

Standing close at her side was her father; Kanzuki Daikenjuro. He was a tall, broad man that wore a no nonsense grey suit and black tie. He had a thick graying mustache on his upper lip and thick black hair with portions of grey that looked slightly like horns if you looked hard enough at them. His facial expression was stony and unpleasant, with sharp black eyes that didn't even bother looking over at Karin, instead looking at the sky for the sight of the incoming helicopter that was to reach the mansion at any moment.

"You look well." Daikenjuro commented without even looking over at Karin, "I am pleased that you haven't allowed yourself to be corrupted by the amount of time you spend with the commoners in that school you wished to transfer into."

There was nothing 'common' about the people she spent time with. Every one of her friends were amazing people, and while they weren't of blueblood stock it didn't matter. That was one thing she had learned while being away from her place of birth and earlier years; the company she kept could solve real world problems better than any wealthy person could.

They were dedicated and (mostly) honest people, and she had fallen in love with one of those 'commoners'.

"Father, do not think me so weak that I would be affected by anything so easily." Anything including his backhanded compliments and his false praise. She hadn't needed his emotional support in nearly eighteen years and she didn't yearn for it even now, "I am here to handle whatever task is required of me on your part."

"All that is required of you is to watch and learn." Daikenjuro insisted, "Do you understand?"

"Of course." As they spoke to one another, one of the several transport helicopters that they used to move around their sizable terrain flew their way, ferrying their high-ranking guest to their home, "If I may ask, exactly who is this meeting with?"

"The top producers of military science in the west. More than likely the entire world by the next quarter."

He obviously said it in that manner to give Karin some information while still keeping a good portion of what he deemed to be above her head away from her, but she was no fool. It wasn't subtle enough for her to not immediately break it down in a matter of three seconds. She was not negligent in regards to keeping up with things like this.

Especially when her friends had been fighting them elsewhere in the world.

"Father, this is a bad idea." Karin said, trying to plead with Daikenjuro even thought it was already far too late to do anything preventative, "S.I.N. is not the kind of company that we should reach out to. The only thing that can come of this is-."

"I will not hear this from you right now." Daikenjuro cut her off before she could even begin reasoning with him, not that she had the time to do so, "You are not accountable for this. I will not be told how to do business by my own daughter."

"Then what have you been giving me all of these tasks for?!" Karin snapped at him angrily, "Why have you been tormenting me with all of your 'tests' that I had to pass in order to keep my status as the heir? If you are never going to defer to me, or even listen to my input _when I have more intimate knowledge on the subject than you_, then tell me what it is all for!"

"Know your place child."

"You will destroy your own company by infecting it with this cancer of a partnership!"

What was he going to do to her for raising her voice at him? Try to lay an unkind hand on her? Good luck with that. The only thing left he had on her was respect, and if he was fool enough to not even listen to her when she was telling him something that she was stressing was important he was going to quickly lose what was left of that as well.

"KARIN! We will talk about this later."

"You have no idea how right you are about that _father_."

If they survived until later that is. S.I.N. didn't do meetings. They never did in the entire history of their existence. Was he really so arrogant to believe that the C.E.O. of S.I.N. was willing to break this just to come and close a deal with him?

Karin formed a fist and tightened the muscles in her body only to cringe in discomfort at the test. She was still injured, but if push came to shove she was well enough off to fight. She'd learned that she could at least keep up in a spar with Ibuki the previous evening.

Then again they hadn't really hit each other at all, so her body hadn't been forced to exert itself very much.

The helicopter landed right on the helipad right in front of them and the spinning blades began to slow to a stop as Daikenjuro prepared for a greeting befitting of a powerful potential business partner until the door opened up and the figure stepped out.

The clothes were formal and befitting of a C.E.O., but his skin was chrome. He didn't look human.

Even so, it had to be commended that Daikenjuro took the entire thing in stride despite the fearfully cold and beyond mortal appearance of his would-be guest, "Welcome to my estate Mr. Seth." He greeted in English, "It is a pleasure to have you here to speak with today."

"Oh, the pleasure is all mine." Seth replied with smile that Karin found unnerving, as if it was unnatural for a creature such as that to smile. Did he even know what emotion was to be associated with smiling? She couldn't help but feel like she was looking at a void that would drain the life out of her when he looked at her, "And I'm making the assumption that this lovely young woman is Karin."

Oh God, and he knew her name.

"Yes." Daikenjuro cut his eyes at Karin for her previous insolence, but it was only for a split-second, "But we should be onto more important matters. Come. Let's discuss this in my office."

"After you." Seth insisted, choosing to follow Daikenjuro's lead as they left the rooftop helipad. As he departed with the Kanzuki patriarch and his daughter he affixed his solid-eyed gaze solely on Karin, "I've heard that this young lady is quite the skilled martial artist. One of the most talented young women in the world."

"She can't even manipulate ki like the fighters in the World Warrior Tournament." Daikenjuro said, cutting down Seth's compliment to Karin.

"Doesn't that make her all the more impressive?" Seth insisted, "Are you aware of the company that your daughter keeps? She surrounds herself with perhaps the most talented fighters in her generation, all people that routinely utilize ki, and she is seen right along with them as the best that Japan has to offer."

"Being seen by the common folk as better than them is the way that things are supposed to be. If she were seen as anything less she would be a disappointment as a fighter."

Seth had an impossible shine in his eyes as he could feel Karin's ki spike angrily. Her power was wonderful for a human being that never learned how to unlock her power to utilize in combat. Was her father sexist, or just a fool? That girl could crush Daikenjuro with her index finger despite his size and apparent physical ability. Karin was just leagues ahead of her own father and he didn't even notice it.

Her ki wasn't anything significant compared to what he'd already collected from more powerful fighters, but her combat data was incredibly valuable, especially in regards to her technique and sheer knowledge of the martial arts. When it came to sheer hand-to-hand combat she had pure skill superior to the company that she kept in Aohura City.

All the way to the conference room, Karin couldn't ignore the cold feeling coming from her left as Seth was constantly observing her with his odd smile, 'This cannot be a human being. He feels entirely unnatural.'

"Let us get down to business shall we?" Daikenjuro said spiritedly as they all took their seats at the extremely long table, "There is no company better in all of Asia to choose from if you endeavor to spread S.I.N.'s wares to military complexes around the continent."

"I am well aware of the amount of reach that comes with the Kanzuki Zaibatsu name." Seth said, lacing his fingers together about the desk, "The last time that you've ever had any workings with military technology however was back during World War II, which is impressive that you've managed to rebuild and maintain such a substantial fortune without delving into military development until now, but I guess there is no such thing as too much money."

At that, Daikenjuro let out a booming bark of laughter, "True enough Mr. Seth. Now, let us put our heads together and work out a relationship amongst our respective companies shall we? The JSDF is starving for superior technology to keep their place as a conventional fighting force along the Pacific Rim. Would you like to reach out to potential clients in Australia, or would you like to start strong with the Chinese? There is no shortage of potential investments for us to take."

Seth began to laugh to himself, "Do you believe that the reason I've come here today is to request a partnership in searching for clientele in regards to our product? S.I.N. has no need for any such thing."

"Then what do you require of the Kanzuki Zaibatsu?"

"Do you remember over a year ago when you were presented with a list of demands sent to you by the Shadaloo organization?" Seth asked evenly even as both father and daughter tensed up, "This is a lot like that situation… only now I'm here in person to make the demands myself."

Karin slapped her hands on the table hard enough to break it on their end, "M. Bison was killed for his insolence in trying to demand anything of my family!"

"Yes, but it wasn't your champion that did it was he?" Seth asked as he already knew the answer, "He failed to destroy Master Bison, and only recently did he ever find himself truly killed at the culmination of the Second World Warrior Tournament… once again, not by Uzumaki. I am more powerful than Master Bison was, than any human being can be. You had best remember that."

"You believe that you are more powerful than Bison?"

"I know that I am. That was what he created me for."

"Karin." Daikenjuro said, keeping a suspicious eye on Seth, as if there was anything he could do to stop the synthetic human if things were really to break down, "There is nothing that you can do here. Stand down and allow me to handle it."

"Actually…" Seth interjected, chuckling as he found something quite amusing, "…There is more that she can do at the moment than you can, seeing as how control of the Kanzuki Zaibatsu publicly belongs to her as of midnight last night. Well done child."

Without a moment's hesitation, Karin propelled herself over the table, swinging both of her arms downward, "Ressen Ha (Violent Massacre Break)!" It was such a sudden move that her entire body appeared to be a blur arching through the air.

Her powerful attack was blocked by the mere lifting of Seth's forearm, stopping her cold, "Was it something I said?"

"That was _not_ your place to inform him of such a thing!" Enraged at having such a sensitive secret revealed before she could find the appropriate moment to tell her father of this herself, she flipped through the initial attack that was stopped and launched a rolling kick at Seth's head, "Die!"

"Humans are so disgustingly emotional." Seth commented as he endured Karin's ongoing rampage of offense, merely defending himself by blocking even as the ferocity of her assault tore his clothes to tatters, "You place one of them in a situation of discomfort and even those that think themselves superior will crumble, such as your father. He has yet to even blink since I've revealed to him what you've done."

A rather sharp kick tore away the clothing at his belly, getting Karin to stop when she saw a slowly rotating black and white device that looked like a glowing yin-yang. That looked exactly like the thing that Naruto and Batsu had described from the S.I.N. tank that they'd fought in India, but it was embedded in his body.

Taken aback at the sight of the engine, Karin stepped back, "What are you?" She asked before being brutally swatted away.

"The most powerful being on the planet." Seth said, ripping away the rest of his top to reveal his heavily muscular form and just how inhuman he truly appeared to be, "I am beyond human comprehension. Etch my name upon your soul and know that my name is Seth, and I shall unleash destruction upon this world."

Just a backhand strike felt like she'd been hit by pure iron. Her face was red and bleeding from the right side of her forehead where the blow had cut her delicate skin. Her mind was swimming and she felt nauseous.

"And what do we have to do with any of that?" She snapped at him as she tried to get up from her backside, though she could feel her resolve shake in the face of this… creature. Or maybe that was the concussion she'd just received? "In the end we're just a company. We have no political influence in the world at large outside of Japan."

In a heartbeat, Seth teleported from his previous place to right in front of Karin where his hand held her cheek. Her eyes flickered in fear at the sudden closing of the distance and she bit her own lip hard enough to draw blood to refrain from showing it any further.

"There is no need to put up a false front my dear. It is only natural to fear me. But do you really think that I would simply tell you my plans just like that?" He said in a condescending manner, "My own subordinates are unaware of my plans except for the portions that they are necessary for. You will be nothing more than a means to an end, and that is all you need to know."

The fight was not gone from her however, as Karin grabbed his arm that was touching on her face and pulled herself up and in for rapid-fire knee strikes to the body, "Arakuma Inashi (Enraged Knee Lancer)!" Her final move of hurling his body to the floor failed, letting her know for certain that she'd done little more than annoy Seth with her attacks.

This time he grabbed her by the throat and held her off of the ground before throwing her back over his shoulder with enough force to send her flying all the way across the deep room and off of the wall at the end of it.

"I thought you would be more valuable than this, I have already assimilated your most useful maneuvers. Why do you hold back?" Seth asked, slowly walking Karin's way until he saw her cough up blood onto the ground, staining her white tennis outfit with her own life fluid as well, "Ah, I see. How fragile human bodies are. This body of mine is merely a vessel. Should it become frail I merely find a replacement. You do not have that luxury though, do you? You are still hurt from your run-in with my employee. My apologies. She is rather easily excitable in battle."

'I should have asked Naruto-san to come.' Karin thought to herself, inhaling every bit of air that her lungs could hold as she fought to stand back up, 'But I never expected my father to invite the leader of S.I.N. to our home… and that he was some kind of enhanced being.' Her gaze drifted back down the room to her father who was still sitting at the head of the table in catatonic shock, "Father…"

Seeing her reach her feet again, Seth frowned and brought his hands in front of the yin-yang orb in his torso, "Tanden Engine." Changing colors to a navy blue, Seth's eyes turned black and sucked Karin in towards him where he caught her by the front of her dress and held her off of the ground, "I did not want to resort to violence in order to get you to cooperate, but you humans are little more than animals, always looking to fight when you're cornered."

"K-Karin." Daikenjuro finally said after seeing his daughter in dire straits, "Where is our security?" Not that he figured it would help with the way that Karin and Seth had been battling, but still.

"Where indeed?" Seth said in turn before reaching into his tattered pants and pulling out a device for communication, "Viper?"

XxX

Outside in the spacious halls around the conference room there were well over one hundred broken security guards.

Electric burns were ripped into the walls and floors and an entire long section of wall was engulfed in flames. Crimson Viper stood directly in front of the door seemingly bored as the upgrades she'd made to her combat suit had shown themselves to be quite effective, "Kanzuki security is being neutralized as we speak Seth. Juri is out handling any others that are looking for a way to try and attack the room."

As if they would succeed even if they had amassed every bit of security they had. But searching and destroying appealed more to Juri than waiting and defending, so the black widow of S.I.N. was set out to find and prey upon any groupings of the security force trying to regroup.

"There's nothing to be concerned about." Viper assured him as she paced about, making sure that no one else was anywhere near fighting condition, "You have all of the time to accomplish whatever you need."

XxX

Back inside of the conference room, Seth just laughed to himself again, "No, I think we should depart as soon as possible. We have complete control over the airstrip do we not?"

"_That we do. The Osprey was a big help in getting air superiority, and Juri's already taken the anti-air defenses of the estate and turned them to our side. She had experience after breaking into the property outside of Aohura City."_

"Excellent." Seth said, eyeing Karin closely as she glared hatefully at him, "Since the Kanzuki have been so hospitable to us, I believe we should show them the same courtesy and continue this meeting back at our own place of business."

"_I'll tell the team on the ground at the airstrip to prepare-."_ Viper stopped speaking only to pick up a few seconds later, _"Sorry. Apparently an errant aircraft was just shot down at the western edge of the estate's airspace."_

"That is…" Seth narrowed his eyes and looked at Karin who was trying and failing to hide a smirk despite being held up at his mercy. So he _could_ be rattled, "…Viper, prepare to depart to the airstrip. We've got what I need to continue with my plans."

"Naruto-san is going to pulverize your chrome skull." Karin said, brown eyes dancing with anticipation for this… thing, to get its comeuppance.

"Do not mistake my common sense tactic for refusing to fight an unnecessary battle as cowardice." Seth said, giving her a violent shake, "If a mere human wishes to commit suicide there are far more effective ways to do so that wouldn't trouble me nearly as much. I won't indulge a child. There is nothing new that I need to assimilate from him. It is time to go."

Karin's eyes drifted over to her father and figured that this would be the last time in a long time, if ever, that she would probably get a chance to speak to him, "Father, I did not do what I did to cause you pain. I took majority control because it was the philosophy that you taught me yourself. I love you, but I will not tolerate being undercut and underestimated. You can hate me if you would like, and I understand if you do, but I wanted to tell you this myself."

Daikenjuro's eyes just widened. His mouth moved but no sound came out, except for one word, "Karin…"

That was the look that she had been waiting to see on his face for years. One of worry. One of care for her well-being. And for the first time that she could remember she could say something to set him at ease, "I will be fine father." Karin assured him, "As a matter of fact I will not be taken from this property. My beloved will see to that."

Beloved? She had a beloved? And one that she felt would protect her against this creature? This was news to him. What gentleman had she charmed that had the standing to be at her side and the strength to defeat whatever Seth was?

"Your 'beloved' was shot down." Seth informed her briskly, "Even if he survived, do you honestly believe he would be in any kind of condition to fight?"

"If what you have said is to be believed you have assimilated his ki… so I believe you already have the answer to that question."

XxX

(Elsewhere on the Kanzuki Estate Grounds)

"Gah!" Naruto complained as he tried to maneuver himself out of the branches of a tree that his parachute was caught up in, "I thought you said parachuting was easy!"

On the ground, Ibuki and Guile, the former dressed in her ninja gear and the latter clad in his entire pilot's suit, cast off his own parachute pack and stared up at the struggling Naruto who had yet to free himself, "Everyone landed just fine everywhere else except for you apparently you idiot. Cut yourself free and let's get going!"

"I've got him." Ibuki said, dropping her own parachute pack onto the ground and stretching her shoulders out.

She pulled a kunai and jumped up into the tree and sliced the lines of Naruto's chute allowing him to fall to the ground and land on his feet smoothly before shoving Guile, "You didn't say anything about jumping out of a damn plane when you said you were going to get something together." Naruto complained.

Jumping out of a plane wasn't really the original idea, but no plan ever survived contact with the enemy.

"You didn't say anything about damn antiaircraft missiles for security." Guile said, throwing his pilot's helmet onto the ground and letting his hair pop back up into its appropriate shape, "What kind of civilian has those?"

"To be fair, Karin kind of had those at her house in Aohura City too." Ibuki pointed out as she dropped down onto the grass and returned her weapon to its proper place, "I hope everyone else landed alright." She was slightly shaken up at the sudden turn of events, but otherwise alright.

Getting shot down out of the sky was a first for her she had to say. This was a month of firsts. First time going to India, first time being dispatched on a mission abroad, first time being teleported over a long distance, first time in a plane, so the busty kunoichi could only imagine what was next.

Guile pulled a short-wave radio off of his jacket and fired it up with a short burst of static, "Hey, I've got Naruto and Ibuki with me Chun-Li. What about you? How many kids are you short? Over."

"_I'm not down any kids. All the rest landed around me. Yep. Sakura, Cammy, and Batsu are all fine, over."_

Naruto snatched the radio for a moment and contacted Chun-Li again, "Yeah, did anyone get stuck in a tree over there? Uh, over."

"_A tree? No. Where we landed there aren't enough for that. Everyone landed clean."_ Silence from Chun-Li and muffled speech over the channel came until snickering could be heard, _"Sakura says 'Naruto probably asked that question because he got stuck in a tree,' over."_

"Well you tell Sakura-chan to shut her cute little ass up because I never parachuted before, over!" Naruto snapped back with leaves and twigs in his hair until Guile tired of the tomfoolery and grabbed the radio back.

"Whatever." Guile grumped before pulling up a device with a virtual topographical map on it, "This place is huge and we're three miles out from the airfield. From what I can see from you you're farther away. You want to make a call here or leave it to me? Over."

"_I don't see how we're going to make a different call here. We can actually see the mansion from where we are. You guys go to the airfield since you're probably going to be moving faster anyway. Our group will split up and send half to the security station, the other half to the mansion itself to see what the hell is going on there. Any issues? Over."_

Not really. It was a basic strategy for the situation. Naruto, Guile, and Ibuki were closest to a sensitive area and they would have gotten there first, thus that was their target. Chun-Li's group was comprised of people that would move slower over longer distances due to the inability to tackle terrain the way that ninjas did.

Batsu _could_, but he wasn't nearly as smooth and quick about it. And everyone else in the party were fairly swift across short distances, but their ability to move with a higher output of speed over significant stretches of space left more to be desired.

"Alright, then that's where we're going, over." Guile said, motioning to the ninjas to move out. They did so, taking care to cut a pace that he could actually keep up with on the ground as they leapt through the trees, "We're heading to the airstrip first."

"What? She won't be there! What about the mansion?"

"Calm down kid." Guile said before Naruto could begin losing his temper. What a day when he was the one that was the voice of reason, "The others are on their way to the mansion and they're closer to begin with. They'd get there before us even if we went that way. We're covering the only real way off of this property."

Basically, if anyone wanted to leave, they had to do it through the airstrip. There weren't any roads or gates in or out. The only way to enter or exit the Kanzuki Estate was through the air.

XxX

(With Chun-Li and Cammy – Kanzuki Estate Security Station)

"Whoa." Chun Li said as she and Cammy came upon the outstation roughly half a mile from the main mansion. It was a simple grey, sturdy building the size of a small law enforcement station, not meant to overshadow the grandiose nature of the mansion that it was meant to look out for… not that it could even if it was elaborately decorated in the slightest.

And the outside of it was littered with the bodies the security force that had been posted there to watch over the Kanzuki family.

"This is recent." Cammy pointed out, stooping by some of the deceased bodies and feeling that their lifeless bodies were still warm to the touch, "…And familiar."

This looked a lot like the scene on Karin's front lawn the morning after the fight inside of her Aohura City home where they were first introduced to Juri in all of her brutally efficient glory. Just with way more dead guards.

Standing up from checking over the fresh corpses outside, Cammy pulled her gauntlets tighter on her hands and stared at the station building with a laser-like focus in her baby blue eyes.

Whenever Cammy focused like that, Chun-Li knew that she was deadly serious about whatever unlucky thing attracted that kind of attention from her. It was a subtle shift from her usual demeanor that one wouldn't notice if they didn't know her, but for those that did she might as well have been openly sneering.

"Cammy." Chun-Li said carefully upon noticing her dangerous change in attitude, "Don't pull a Naruto and run in there to tear into whoever you think is in there." She knew what she was about to do, because she'd seen her do it before, even back before she'd lost her memory.

"I don't _think_ just anyone is in there." Cammy said calmly, despite the slow and deliberate walk that she was taking to the front doors of the building and the growing bite of her tone, "I _know_ that detestable woman Juri Han is in there. She severely injured my friends and twice tried to take my life, she destroyed my home, she shot at the man that I care for with an assault aircraft, and she shot our plane out of the sky with this estate's defense system in a bid to kill us… _again_."

…Well when she put it that way she had ample reason to be gravely upset with Juri beyond logical, tactical reasoning.

"…And now I'm going to go in there and twist her head off of her shoulders."

Sometimes for such a cute girl Cammy could be downright terrifying.

She held no pretense about her as she strode right into the station, marching right past the security that was littering the interior, a few even put halfway through walls and ceilings. In some places the floor was slick with blood, but none of these things deterred Cammy, and Chun-Li already knew what to expect for the most part after learning of what had happened at Karin's Aohura City mansion.

Eventually the two women entered an open-aired office with a balcony circling the room that led up to the next level. In the center of the room was a mass of cubicles that probably served as the working stations of the guards. Upstairs around the balcony was probably more of the same.

"You just keep on coming don't you kitten? Didn't we just do this last night?"

Cammy didn't say anything after hearing the predatory, intrigued voice of her female target. She merely slid her body into her tensed ready stance, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she prepared to react to anything that would come her way.

Chun-Li just hoped that Cammy would be fighting with her head instead of with her heart that was gradually baring more and more of itself as time passed with her loved ones. Either way, she would be there with her so that set their odds as being significantly better, didn't it?

Sitting on the safety railing of the second level balcony, Juri looked down at the two of them with her purple eyes shining dangerously. And why wouldn't she look that way? She'd won twice against Cammy no matter who she was fighting along with.

"I was hoping to be done with fighting both of you by now, one because I'd killed you and the other because I'd just never see you again." Juri commented, flittering her hand in front of her loosely, "I hate fighting women. It's just not as fun as playing with the boys."

"You're insane." Chun-Li said as she watched Juri stand up on the guard rail, "What has all of this been for? What are you attacking people for? And don't give me the crap you gave Sakura about how you can!"

"Oh, you want the technical reason. Well Seth came here for his own reason. I don't know what it is." Juri answered, hands on her hips as she balanced and walked on the rail, "My mission was really simple though. To collect samples of potent ki for the BLECE Project. Killing pretty little Killer Bee down there was just supposed to be a bonus."

Wait, the _what_ project?

Whatever it was, it didn't sound good, and if she knew anything about it that couldn't be overlooked for interrogation purposes, "Cammy, keep her alive."

"I'm not making any promises." Cammy replied before jumping up and running along the tops of the cubicle walls until she got close enough to the balcony Juri was on to take a jump at it. Juri merely jumped straight up into the air as Cammy grabbed the railing and slingshot herself up to perch on it.

Juri fell down in a powerful stomp, but missed and bent the entire railing hard enough to break it. She missed Cammy however, who jumped off onto the nearest wall where she sprang back off at Juri, flipping through the air in a ball, "Hooligan Combination!"

Upon reaching Juri, the two got caught in a jumbled mess in midair, sailing over the first floor until Juri managed to free herself and kicked free of the deadly grapple attack. The force of her kick allowed her to land smoothly on another side of the second floor balcony while Cammy had to manage a rather shaky landing on the floor, sliding on all fours in the opposite direction of Juri and craning her head up to stare at her.

"That was much better!" Juri said, clapping animatedly for Cammy's effort, "You actually grabbed me that time! Good for you!"

"Hyakuretsukyaku (Hundred Rending Kicks)!"

Shit! Juri had lost sight of Chun-Li due to Cammy's wily attack. And she hadn't wasted the opportunity either, rushing up the stairs to the next level behind the maniacal S.I.N. agent and unleashing her signature attack, with lightning-speed kicks landing from her single fully extended leg against Juri's back.

For once she had been hit, as the kicks sent her sailing over the railing and back into the air where Cammy's eyes followed her like a cat's would a swinging ball of yarn. With one powerful jump, Cammy inverted her body to lead upward with her leg in a powerful driving kick, "Cannon Spike!"

'You've got to be kidding me!' Juri thought to herself as she was driven straight into the ceiling by Cammy's kick, "Kuk!" For once she felt her own blood being driven past her lips, welling up from her own internal injuries.

Cammy flipped down after her kick had driven Juri up as far as she could smash her into the ceiling and she stared up, rather pleased as Juri seemed to be stuck in the plaster that comprised it.

Chun-Li couldn't help but pump a fist, reveling in the slight victory. Cammy was the learner. She could pick up a massive amount of nuances in a fighting style from simply seeing it once, let alone competing against it. She had seen it, she had fought against it twice.

She'd been able to break Juri's methods down and had two separate trial and error tests to come up with a way to deal with how difficult she was to hit. Chun-Li had given her the opening, and she hadn't missed her moment. The Cannon Spike struck true.

Juri stayed up there, shaking in place as pieces of debris fell down from the ceiling, "You bitches… you really think you've got me don't you? You landed _one_ move on me and you're thinking you've finally got my number don't you?"

There was visible pink ki spilling from her left eye, reflecting the obscene levels that they could just feel pouring from her body. It was more than Chun-Li had ever felt from her, even when she summoned enough ki to obliterate Naruto's apartment with a single kick.

For Cammy it was similar to how much ki she summoned to try and combat Sakura's first Satsui no Hadou tantrum in Karin's Aohura City mansion, and it wasn't a pleasant memory.

"Shinkusen (Flash of Suffering)!" Like bolt of lightning, Juri shot herself out of the ceiling swiftly at Chun-Li, wasting no time as she landed three booming kicks that sent the young Chinese woman flying, smashing through the cubicles that were on the second floor, "Hit me again! Come on, I dare you to! I could turn this whole building to rubble in one move if I wanted to!"

"Damn it." Chun-Li muttered to herself, pinned underneath so many office walls, her body still feeling the punishing blows that had just been dealt to her, "I didn't think… anyone could move like that. I swear I dodged it." It was like she already knew which way she was going to move before she'd even tried to evade the dive bomb kicks.

From behind, this time it was Cammy that had taken the initiative, wrapping both of her arms around Juri's waist and bridging her own body back to lift her up and slam her on the back of her head and neck, only for Juri to bend her long legs forward enough that they touched the ground first, rendering Cammy's suplex nullified.

Cammy let go and slid her body away on the ground, shocked that someone was able to do something like that to a move that should have killed them, but Juri just stared at her with her left eye glowing dangerously and a smile on her face that promised nothing pleasant, "Oh Killer Bee, Killer Bee~… sting me if you can…" Her entire body became cloaked in the sick pink energy as she lifted one leg high into the air, "…Survive if I let you."

And then she let the hammer drop.

XxX

(Kanzuki Estate Main Mansion – With Sakura and Batsu)

There wasn't any difficulty in getting into the mansion… because there was no more security left. They were able to go straight through the entrance that they were able to reach from their position outside and took off through the halls, but that was where a second problem could be found.

There was no way they were going to get to wherever they needed to get to in time with the size of that fucking place. Not a chance. It was like a labyrinth with halls the size and length of city streets.

Luckily, Batsu was more or less the first student of the Uzumaki Naruto School of Improvisation.

The way they'd entered was through the garage… so they doubled back and procured some transport. It was easy enough, as due to being so damn rich that their garage was filled with dozens of vehicles, they kept all of the keys on the wall closest to door leading inside.

"This is a horrible idea Batsu!" Sakura shouted over the sound of the luxury car's engine that the wild-haired senior high school student had borrowed to drive through and find their way, "Who drives in someone's house?"

"There's enough room for it goddamn it!"

"That's not the point! Do you know what kind of mess you're making?"

At that, Batsu looked around at how the entire place seemed to be a battlefield of sorts with bodies of the Kanzuki family's mercenary security force littering the hallways. They'd stopped trying to count the number of bodies after the number had gone past sixty and that had only been on the first long corridor before Batsu decided to turn,

"I don't think a few tire marks on the floors matter that much right now." Batsu said, swerving to avoid running over a body in the middle of the floor only to rub the side of the car up against the wall and lose a side mirror, "Whoops! My bad."

His deadpan tone was not lost on Sakura when it came to how silly a concern like that was, but someone had to be the reasonable one out of the lot of them and the onus for such fell to her.

Years ago, if you had asked a twelve-year old Kasugano Sakura what she would be doing five years from then and then told her that she would be riding shotgun in an Italian sports car that was speeding through the hallways of the wealthiest family in Asia to try and save her rival/friend from being harmed by the top arms company in the world after getting shot out of the sky she would have stared at you like a deer in the headlights.

And now it seemed to be normal enough of an occurrence to her that her next immediate thought wasn't that they were doing something that outlandish, it was that she sorely wished that she had her own driver's license just like Batsu did.

"You know how your house is just a _little _too big?" Batsu asked before pointing at the screen affixed to the dash, "When GPS can navigate its way through the inside of it. Christ, how can three people live here?"

"Two." Sakura corrected, "Kanzuki-san doesn't really stay here too often. So it's just two; her mom and dad. But anyway, I can feel her ki. It's weaker than it should be though. Just keep going…" Sakura then remembered that they were inside, "Um, in that general direction!" She finished lamely, pointing outside in the intended direction.

Notable by his frustration at the ongoing situation was Batsu, who hadn't toned his adrenaline down since the moment they'd had to jump out of a low-flying plane to survive the first stages of this little infiltration, "Alright, I'm sick of playing rat in the maze here. Stand up in your seat a bit Sakura, can you shoot a Hadoken from a moving car?" Batsu asked.

"What? Why?"

"Well it's either that or crash this thing through walls and I don't trust this thing to be tough enough for too much of that." It wasn't like his jeep after all. A Ferrari was made to drive really fast, not take a beating.

"I'm not doing that!" Sakura insisted upon hearing the exceedingly stupid idea.

"Then switch places with me and drive!"

"I don't even know how to drive!"

"Well damn it, it's either drive or shoot sister! Pick one! Or do you have a better plan to get to rich girl fast enough?"

Sakura just pouted and glared at Batsu in her seat before standing up enough that she could aim over the top of the car. She indeed did not have a better idea, and the Kanzuki family could afford to replace everything that they broke for the rest of their lives and never go broke.

'The Law of Mechanical Motion better apply with ki blasts.' Sakura thought to herself, as she realized that one thing she'd never done before was fire a Hadoken from a moving vehicle. This could end badly, "You're not gonna turn are you?"

"Nope." Batsu said as they accelerated toward a wall, "Shoot."

With a sigh, Sakura drew her hands back and built her blue energy up between her palms, "Alright, Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" Shooting the big ball of ki ahead of them, Sakura had to cover her face as it destroyed the wall they were driving towards, letting them fly on through, "It worked!"

"Shoot again, shoot again, shoot again!"

"Ah! Hadoken (Surge Fist)!"

Sakura had forgotten that behind the walls of a hallway there were these things called rooms… and that there were a lot of them in a mansion the size of this one. Thus, she would be expending a lot of energy in order to create a shortcut.

Blast after blast until finally they crashed through a wall and the first thing they saw was a massive, muscular chrome man with a yin-yang engine thing where his stomach should have been. A flash of momentary surprise was on his face as the next few moments played out in slow motion.

Seth's face shifted back to one that clearly didn't care about the Ferrari convertible flying at him with the two teenagers in it. In one motion he hurled Karin's body away from him far enough that what he was about to do would not affect her in any way.

His yin-yang engine thing started to spin rapidly, cloaking his body in pungent black energy before he threw himself forward at the car and slammed his body into the front of it with his shoulder leading.

Not only did this stop the car, it flipped up over Seth's body and soared through the air, crashing through the wall at the other end of the room.

Karin and her father bore witness to this with, the latter with eyes that couldn't have popped open any wider. Karin tried to get back up again, but her re-aggravated injuries from the beating she'd taken a short time back against Juri disabled her from being a part of the fight, "_Maudite soit cette vile femme (Curse that vile woman)._"

Her body just wouldn't respond the way she wanted it to. Every time she tried to do something, anything, she would feel the blood inside of her well up.

Two of her friends had just crashed through the wall in one of her father's cars from his west garage. They had been aiming at Seth, and not only was he able to react to it in time, not only was he able to stop the car with his own body, if it left a scratch on him she couldn't see it.

It seemed to annoy him more than anything else.

"Hmph. I am the most powerful being on the planet. Human beings and their more pitiful creations can't possibly compare." Seth said, dusting his arms off as he stared at the smoking, fiery hole in the wall that had just been created, "Oh? There's potential here." He said as he heard metallic creaking and groaning

And with that, the very same car that had just tried to run him down came flying back at him, hitting him flush and putting him back through the first wall.

"Good heavens!" Daikenjuro cried as one of his ultra-expensive vehicles returned through the conference room the way it had come in, "What is going on in my home?"

"A fight old man." Batsu said as he and Sakura walked his way back into the room, "That I just ended with a flying fucking car!" Who needed shuriken or ki blasts when you could just chuck a car at the bad guys? Not Ichimonji Batsu, "I don't know what that thing was, but you can study it after you scrape it off of the bottom of that car."

"Sonic Boom!"

A pair of spinning ki disks flew out of the hole containing Seth, forcing both Batsu and Sakura to dodge.

Seth flew out of the hole with a graceful flip and landed with a flying kick on Batsu before spinning through the moment he landed, lashing out with one kick that spun Batsu in a circle before landing a quicker one. That one kick wasn't just one kick however, "Hyakuretsukyaku (Hundred Rending Kicks)!"

Batsu seemingly took dozens of blows from an unseen force before dropping to his knees, choking on air. He had not been ready for that. But looking up at Seth's smugly smiling face caused him to reset and quickly tap into Burning Vigor form.

"What ki. For a human to be able to unlock that kind of inner potential with raw anger." Seth commented as the wild orange aura began flying off of the young man, "It's still merely ranked third in outright intensity for your party of acquaintances, behind Kasugano Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto."

Clenching focused ki in his hand, Batsu unleashed a hard uppercut with a roar, causing a rip of energy to cascade upward from the end of his fists and into the ceiling. When it subsided, Seth still stood there smiling, only he had a hand grabbing onto Batsu's fist.

"That actually hurt." Seth commented, "Commendable, but let's see how my own stacks up." Lifting his elbow, he delivered a modified uppercut of his own before launching himself off of the ground, spinning as he led with his fist right underneath Batsu's body, "Shoryuuken (Rising Dragon Fist)!" With every rotation he made he dealt more punishment until Batsu lifted off of the end of his punch.

Sakura couldn't believe it. Even with an intense ki fueling him, Batsu was being worked over, 'That was Gouken-sensei, Ryu, and Ken's move!' But at the same time it wasn't, modified to suit Seth's needs, much like her Shou'oken, but so much more effective and true to the original.

Her feet carried her to Batsu as he descended and she was able to catch him out of the air, sliding to a stop on her knees after managing to do so. He was a mess.

"Batsu!" Sakura cried out as she looked at his glassed over eyes and face, "Come on, are you alive?"

"He fought well for just being a human boy, but showed me nothing that was worth assimilating." The chrome humanoid being stated firmly as he set a hand on Sakura's head. She couldn't sense his presence because his energy wasn't natural in the slightest, "You however. You hold something very special. Another time perhaps."

With that, he let go and walked past her, waving a hand in front of the engine in his stomach to create a miniature black hole that sucked Karin in towards him, allowing him to once again forcefully grab her by the collar, "You're going to die." Karin said to Seth's face despite looking to be in rather bad shape herself, "You are not the first person that has tried to harm us. Have you ever wondered why no one that has masterminded such has ever lived?"

"Because in the end, despite their plans, their powers, their ideals, they were only human." Seth said, holding her face close to his, "Inadequate. I was created to be better. To always improve. To transcend the limits of your pitiful mortality."

She looked into his eyes and saw nothing. He truly wasn't human. Was he even able to be considered a life form at all?

He seemingly proved what he'd said when he effortlessly stanched a Hadoken shot at him by Sakura from behind, "Your efforts to fight the inevitable are amusing, but all things must come to an end." Seth was prepared to set her down and quickly deal with Sakura, "Show me something worth integrating would you?"

"Stop!" Karin shouted before coughing more blood, but it served the purpose of stopping whatever was about to happen, "Fighting Sakura-san would only waste more time. Do you not have more important things to do than play with children?"

Seth stared ahead at Sakura and then to Karin before narrowing his eyes at her, "You are correct. But do not believe that this is a matter of you manipulating me. I swore I would never fall prey to the wrathful pride of my predecessor, and that includes fighting meaningless battles for my own personal reasons, amusement or otherwise."

"Of course." Karin said with a cheerless smile as her body went limp in his grasp. She just couldn't find the energy to resist him herself, and everyone else was getting destroyed in trying, 'Ichimonji-san cannot stop this opponent. Sakura-san is surer of herself now, but she cannot do so either without succumbing to the Satsui no Hadou if that would even work. He will kill them.'

Seth would not kill her. He needed her alive to get whatever he intended to distribute out to the world at large. It was the point of his plan of taking her, and ending her life would do no good for him in that regard. She was safe, but the others were not.

"Time to depart Miss Kanzuki." The synthetic being said, tucking her under one arm. She would be no trouble, injured as she was, "Say goodbye to your friends."

"Say goodbye to your face!" Sakura dashed at Seth with ki in her hand, planning to release it in a close-range blast until Seth teleported away, "What? Huh? He can do that?"

He was just up and gone, without a trace.

"I'm not surprised." Batsu said with a weak cough, pushing himself up by what was left of the conference room table, "Everybody's doing it. Bison, Dhalsim… ugh…" He wilted against the surface and pushed himself back up again, "Fuck. Call Naruto."

"Why? He's gone already and he took her!"

"If his teleport is anything like Dhalsim's he can't travel super-far with it instantly, and it takes too much power to use a long way away."

In other words he needed a realistic transport out, and that meant that Naruto was in the right place to cut him off.

XxX

(With Naruto – Kanzuki Estate Airstrip)

"Give me back my boss lady!" Naruto shouted, slamming his hands into the ground and pumping his chakra through it in a spiral, "Rasenshinsen (Spiraling Tremor)!" Turning the ground into a miniature excavation site, he trapped and badly injured over a dozen S.I.N. soldiers clad in thick brown bodysuits with the shifting chunks of land.

This had the added effect of kicking up cover for Naruto, Guile, and Ibuki as they were able to take refuge from the automatic gunfire that came their way from the operatives protecting the pair of Ospreys that were grounded there.

Two of them instead of one. Wonderful. As long as no one got into one and tried to get on the main gun that would be great, and it didn't seem like they were.

"Those are the same guns from the dam in India." Ibuki said, poking her head up just long enough to get a glimpse before a ricocheting bullet willed her down out of the line of fire, "Yep, same guns. This is totally S.I.N., no doubt." She looked over at Naruto and gestured him over to her, "Can I get a boost honey?" She asked, batting her eyes sweetly.

Naruto rolled his eyes but grinned as he held out his hands to give her a foothold before throwing her into the air for her spinning, flipping Tsujigoe jump, giving her more height on it than she had any right to be getting.

The soldiers tried to shoot at her, but Naruto had thrown her right up at the sun, giving them no chance to see her decently, and giving her an opening that she wasn't about to waste once she reached the apex of her flip, "Kazumi Suzaku (Mist Vermillion Sparrow)!"

With three flips she unleashed a deadly barrage of weaponry, different for each rotation. Dozens and dozens of kunai for the first one, massive shuriken for the second, and miniature high explosives for the third.

Anyone she didn't hit was mopped up from underneath by Naruto and Guile who were quick to streak out from behind cover the second fire on them stopped, spacing out to handle anyone Ibuki's aerial attack wasn't hitting, "Rasenrengan (Spiraling Serial Spheres)!" With a Rasengan in each hand, it was like the world's deadliest game of tag as Naruto blew them away with a mere touch of the jutsu while passing and moving along to the next one.

Guile's attack pattern was slower going, but no less effective against those he managed to deal with, sticking to rudimentary kickboxing rush techniques to beat down his targets.

Naruto stopped his moves and dashed right underneath where he knew Ibuki was going to fall so that he could catch her out of the air. She was very grateful for the assist, because he'd thrown her way too high to land on her feet safely, "Aw, my hero." She pulled down her facemask momentarily and nuzzled her cheek against his.

"Sonic Boom!" The sound of the powerful ki blast landing directly behind them prompted Naruto to turn around with Ibuki and find that there had been one last S.I.N. operative that Guile had to put down himself, "Christ, would you kids stop acting like teenagers?"

"We are teenagers." Both Naruto and Ibuki droned dryly as the former set the latter back onto her feet and received a peck on the cheek for the assist before Ibuki pulled her facemask back up.

Muttering grumpily to himself at their stereo rebuttal, Guile walked over to the pair of Ospreys to check them over and clear them to make sure that there weren't any other nasty surprises or troops waiting for them.

Naruto took a knee in the nearby field and looked around in the direction where he could see the mansion over a few rolling hills. The land was lush.

So this was where Karin grew up. It was beautiful, but even though he was outside everything felt so sterile and unable to be touched. Even the trees and grass around the airstrip were imported for fuck's sake. No wonder she turned out the way she did when they'd first met.

"What's the matter?" Ibuki asked, stopping behind him and putting her hands on his shoulders consolingly, "You look a little too serious to be my Naruto, even for this."

"I'm supposed to be her bodyguard Ibuki, for real." Naruto said, grabbing at the grass and ripping it up by the roots, "I know she can take care of herself, but I take this stuff seriously. You girls keep getting hurt around me. She sent me running off to think about myself last night without even telling me she was coming here. I should have been here the whole time."

"This still would have happened." Ibuki insisted, running her fingers over his shoulders lightly, "Your being here wouldn't have deterred this Naruto. If you had been here instead of in Aohura City last night, more of our friends could have died. Sometimes there's nothing you can do to keep terrible things from happening." Leaning down, she wrapped her arms around his neck to hug him from behind, "You're only human too. You can't see everything coming."

He could hear things coming though, as he heard the sound of a vehicle's engine coming toward the airstrip and bore witness to a braided redheaded lady in an awesome suit pulling over in a vehicle that had probably been brought along in one of the Ospreys. Hopping out of her car, she tugged at her black gloves as she slowly walked over to Naruto and Ibuki, "You lot are going to want to leave very soon."

"Oh look." Ibuki said, letting go of Naruto and looking like she was ready for a fight, "It's the old lady I fought in the dam in India."

Crimson Viper ignored the 'old lady' jab as she wasn't going to let some upstart kunoichi blow her cool so easily, "I have to thank you for that fight little girl. Thanks to taking you on I was able to improve on the suit and raise its performance 130%."

Ibuki just stared at her and did the math in her head before both she and Naruto tilted their heads simultaneously, "So, like that means that now you're a little over twice as strong… right?" Math was not their thing, but Ibuki was better at it than Naruto was, "It's only been like… a week or two."

"Yes. It has." Viper said, twisting a knob on her glove before punching the ground, "Seismic Hammer!"

The force of the tremor blew apart the ground beneath Naruto and Ibuki, knocking the two of them away farther into the field, "Gah!" Naruto shouted as he quickly got back up and dusted the grass off of himself, "Damn it, what are you pricks planning on doing with Karin?"

"I don't have any reason to tell you anything." Viper replied coolly only to note a spike of Naruto's ki with her sunglasses.

"Wrong answer." Naruto said, putting his hands into a hand-seal to prepare to beat the answers he wanted out of her.

In the distance the sound of an explosion and a building falling directed everyone's attention for just a moment, and Viper placed a hand on her forehead, "Juri… you just don't know how to control yourself do you?" That had been in the direction of the security station, and it sounded like it had been big enough to take out a good portion of its interior, so it more than likely had been Juri that was the perpetrator.

She got her mind back on what was in front of her as Ibuki slid smoothly across the grass, crouched low to strike from beneath until Viper leapt out of the way only to find Naruto soaring at her in an attempt to grab and punish her.

"Burning Kick!" With a mid-air spin, Viper lashed out with a kick projecting a jet of flames from both of her boots that forced Naruto to cover his face and chest with his arms to avoid the flames. By virtue of this he had to abandon his attempt to finish her quickly and safety roll out of his diving leap in the grass, lashing out with a toss of a kunai to get something out of his first move against her.

Viper threw a spin kick that knocked the blade out of the air and then blocked a spinning jump kick from Ibuki before pushing the quick female ninja away and retaliating with her own kick, but she only hit an afterimage and then found herself surrounded by five of Naruto's Kage Bunshin that then kicked her straight into the air.

'He's fast enough to outpace the suit this easily?! I upgraded it to keep up with the ninja girl's speed!' Viper thought, cringing from the kicks only to see a shadow descending down on her from the air.

"A stupid powered suit isn't enough to make up for actual training!" Naruto shouted as he fell down onto her with an ax kick, "Uzumaki Naruto Rendan (Naruto Uzumaki Barrage)!"

Ibuki couldn't help but grin behind her mask, "_So_ gonna be my boyfriend…" It had been a while since she'd watched Naruto win a battle in person, and it was still just as much of a turn-on as the last time.

Just as she had expected. Even with Viper's apparent improvements on her battle suit, Naruto was still _way_ too much for her to handle, especially when he was good and pissed off. A properly motivated Naruto was one of the most dangerous beings in existence, of this she was certain.

Viper's body fell to the ground like a stone and bounced off of the grass one time as Naruto landed smoothly on his feet and then kicked at the grass, "Crap, I knocked her out! We need her awake."

Ibuki walked over and stared down at the defeated woman with a hand on her hip, "Well maybe you should have aimed for the shoulder or something instead of the head. Not that I'm backseat fighting or anything but-."

From the airstrip itself, one of the two Osprey aircrafts was rocked by an explosion before Guile's body flew away and into the field, smoking before he landed in the grass and dragged a trench through it.

Naruto and Ibuki rushed over to find him coughing and looking like he'd taken some damage. The gruff airman pushed both youngsters away from them to keep from touching his painful wounds, "No! Don't… there's something. The… it has Kanzuki."

"Something has Karin?" Ibuki tried to decipher what Guile was trying to say, and it was like someone had given a trained attack dog the order to be on alert.

Guile sat up on his elbows enough to squint and glare over at the remaining Osprey, "There. That thing… attacked me with a one-armed Sonic Boom." His own move, and he executed it better than Guile could. What the hell was going on?

Blue eyes went wide and before anyone could tell him not to or try and direct him in any manner whatsoever, Naruto tore ass across the remainder of the grass and over the paved airstrip to the loading ramp at the back of the second Osprey.

He found the back open, ramp lowered; with an inhuman chrome man walking into the vehicle, Karin tucked under one arm.

"**I can't sense any concentration of power."** The Kyuubi said to Naruto, **"All I feel is pure positive and negative energy, but I can't tell how much or if it's a threat."** Everyone knew the old adage though: if you had to ask…

Upon realizing that Naruto was behind him, Seth stopped walking and turned just enough to let him see one of his eyes, "Today has just been a banner day for testing the limits of my ability. Now you. None of your 'friends' were up to making me see just how powerful I truly am. Perhaps you could be the one to force me to show this world just how superior I am? Another time perhaps. Now I'm busy and have need of young lady Kanzuki's accompaniment."

She was still awake, but her body couldn't move. Her eyes were staring right into Naruto's pleading with him.

It was what she was pleading for that he didn't know. He was forced to guess, and his guess was that she was pleading for him to save her.

This was not the case. Karin was not pleading for him to fight for her. She was pleading for him to let her go, to live and fight another day. There would be another time. A better time, when he would know to a better extent what he was up against, when he would be able to better amass a force to deal with it.

That time was not now.

But Naruto did not know that. Even if he had known, he probably wouldn't have cared. Even if Karin could talk loudly enough to tell him what she wanted to convey, he probably wouldn't have listened. All he could see was her, and the thing holding her under his arm like luggage. All he could hear was the blood pounding angrily in his own ears.

"Let her go." Naruto growled, fists tightening as he could feel his nails grow and sharpen. His eyes turned red and slitted, and his body became cloaked in a fox outline with two-tails, "Let her go, let her go, let her go!" He screamed, his hand snapping open and forming a Rasengan in it, coated in a shell of deadly red, "Shui Rasengan (Vermillion Spiraling Sphere)!"

In interest at this power, a sparkle came to Seth's eye as he threw Karin to the side, her already battered body bouncing off of the metal wall of the Osprey, and that was the only trigger Naruto needed to charge him down and shove that Rasengan straight down his throat.

'Such speed. Such power.' Seth remarked internally the instant he saw Naruto begin to move, 'I find this boy just as intriguing as I figured I would. I will assimilate what I can of him.' Quickly, he swirled his hands around his yin-yang engine and made his own move.

"**The positive and negative energies are… pulling away and apart?"** The Kyuubi thought to himself in complete confusion of what he was sensing from Seth.

"See what I'm really made of!" Seth demanded, pushing forward an invisible gravity force that made Naruto weightless and shoved him back through the air before sucking him inward into a black vortex coming from the engine, "Become a part of me." With that, he sucked Naruto _inside_ of the engine as it rumbled and shook, glowing brightly as Seth laughed victoriously, "Yes, you will be _very_ useful!"

Once the engine glowed white-bright, he shot Naruto out of the reopened vortex as if he were fired from a high-powered rifle, shooting him back into a nearby lone hangar and utterly obliterating the back wall of it with the boy's body.

"NARUTO-SAN!" Karin screamed in horror at her potential loss. It was as loud a cry as she could possibly muster, and if it went unheard at all it was only because there was no one on the property that could hear her and do anything about it.

She did not have to even consider the consequences of her next action before lunging at Seth with everything she had left just to land one blow that would hurt the monster in some way.

Causing Seth harm was more important than painlessly drawing her next few breaths, and her fist did indeed slam off of the side of his head hard enough to actually move him, but upon doing so her body quivered uncontrollably and gave out once more, 'Damn this body! Damn this creature! I will destroy it myself if it is the last act of my life!'

"Do not fear." Seth said with a wicked chuckle, not minding that he had just taken a passionate haymaker from her, "The direct assimilation process that I have performed on young Uzumaki is not fatal. It is extremely painful, but not fatal. But at its conclusion he was quite alive." His laugh then grew downright cruel, "It is the expulsion step of the process that may or may not have ended his life as you can see."

He was rather impressed with the tenacity, and that little sentimental outburst of hers at the end was amusing, but it was also why he found humans to be so weak to begin with. They were so quick to cast aside the actions that were logical for them in exchange for actions dictated by emotion.

Karin didn't have a speck of energy left in her to do anything to fight back. Tears formed in her eyes as she could only stare at the entirely missing back wall of her family's hangar that her beloved had been fired through like a round of artillery, 'Please stay down, please stay down, please stay down.' She chanted to herself inside of her mind, 'Do not get back up. There is no need for this. Fight him later.'

Shutting her eyes as tightly as she could, she missed Juri sauntering her way up the ramp while holding Viper up over her shoulder, "Hah, the ninja girl and the soldier ran off to find Uzumaki after you shot him off like a rocket. Snuck right past 'em and got her out of there."

"And I was under the impression that there were more in this group." A nonexistent eyebrow on the superior being was raised, signifying that he needed more information than that from her to be satisfied.

"What about them?" Juri replied vaguely before giving another statement of a similar nature, "Oh, by the way, the bugs in this eye have really been worked out."

Oh. Well that had to mean something good.

"Excellent." Seth said with an annoyingly smug laugh as he picked up Karin again and walked into the Osprey, "Then it is time to leave this place. Japan is worthless to us now."

"Good. I was getting bored of this country anyway."

XxX

(Half a Mile Away)

"Naruto!" Ibuki yelled, running as fast as her legs would carry her over to where she'd seen Naruto's body fly unceremoniously through the back of a hangar wall, "What happened?"

Guile languished behind her at a slower pace, but he too found himself sprinting over to the crash site of the blond ninja, "Damn it kid…" His ire wasn't directed at Naruto though. He reacted the way someone that cared about another would have.

It was their enemy that he was upset with, because he was befuddled.

That damn chrome man used the Sonic Boom. _His_ move. That didn't make any sense. He and Charlie were the only two that knew how to use that move, and since Charlie was dead the only person he could have learned it from was him. He definitely would have remembered teaching a gigantic android thing the Sonic Boom.

As Guile and Ibuki reached Naruto they found a large trench dragged through the ground until the end where it formed a large mound of dirt and grass right by a tree that had almost been knocked over by even the diminished impact of Naruto hitting it after enduring all of the other things beforehand.

They didn't even reach him before it was all hurled away from him in an explosion of power, red chakra tails swinging all about wildly as he seemed just about ready to go on a rampage. Guile managed to catch up to Ibuki as she covered her eyes to protect herself from being blinded by the energy and the debris, and as she moved to get closer, she found her way barred by Guile's arm, "What are you doing?"

"You don't want to get any closer to him when he's like that." Guile warned her, having seen what Naruto could do with it at the tournament a few months ago, "Trust me."

"But he could be hurt! Look at him!"

Naruto was covered entirely in a black substance similar to how he looked in India and he had flesh wounds that were steadily healing on the spot, but he cared nothing for those things.

"I'LL KILL HIM!" Naruto roared at the top of his lungs before running as fast as he could, actually getting down on all fours to garner more straight ahead speed as he tried to run the half mile to get back onto the tarmac as the Osprey ascended and prepared to depart.

He had an eagle eye on it as it reached an altitude that he didn't have a chance of jumping up and reaching, even at his highest leap. It lingered there as if taunting him before it took off.

"Isseishageki Chakura Tanki-sha (Chakra Spitfire Volley)!" From his mouth he fired dozens of red-coated blue chakra projectiles, pushing them forward faster than he otherwise could have by using his tails to give them an extra boost to their speed.

His target? The Osprey that was swiftly moving away.

It was clearly in his field of vision, and he was locking on with a cluster attack that would guide every shot right to it with the same jutsu he'd used against Sasuke, until an image flashed through his head and he stopped himself from finishing it.

He'd destroy the aircraft, and more than likely the most precious bit of cargo that was inside.

The jutsu probably wasn't fast enough to catch up anyway…

His eyes drifted to the ruined Osprey nearby, and then to the slower aircrafts inside of the hangar he'd been thrown through. None of those were going to work.

"Goddamn it!" Naruto punched the paved ground and pulverized a crater into the hard surface, ten feet deep and twenty feet around. Another punch dug him even deeper. He just kept punching and punching, until the Kyuubi cut him off from abusing its chakra for such a reason.

If he wanted to tear up something that wasn't alive he could use his own power for that as far as the fox was concerned. But with the loss of the chakra came the loss of Naruto's will to cause catastrophic damage just to satisfy his temper. Now he just felt numb.

Numb enough to just sit down in the crater of his own creation and stare up at the sky, 'Did I fuck up again? What was that guy's deal? I couldn't even tell… what kind of power he was using.' He looked at his entire body and saw that he was covered in black, 'The tank juice?'

So he wasn't even a real living creature? That was why the Kyuubi couldn't sense him properly for him.

Good. That meant that Naruto didn't have to feel any remorse for tearing his head off when the time came.

"**Speak with me."**

XxX

(Naruto's Mindscape)

Before he could think back an answer, Naruto found himself suddenly standing before the vast cage inside of his head, with water rising up to his ankles. Straight ahead he could see the gigantic chakra creature laying on the floor inside of its prison.

"Yeah?" Naruto asked, hoping that they could end this in a hurry in case too much time passed outside, "What do you need fox?"

"**I know how his power works. It is vast and dangerous, even if you can't feel it." **That much was clear just from what it obviously took for Seth to repel Naruto's sole attack against him in the manner that he did. It was a power he didn't understand, **"I am willing to assist you with enough chakra to destroy that creature… for a price."**

"I can't let you out. You know that."

"**Did I say that was the price?"**

Naruto could see his own reflection in one of the eyes of his tenant, but saw nothing deceitful. After years of hearing the whispers and being told face-to-face about how unleashing the Kyuubi would solve all of his problems, he'd gotten accustomed to a certain look in its eye when he spoke to it.

He had not seen that look since he'd disposed of his dark side, and he wasn't seeing it today either. It was one of sincerity, and was that trust?

"…I'm listening."

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Seth  
>Nationality:<span> N/A  
>Gender:<span> Male(?)  
>Age:<span> Unknown  
>HeightWeight: 6'6/285 lbs.  
>Bloodtype:<span> N/A  
>Likes:<span> Making plans, world domination, procuring power.  
>Dislikes:<span> The weakness of humans, being called by his 'number', disobedient underlings, wasting time.  
>Hobbies:<span> Assimilating new abilities.  
>Rivals:<span> M. Bison (to outdo his ambitions to dominate), Abel, Uzumaki Naruto.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Amalgamation of various styles that is beyond human comprehension.  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Tanden Engine, and too many more to count.  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Tanden Storm, Tanden Stream, Tanden Typhoon, unknown what else potentially.  
>Background:<span> The C.E.O. of the former weapons division of Shadaloo, S.I.N., Seth is an enhanced being that was created by Shadaloo with the use of cutting-edge technology apparently to complete Bison's ambition of world domination according to him. Shortly before the Second World Warrior Tournament he became self-aware and began grabbing power while Bison was concerned with destroying his enemies. After Bison's death, Seth wishes to control everything as the ultimate being; the perfect mix of top-notch human-like intellect and physical capabilities beyond that of any living creature on the planet. To this end he has created a plan that involves a substance known as BLECE. He claims to have learned from the mistakes of his creator and will not fail by operating in the same manner, choosing to be cold, logical, and efficient in every step of his ventures. With the use of the mysterious and overwhelmingly powerful Tanden Engine embedded in his torso he somehow has the ability to copy and translate the fighting data of his enemies, allowing him to create a deadly martial art comprised of a blend of every useful technique and style he has come across thus far.

* * *

><p><strong>I hate Seth. I hate Seth so much… the cheap SOB. He's got <strong>_**everybody's**_** best move and does it better, faster, and stronger with less recoil? Really?**

**The only good thing about fighting people that use Seth online in SSFIV is that he takes more damage than any other character, even the smaller ones, and his Ultra Techniques don't do as much damage as everyone else's, so if you can dictate the pace of the fight, as long as you don't screw up and let him land one of his Ultras you can pressure your way to a win against most people that use him.**

**In Arcade Mode you don't have that luxury though, so fighting him at the end on the hardest difficulty is a bitch.**

**I'm partial to using Adon myself competitively. Jaguar Tooth for life. I can totally make people waste their Ultras and hit nothing but air for it using him.**

**Anyway, storywise there's now a real reason to go and bust some ass for the good guys, so let's get that party started.**

**Kenchi out.**


	47. Do Unto Others

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. This story is strictly for educational purposes. It's meant to educate all of you just what constant blows to one's head can do for better or worse. Sure, it hurts and I'm probably going to have some problems later in life, but enough stuff has been knocked loose that I see this as a semi-productive use of my time.

You can take this message as a good thing or a bad thing, as long as the message is taken.

**Chapter 47: Do Unto Others**

* * *

><p>"Thanks." Chun-Li muttered to Cammy as the latter assisted her walking up the hill to the main mansion of the Kanzuki property, "Damn it, she loves destroying places doesn't she?" She had a fairly significant limp in her step and seemed to be covered in one way or another by the dust of building debris, "How many buildings is this now?"<p>

"Four." Cammy replied weakly, "…Four that we know of anyway."

"That is one dangerous bitch."

"She would be more so if she actually checked her work after she was done."

Really, bringing down the whole security building onto their heads just to prove a point? Was she thinking that by itself would kill them? Granted, it came awfully close, but even with the chunks of the entire building coming down to crush them, Cammy could dodge a gunshot from point-blank range and had the best natural reflexes in the world more than likely.

Even if it had buried them, would that really have killed them? Maybe, but there was a better chance that they would have just been horribly injured instead. It wasn't like they were just average women walking around town. They might as well have been made of iron.

As they reached the entrance nearest to where they could have gotten into the house from, they already saw Sakura out front, sitting down on the stairs with her face in her hands until she noticed them coming and popped up to run over to them.

"Oh thank goodness you two are okay." The beleaguered teenager said in relief as she looked them over and noted their rather rough condition, "You didn't run into Seth too did you?"

"No. It was Juri again." Chun-Li said as she now had Sakura's help as well to get her somewhere to sit down, on the grand steps in front of the Kanzuki mansion, "Cammy and I made her angry enough to release all of her ki and she tore down the building we were in."

"She killed all of the mercenaries contracted as bodyguards for the family that we saw inside of the command post." Cammy reported as Chun-Li started rubbing her leg and seeing how far she could straighten it out to gauge how much damage she'd taken, "I can't stand that woman."

Chun-Li sharply inhaled through her teeth after finding the limit that she could hold her injured leg out to before looking to Sakura. She remembered that they'd all split up to handle different portions of the threat, "Where's Batsu? What happened here?"

"All of the bodyguards here aren't dead, but the ones that aren't are all in pretty bad shape." Sakura said with a deep frown, "Batsu got banged up pretty bad, between the car crash and trying to take on Seth..." She didn't know what Seth was, but he couldn't have been human.

He might have been the scariest bad guy she'd run across so far, not just in terms of what he was capable of, but more than that. Every person she'd ever been pitted against happened to be scary for their own reasons.

Bison was scary because of the sheer power and ingenuity he possessed to enhance it further. Between his Psycho Power, the Psycho Drive that magnified it, and the satellite he'd possessed that he could have used to snipe out any town in the world that he saw fit that would have been enough by itself.

Not only that, but he had been the quintessential psychopath. He was scary because of how brutal he was. It was simple, primal, barbaric fear that he inspired in her.

Rolento of Mad Gear was scary because he was a man with vision and with a legitimate plan that came dangerously close to coming to fruition. If they had never chosen to use Aohura City as a training ground and if Naruto had never woken up from his coma when he did, he truly might have taken over Japan.

What made him dangerous was that he was a zealot for his own cause. He drank his own kool-aid and he truly believed the things that he told his followers. That kind of belief in one's own cause was inherently charismatic, and attracted thousands to fight for him until he was killed and Mad Gear fell apart. He was emotional. Explosively emotional and let his impulses fuel his planning, which made them effective until the monkey wrench of a group of teenage powerhouses happened to be thrown into his machine.

But Seth was scary in his own way. He was more powerful than Rolento and Mad Gear with S.I.N. at his back, more powerful himself than Bison in theory if he could honestly copy so many things with nothing but the assimilation of the ki of others. Even without doing so, he had the raw power to destroy them to begin with.

And perhaps the most terrifying thing was that unlike the others he was driven by… nothing. No purpose inspired by something he wanted. He didn't seem to have any opinion emotionally to what he was doing. He was like an android or something, but he was alive. Sakura couldn't understand his energy either.

There was nothing there for her to feel, but not like Gouken's energy. With Seth she couldn't even sense a void. It was like trying to feel ki from a car. She didn't know what to feel for in order to gauge his power.

Speaking of sensing things, Sakura tried to extend her senses outward and smiled brightly when she felt three more familiar signatures coming their way. Thank goodness the others were okay. But the smile faded when she didn't pick out Karin's with them, 'Oh no.'

And coming over the crest of the hill she could see the irritable gnashing of Naruto's teeth as he stomped his way up to them and plopped down on the stairs, tearing off his gloves and even undoing his leaf headband.

He was covered in the black gunk again, and seemed overtly pissed off, probably for any one of several reasons. The most glaring of which would probably be the fact that he looked like he'd rolled around in charcoal-colored paint, the most severe of which would probably be the fact that Karin was gone.

"Did we lose again?" Cammy bluntly asked, ignoring or not picking up on the heaviness of the situation.

"Yes Cam, we lost again." Naruto droned, rubbing his hair wildly with his hands. Technically this was _his_ first loss to these people, but right now he didn't care enough to be a smartass and correct her for his ego's sake. His ego was already pretty busted already, "…Gonna shove a Rasengan up that shiny bastard's ass and get Rin-Rin back."

He just had to figure out how first. When Guile had pulled him out of the crater he'd smashed into the ground out of anger, he first started to calm him by saying that he had connections that were going to track the aircraft that had escaped as far as it could.

That wasn't enough though. Guile had told him that to get him to chill out, this Naruto knew, and that meant that there had to be something that they could actively do to find out where to go to tear a piece out of Seth as soon as possible.

Heavy footsteps got everyone attention to the top of the stairs where a slightly wounded Batsu was being assisted down the stairs by Karin's attendants Ishizaki and Shibazaki, "Easy now Ichimonji-san." The bespectacled steward said as the wild-haired boy cringed with every step he took.

"Burning Vigor mode didn't do jack against him." Batsu muttered once he got low enough on the staircase for them to sit him down to rest, "Ah… he walked through my attacks and didn't even let me bust out the bigger ones."

"Same." Naruto said sadly, getting and giving a fist bump from his old friend for their shared misfortune in fighting Seth, "At least you had attack_s_. I had one attack. Then he chewed me up and spat me out."

"It couldn't have been that bad. You're covered in black stuff but you don't look that beat-up."

"No, he literally sucked me up, swirled me around in his stomach and then spat me half a mile away."

"-Through a wall." Ibuki added, getting a hard rap on her arm from Sakura, "Ow! He did!"

Shibazaki adjusted the glasses on his face and cleared his throat before standing in front of the downtrodden party of fighters. None of them seemed to be in high spirits or in particularly pristine condition, but what he had to say needed to be said.

"I would like to thank all of you." He said, much to the surprise of everyone there.

It wasn't a secret that he had never been the biggest fan of the people that Karin chose to interact with, and here he was thanking them? For what? They had failed.

"I don't know how you found out about what was happening or arrived her so quickly..." The astute servant to the Kanzuki Estate said earnestly, "...But you were unprepared for the challenges that you faced for Karin-ojousama, and you fought anyway. Thank you for trying."

Like them or not, they were the only ones he knew of that could have stopped what S.I.N. had tried to do. They had done it for free, without even being prompted or asked to.

"Don't say that like this is over Shibazaki." Naruto said, standing up and pacing around at the foot of the stairs, "I'm gonna find out where they took her and if anybody gets in the way they're gonna wish they weren't."

"So you have a plan of action?"

Not quite. But that didn't stop Naruto from having the sentiment that this was going to get done somehow. This was his mission from that point forward. No pay necessary. The only compensation he required for the work he was about to put in was Karin safe and sound at home.

They hadn't left any soldiers behind on the airstrip. The ones that hadn't been hurt in Naruto, Ibuki, and Guile's initial attack piled their comrades that didn't get killed in the short battle onto the escape Osprey after Naruto had been launched away by Seth. There wouldn't be any down and dirty interrogation to pull info out of any survivors.

Wait, what about the other one? The first Osprey that had gotten damaged. It was still there.

A lightbulb lit up as far as Guile was concerned and he dragged Batsu back up to his feet, limp be damned, so that they could make their way back to the airstrip, "Come on. Someone else come with me. We're going to check out the Osprey they left behind. Go catch your rich girl's parents up on what's happening!" He threw a pained Batsu up over his shoulder and grabbed the next nearest person in Sakura before taking off in a run.

"Wait!" Naruto shouted as Guile rushed past him with his two closest friends in tow, "What the hell's happening now?"

"We ain't done yet kid! Not by a long shot!"

No one really knew what that meant, or what the point of Guile going to check on the leftover Osprey was except for Chun-Li who had a big, beaming smile on her face, "That's great! If they really left one behind that means we can use its computer to pick up some clues."

Shibazaki's face lit up with hope while she merely got blank stares from the remaining fighters in Naruto and Cammy. Right, they weren't really techno-savvy.

Still, she shouldn't have had to explain that to them. Cammy she could kind of understand because of the amnesia jumbling up a lot of her practical knowledge, but Naruto had to know more about technology than that even if he had originally come from another world. He'd been there for long enough by now.

"The on-board computer probably has travel coordinates." Chun-Li said sardonically, leveling a dry look at Naruto and Cammy in particular, "Not only where they've been but maybe where they were supposed to go after this."

Naruto couldn't have run away any faster to go and find Karin's parents and tell them that they could, and they would, go and get her back.

XxX

To Naruto's complete surprise, even after the trying ordeal that he had sat down and had a front row seat to bear witness to, Kanzuki Daikenjuro didn't seem to be as frantic as he was to do whatever was necessary to get Karin back.

"I cannot lend you any resources boy!" The frazzled business mogul said, pacing around his ruined conference room. He stopped and stared at the car that Batsu had crashed through two walls and then thrown back at Seth before continuing on his frenzied tirade, "I have to find some way to get control of the zaibatsu back from Karin before it is brought to ruin."

"Karin won't do anything that Seth wants her to do, no matter what he tries on her." Naruto assured him, "Look, all we have to do is find her and go get her. Everything'll be fine with the company after we do that."

"She would still be leading it." He didn't even know why he was telling this boy any of this. Some filthy teenager covered in black residue that just came sprinting in tell him that Karin was going to be alright. It scared the hell out of him, but then they actually started speaking, which led to now.

Naruto just tilted his head in confusion, "…Yeah? And? She was going to anyway. That's what she's been trying to do this whole time. She was just sick of waiting for you to actually realize she could do it and declare her the heir, so she just took it."

Daikenjuro turned a wild-eyed look Naruto's way at the nonchalant way that he brought up plans of his daughter that he himself hadn't been the slightest bit privy to, "You mean you knew? You of all people?" Shibazaki and Ishizaki didn't even know, "You look familiar. Who are you?"

"I'm her friend. Her really close friend." Naruto said, pointing at his own chest, "'Close' as in, 'I'm gonna go get her back myself since it looks like I care about her more than her own dad does.' What's your problem anyway? She's in trouble! That guy's not gonna ransom her or something!"

The kind of thing that Seth was (no one knew what to refer to him as), money didn't mean anything to him. He already ran S.I.N., he had no shortage of money to do whatever he needed it for.

No, he wanted Karin for some sort of resource that she had as the new head of the Kanzuki Zaibatsu, otherwise Daikenjuro would be in her place.

"Even if Karin had not been the one taken…" Daikenjuro said, towering over Naruto, "…The fate of the company is more important, and left in that hands of that girl it would not last until the end of my life. She is not worthy."

"What?" Naruto replied in befuddlement, "What do you mean she isn't worthy? She did everything you ever told her to do. She's never screwed up anything. I've never seen her do any sort of deal that didn't end up with you making hundreds of millions. She even got the company from you right in front of your face. I watched her do some of it. Karin was amazing."

"Amazing enough to steal my company from underneath my nose, and after all I have given that girl!"

"You never told her she was going to inherit it. That was all you had to say and she wouldn't have taken it." She didn't even want to keep it yet. That was the thing. Karin just wanted to take it and then show her father her work to prove that she could do it before handing it back to him.

"She never _was_ going to inherit it."

So that was what this was all about. He just never wanted to give up the reins to begin with. All the hoops he made Karin jump through just to keep he spot as the heir and he never had any plans of passing things on to her to begin with.

Naruto didn't know why, or how an actual parent would have acted in regards to rearing their child, but something about what the man was saying was wearing on his already stressed out nerves.

"I don't know why she respects you or cares enough about what you think to even give you the company back." Naruto said under his breath before he started speaking up, "You never thought anything of her. Even when I was with her at some of those rich people parties that you made her go to or at the plays and stuff, you treated her more like decoration than someone you wanted to inherit anything."

It was true. Whenever she was around during events that her father made her attend she was just meant to stand around with Daikenjuro's wife to look cultured and pretty to give him some kind of background business support. She'd paste a smile on her face, laugh at jokes from other wealthy people that Naruto didn't understand and doubted Karin thought were really funny, and basically take up space until it was time to go home.

When he was around for meetings with her father or for phone calls she took from him Naruto never actually remembered seeing or hearing him give her any advice or teach her anything. He just gave her a task to do and told her to do it, and that was as far as their interaction went.

He never remembered seeing the slightest amount of care or concern for her or her wellbeing. Never once was there a, 'How are you doing Karin?' or a, 'Is there something you need out there away from home Karin?' or anything that someone would figure a father to ask their daughter when they were living hundreds of miles away from home.

"She loves you. Do you know that?" Naruto asked rhetorically, not giving Daikenjuro a chance to try and deflect some of Naruto's emphatic words off of him, "Everything she's ever done, she did it because you told her to, or she thought you would have wanted her to. And you don't believe in her. You never thought she could do any of the impossible stuff you made her do, and I've never even seen her fail at anything. I don't think you can point out one thing she's ever even failed at."

Now Naruto really knew for certain why he liked Karin so much despite her superior attitude grating on him at first. She wasn't some rich girl that set herself before others, she simply wanted to be around the best to prove that she could be and was better.

When he really got to know her, he saw that she was someone that just wanted attention, and unlike him when he was younger in Konoha she didn't take the easy way out and make a negative spectacle out of herself to get it. She got her acknowledgement by being the absolute best at everything she set out to do.

Best grades, best in raw business acumen, best fighter that she could be (which was why it really stuck in her craw years ago when Sakura defeated her in the only loss she'd ever had except to Naruto), best EVERYTHING. Because failure and defeat meant that she wasn't worth the attention that she so desperately sought from the one person that it mattered from the most; the one person that she also could never get it from.

Daikenjurou wasn't a weak man. He wasn't a world-class fighter, but he was a well-trained martial artist which was where Karin originally got it from, and he wasn't going to stand a child a third of his age speaking to him in such a manner. He wouldn't stand for anyone speaking to him in such a manner actually.

And he was a head and a half taller and twice as big as Naruto, which was emphasized when he went chest-to-chest with Naruto and looked down at him when the crown of the blond's spiky head didn't even reach his chin, "Are you finished boy?"

"No." Naruto said, eyes hardened as he stared up at the non-flinching older man, "I'm gonna say this and you're gonna listen. You can try to ruin my credit or whatever guys like you do to people afterwards, but I'm gonna say what I have to say first because somebody should have. Raising a kid is more than just giving them money. You didn't raise her, you paid other people to raise her. Shibazaki and Ishizaki are more like real parents to her than you are. You didn't teach her. Other people taught her and she picked everything else up herself."

The point of the smaller ninja was about to be rebut by Daikenjuro, but he stopped when he realized that he couldn't think of one, "I have a world-reaching corporation to see to. Karin was fine just the way I left her. She did not need me to give her everything. She took control from me without me ever giving her an inch to."

"She didn't need you to give her anything." Naruto agreed with that, "You're right."

Karin didn't need him to approve of her for her to excel. She did it every day all on her own. But still, that wasn't the point.

"Do you have any idea what you could have done for her if you'd have just taken enough time to tell her that you were proud of her?" The smaller, whisker-faced ninja said, "Even just once? Just one time?" The intensity of his stare softened to something melancholy, "One time in her life if you had just believed in her, and let her know that you did… I don't know man, but take it from someone that knows. I can tell you that there wouldn't have been anything more special to her in the world."

Whether he knew it or not, Naruto had already stabbed him in the chest, and what he said to finish his point was just a matter of twisting the knife in the wound.

"Karin doesn't even think you love her. So way to go." Naruto said, turning around to walk away, "You were so afraid of losing your spot at the top that you kept your own daughter away, and you still wound up losing it to her of all people anyway." He didn't even turn back to see if what he said registered with the calculated man. He had more important things to do than worry about something that was too late to fix, "Now I'm gonna go get my goddamn boss lady back."

Ibuki, Cammy, and Chun-Li just stood back the whole time that Naruto had been talking, letting him be the one to talk to Daikenjuro to tell him that they were going to be going after Karin and not to worry, but that devolved into perhaps the most scathing tirade that Naruto had ever gone on.

Usually when he was upset he would rant loudly and longly, making just enough of a point to offset the yelling and cursing. But this was visceral and to the point by comparison to how he usually flipped out. It was completely cerebral and utterly surprising.

As he walked past them back out into the hallway to leave, Ibuki's mouth was slightly agape with her chest heaving up and down slightly, "…So gonna be my boyfriend…" She mumbled to herself. The busty kunoichi had to touch around on her own face to make sure that she wasn't blushing before she aimlessly followed him out, "If he's half that passionate when we…"

She trailed off, sparing Cammy a slight glance before continuing on. She'd ask her some more in-depth questions about the actual sex when there was a more appropriate time for it.

Chun-Li just looked after her strangely before looking at Cammy with a raised eyebrow, "Did she get turned on by that?"

"Did what get turned on?" Cammy asked, turning innocent blue eyes the Chinese woman's way.

Oh, right. This was Cammy she was talking to, so certain slang terms, figures of speech, and expressions were lost on her without them being explained first. Huh… she would have figured that Naruto would have dropped that term around her enough times by now that it wouldn't go over her head.

The two of them headed off as well, leaving Daikenjuro alone in the ruined conference room. He looked around at the destruction of the recent battle and let out a sigh; a sign of weakness that he could never let another person see, "…You had better save my daughter boy."

XxX

(With Guile – Kanzuki Estate Airstrip)

"Man." Batsu said as he was helped through the back of the remaining Osprey that had been ruined by Seth's attack against Guile that had knocked him out of battle before it had really begun, "That Seth guy did this with one attack? How'd you get up again?"

"I don't know." Guile said, sitting at the cockpit as he tried to fire up the battery to run the computer, "…Come on, I don't need the damn engines to start, just give me the computer systems. Come on."

Sakura leaned against a wall and wrapped her arms around herself, "I don't like this you guys. Are things always going to be this way? It seems like every problem we fix just starts another one."

"Welcome to the wonderful world stage." Guile said, continuing to try and start up the computer, "When you're dealing with international stuff, everybody everywhere is trying to fuck you over. And it's even worse when you're really strong." He explained with a cavalier attitude, "Naruto: possible world champion, target. Kanzuki girl: Now runs the company apparently, target. Chun-Li: Interpol, target. I could go on."

He sometimes figured that Ryu had the right idea always travelling around in order to train to perfect his art. That way he made himself a much harder target. Still, it was child's play to sucker him into a trap. All you had to do was dangle a tournament with enough interesting matches in front of him and he'd be there with bells on. This would be a lot easier if they could actually find that son of a bitch to help. Even Ken didn't know where to find him most of the time.

Heh, maybe if Seth had S.I.N. sponsor a gigantic tournament or something they could get Ryu to show up without having to search high and low for him. Yeah right, that could really only happen once, and not within the span of a few months most definitely.

Batsu just let that roll around in his brain for several seconds after taking a seat down in a chair next to Guile's position, "How many freaks and jerks can there possibly be in the world that think it's a good idea to fuck with us? I mean at what point do they just say, 'Yeah, let's not bother fighting with them?'"

"Well since we just lost I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you don't really have the right to ask that question." Guile said almost sagely, even though he was totally annoyed by the facts behind it, "You can bother to fight with someone when you're sure that you're going to kick their ass, and we got our asses kicked so yeah."

The wild-haired senior student just mumbled to himself before shooting out a foot to kick the dash. He shivered in a bit of fright when he felt Guile glare at him for possibly damaging sensitive controls more than a gigantic explosion did.

"Yo!"

Sakura and Batsu left Guile alone inside to work things out while they stepped out to find that Naruto had returned with the girls, still just as grumpy as he was when he had been sitting out on the stairs originally.

Hopping off of the side of the back ramp, Sakura went over to Naruto and gave him a hug despite his being covered in that strange black material, "We'll get her. I know we will." She whispered to him consolingly.

"I'm gonna kill him Sakura-chan." Naruto said plainly, without a touch of argument behind it as he returned the gesture, "When we find Seth I'm gonna kill him. I really am."

He didn't feel clean enough to hold her, to hold a girl that pure after saying such a thing. It was like he was tainting her just by touching her and it wasn't just because he was totally filthy. He felt unclean just saying that he was going to flat out murder someone, anyone. Killing in the heat of battle was fine.

But if he felt like he'd be put in the same situation of executing Seth the way he'd had Bison in Thailand, he wouldn't hesitate for a heartbeat to stab Seth straight through the heart. If he even had one.

"Naruto…" Sakura said as he let go of her and walked away, pacing irritably, "I'm not going to tell you to calm down. I know better. But don't start to snap. Kanzuki-san wouldn't want you to run headfirst into a fight you can't win. Let's find where she is, and make a real plan."

"I know, I know." Naruto said, running his hands through his messy hair, "It just pisses me off! Rin-Rin got kidnapped by some guy that looks like a big chrome vibrator! What the fuck?" Instead of getting any kind of response from Sakura or from anyone, everyone seemed to be frozen except for Cammy who seemed to be confused again. Sakura's face was red and absolutely mortified, "What's wrong with you guys?"

Sakura looked absolutely mortified that he would say something that vulgar, so he really must have been upset, "You don't say stuff like that out loud to other people Naruto." If he absolutely had to say it he should have saved it for when he saw Seth again and started fighting him.

Luckily, something happened to sidetrack everyone's train of thought before it could devolve further.

"YES! Who doesn't know how electronics work?! Fuck the future!"

Everyone piled back inside to see Guile sitting victoriously at the cockpit of the aircraft with apparently all of the electronics in the vessel on. How he managed to do so when he looked to be the modern equivalent of the caveman trying to figure out how the wheel worked moments before was beyond the rest of them.

He answered the unasked question without even being prompted, "I kicked it about three times after trying to turn it on after I finally got mad."

"There." Batsu said, trying to justify his own earlier actions, "I knew it. I told you all it needed was a good asswhuppin'."

Everything was clearly password protected, and nobody knew the first thing about hacking to do anything about it. It looked like Guile was about to punch it again to make it work somehow, but Chun-Li wasted no time in shoving him right out of his seat with a roll of her eyes. She should have been the one to head down to the Osprey but Guile did it because it was his idea and he'd already been there. If have she'd gone instead this would have been long done by now.

A smile slowly spread across her face when she was finally able to pull up encrypted hard drive files that would undoubtedly contain the coordinates.

They were in encoded in a manner beyond basic computer make that she couldn't even begin to understand. It was what they needed though, "Alright. This is good. This is what we're looking for. We have to send this program to some Interpol hackers to work it out, but we're definitely on to something here."

Once again though, she realized who she was talking to for the most part.

Batsu's idea of firing up a computer was hitting it, and Guile's wasn't too much more advanced. Cammy and Naruto didn't really have any care for computers at all. Ibuki's electronic experience didn't get too much more advanced than operating a desktop or a laptop. The only person that kind of knew what she was referring to in the slightest was Sakura.

Right… most people didn't have to deal with cyber trails to bust criminals back when they were teenagers the way that she had to.

"Just…" Chun-Li didn't know what to say to get things across for them, "…Just… just go home or something and I'll get this to someone in Tokyo who can crack it since we're right here." She then remembered just what had occurred with Naruto's home, "Oh, that's right."

Well maybe they could just find a place to wait around for her to get things done information-wise. They were close to Tokyo, so she was about to put in a call to E. Honda to see if he could have some people over.

XxX

(Hours Later – Somewhere Overseas – S.I.N. Osprey)

Sitting in a hold set aside for prisoners, Karin couldn't figure that they could have put her under any more significant armed guard than what they had for her.

Despite being incredibly injured she was shackled with metal handcuffs holding arms behind her back and her legs together as she was stuck on the floor of a room that she figured was the hold. There were about five armed guards standing in the doorway with automatic weapons trained on her.

All that for little old her, who couldn't stand up on her own let alone fight. It was kind of funny if she weren't so upset with her current circumstances to begin with.

It was a stare-off between her and the guards that they were losing despite her being shackled and lying on her side on the ground.

How a constrained 5'3, 120 pound seventeen year-old girl could make five adult men with guns pointed at her shake in their boots despite not being able to even freely move around would be a conundrum that would plague the minds of the S.I.N.-contracted guards in the aftermath of this trip.

They originally tried to zip-tie her since that was the easiest thing, but even when she was injured she was still easily physically capable of snapping them like plastic bracelets with her arms and her legs, just to prove a point.

The icy intolerant stare of Karin turned into a red-hot sneer when the guards were shoved out of the way for Juri to look into the room and gloat over her, "Oh you look much more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed now that we're out over the open ocean. Sorry about crashing your little home visit with your family, but Seth needed you."

"So I have heard." Karin snapped as she painfully shifted her body up into some kind of sitting position to maintain some kind of dignity despite her status as a captive, "What pray tell does he need me for that would be worth invoking the wrath of my allies?"

"You'll have to ask him since you're his new pet for the time being." Juri said as she walked in and pressed Karin down onto the floor with her nearly bare foot, "He doesn't like telling people about his plans other than what he wants them to do as a part of them."

None of that sounded good in particular, but she'd taken enough proverbial body blows today that she didn't let it show on her face.

Juri just rolled her eyes though even when Karin didn't say anything and used the foot she was using to kick one of Karin's arms out from behind her back, revealing that she'd managed to somehow free herself from the binding of the handcuffs while she'd been having watch kept over her.

"Rule number one." Juri said to the guards who were watching in shock and fright, "Don't ever tie or cuff somebody's hands behind their back. If you tie someone's hands behind their back you can't see what they're doing and you'll give more creative people a chance to hide how they're escaping." She then noticed that the actual chain had been broken, "…Or in her case when people are as strong as an ox, they can just break them. I'm guessing that's why you didn't mind when we had them cuff you?"

Karin smirked from the ground despite being caught before she could make her move and nodded, "My beloved bodyguard never figured I would be in this kind of predicament, but in case I was he taught me certain things. If I weren't hurt and if you had never come along…" She trailed off leaving things up to Juri's imagination.

The kick-centric fighter looked back at the stunned guards and let out an annoyed sigh. If she had never come by to check on Karin or if she'd been just a little later to show up, Karin would have formulated some way to get an edge on them and break free because they would have figured she was still bound. Probably by feigning the need for a bathroom break.

Great, that meant that she'd have to sit there and keep watch on her to make sure she didn't try anything else funny from now on, "Get me the fucking manacles instead of these weak little wussy cuffs!" Juri demanded of some of the frightened soldiers, "This isn't just some cute little ojou-sama, she'll take your own gun and shove the stock up your ass the first chance she gets. She isn't afraid of Seth, what makes you think that just having a gun would make her afraid of you?"

"Of course I am not afraid of Seth." Karin said, still smirking underneath Juri's heel, "For all of his power he still has the appearance of an oversized, battery-powered sort of special personal object that I would keep in my nightstand."

The reference flew over Juri's head for several seconds before she finally caught up with the remark in more common speak and let out a bark of laughter, "Ha! I like that." One of the guards hustled back into the room with the hard iron manacles that would bind Karin's arms tighter and closer together with much less give and less room to move in them, "Alright, present those lovely little manicured hands or I'll stomp down until you give 'em to me."

Karin couldn't fight back and presented her hands only to have the heavy irons slapped on around her wrists. Instead of leaving her alone from that point forward though, Juri sat down on the floor right next to her with a grunt before gesturing with her hands for the guards to buzz off.

The brand new Kanzuki Zaibatsu head would have much rather preferred being left alone with just the guards again that she could scare into shaking in their boots with nothing more than a prolonged stare. But no, Juri Han merely took a load off right next to her as if they were both getting shipped off to prison in the back of a paddy-wagon or something along those lines.

Looking down at the very tight metal bindings around her hands, Karin experimentally pulled her arms away from each other to see if there was any give to them the way that the handcuffs hand, but no, they had no give to them. They looked like two solid metal cylinders around her wrists and forearms.

Juri put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back against the wall with a metal thud of her body hitting it, "You're not going anywhere, so let's chit-chat. Long flight and everything, and now I have to watch you to make sure the idiot brigade doesn't screw up again and give you a shot at getting away somehow."

"We're at sea. Where would I possibly go even if I managed to get off of the aircraft?"

"Would that question really have stopped you from trying it anyway?"

"Touché."

"So…" Juri said with a grin, "Your 'beloved' bodyguard? From what we know, Uzumaki Naruto is your bodyguard. I have to say, you probably could have done infinitely better status-wise, but when it comes to the actual man himself, mmm." She shut her eyes and licked her lips as she forced her body to shiver, "If I wasn't sure that he or Uchiha would kill me on-sight… ooh, one of those two. But I thought he was nailing Bison's little Doll. Killer Bee."

"Well." Karin said, wincing slightly at her pain-wracked body that had just been slammed into something moments before, "I know not how she honestly feels about him, or how he feels about her… or me for that matter. That is my fault for not knowing how to express myself in a romantic manner very well. But even if this does so happen to be an issue, he has this ability that I find very interesting."

"Uh huh."

"He refers to it as Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. Everyone that has witnessed him in battle has seen it, including you, I know it. I am quite certain that it has real world applications to it aside from mere combat."

"Oh." Dead silence until Juri took the time to translate in her head to Korean what that technique meant, "…_Oh_. You're a bad one at heart aren't you?"

"Naruto-san does refer to me as a she-devil in human form from time to time."

XxX

(With Naruto – Tokyo, Japan)

The Kanzuki Estate had been in the Tokyo area, and since they didn't have a flight home any longer and Chun-Li needed to get the info they'd pulled off of the Osprey computer to some Interpol folks that could get everything explained for them they remained in Tokyo.

The only person they could really go to was someone that they hadn't seen since the tournament in E. Honda.

The jovial sumo was happy to see them, but was extremely confused as to why he was seeing all of them at once, as usually Naruto visited but it was by himself or with one or two of his school-aged friends.

Upon hearing the whole situation about their ongoing struggle with S.I.N.'s seedy underbelly, their hardships in facing them, Naruto's house getting annihilated one night prior, and Karin's status as being abducted, he was quick to let them all in without delay for as long as they needed to stay around for.

Of course he first had to clear out his bathhouse business attached to the place where he made his home. Naruto was covered in weird black gunk and needed to get rid of it. He didn't need the kid freaking out patrons while he was trying to scrub that crud off.

Everyone else was taking the time to rest, heal, prepare, work, get some short training in, or whatever they felt they needed to do in the meantime for Chun-Li to get their coordinates together to use in order to find Karin.

Having finished with the hard work of removing the black taint that had been on his body, Naruto stepped out of the shower section of the bathhouse. Every inch of the skin on his body was red from how intensely he'd had to scrub with high-grade cleaning materials to get it all off, but it was steadily healing itself all.

Besides, as uncomfortable as it was it he felt like it was appropriate that he'd have to scrub off the stain of his failure. He'd failed with protecting the people that had counted on him once before with Charlie. The same thing _could not_ be allowed to happen with Karin. Not with her, and not with anyone else he loved.

He was going to get her back and he was going to bring everyone home together this time, no matter what he had to do in the process.

Exiting the showers and deciding that he needed to talk to the Kyuubi, Naruto figured that there wasn't any better place to sit and begin getting in touch with his demonic tenant than right there in the baths. Walking around to pick out one in particular, Naruto stopped when he could see a very close friend already situated in one.

Ibuki was submerged up past her chest in the water and almost seemed to be meditating… or sleeping, at least until she opened her eyes upon realizing that Naruto was looking at her. Her lips turned upward in a smile at the sight of him as she reached up and took her hair out of its adornments, letting her brunette locks spill free behind her back.

"Well don't you look all clean and such?" She commented, taking an appreciative look at the lean, toned muscles of her fellow ninja. Who knew dragging cars around junkyards and playing around in the woods would get you a cut-looking upper body like that?

Naruto kept a tighter grip on the towel around his waist as he walked over to her, "Sorry about getting you dragged into all of this. I know you've got you own problems with all of your ninja stuff. You don't need to be fighting my battles too."

"Karin is a friend of mine. It's all of our battle to fight together." Ibuki said, waving off Naruto's concern before noticing how tense he was, "You need to relax for now. I know you fight by using your emotions like a weapon, but get yourself all worked up about it when you can actually do some good with all of that energy. That isn't now."

He understood and he knew that from Japan there wasn't anything that stomping around coiled like a spring was going to do to help anyone get him the knowledge that he needed to go crack some skulls. But just because he was aware of that fact didn't mean that he could do anything to stop it.

"I know, I know." Naruto said, repeating himself from back at the airstrip as he sat down at the edge of the bath with his back to the water, "I don't know what to do. Right now I'm just standing around with my dick in my hand just waiting for other people to do something for me. I'm not used to this. I'm used to finding my own problems and solving 'em. I'm hyped, and I don't know what to do about it."

Lemon Start

Ibuki climbed out of the bath, completely uncaring about her nudity as she walked in front of Naruto and saw his eyes sunken to the floor, "Naruto look at me." The first thing his eyes focused on were her feet before slowly trailing up her dripping wet body, taking in every curve and physical proof of her womanhood. She just stood there before him, completely unembarrassed at her state of undress, "Relax. You've been firing on all cylinders since 8 this morning. That was fifteen hours ago. Your hands are shaking."

Naruto looked down at his hands to see that they were. It was a good thing that he didn't try to rely on chains of hand-seals to fight or else that could have been a problem all day today. His hands weren't the most interesting thing in the room however, and his gaze panned back up to Ibuki who was smiling lovingly at him before slowly straddling his lap.

He placed his hands on her hips and held her close as she ran her hands through his hair, "Ibuki… you-."

"Shh…" She shushed him in return, rubbing herself against his towel-clad pelvis, "You're such a passionate person. It's so easy to get you worked up about people that you care for." She tilted his head up from her chest and gave him a deep kiss that much to her surprise and pleasure stole her breath away until she pulled back, "I want to see that out of you again. Use me and work that passion out. Come on."

"You don't have to do this with me." Naruto said, internally kicking himself. Why? Why would he even say that? Who would offer an out from this situation?

"Duh I don't have to." Ibuki said with a giggle as her cheeks started to heat up at the thought of going through with her adult intentions for real, "I want to though. It'll help both of us, and it's not like letting you do me is something that I didn't want to begin with. Now… you'd better give me what you gave Cammy but better."

Yes, he could try to do that. Most definitely.

Ibuki arched her back when felt him latch his mouth onto her nipple, licking and suckling at it ravenously as if he didn't even need the prior prompting for anything other than to push him over the edge. She let out a pleased moan and started grinding herself against Naruto's ultra-hard member upon realizing that they definitely weren't playing around any longer.

If anything she had to thank Cammy, because at least she didn't have to go through the motions of coaxing him out of making it awkward. He knew what he was doing to a degree, which was only going to be good for her. From how small Cammy was in comparison to him it had clearly taught him how to be gentle with a woman.

One arm was wrapped around her waist, holding her close while he got his fill of her breasts while his other was planted firmly on her butt, pushing her tighter against him for their foreplay.

Ibuki couldn't wait around any longer just rubbing herself against something. She'd had Naruto play with her in the past and while that was fine then, this was now. The stars had aligned. They were alone, she was amorous enough to go for it, and there wasn't anything that was going to stop her from getting what she needed from him.

And he was more than willing to give it from the way one of his hands trailed down her side to right between her legs at the sweet spot, "That's right Naruto. Make me feel good." She cooed as she buried her face into the blond crown of his head when Naruto slowly slid his index and middle digits in and out of her in rhythm.

Yes, her past interactions with him to wear him down did this little relationship good.

The hot spring rendezvous from after Naruto had woken up and started to recover from the Akuma defeat took away the shyness he had toward both of their bodies, and the petting session they'd had in her room before teleporting to India definitely let her know that he'd learned from his experience with Cammy how to touch girls the right way.

Still, she didn't want him to touch her the right way. She wanted a lot more than that.

She let out a little moan before swatting his arm down when she felt him begin to finger her. It was good, just like it had been when he had snuck into her room before the mission at the dam, but that was not going to be enough, "Towel off. Towel off. Take the towel off right now!" The busty kunoichi more or less demanded.

Naruto affixed his mouth from her tit with an audible pop, "Are you asking me or telling me?" He asked with a challenging grit to his voice at being told to do something. He then found himself the subject of a rare glare from Ibuki, who simply reached down and yanked the towel off of him, "I guess you-."

"No more guessing, now fuck me." This time it was definitely a demand from how she pressed her forehead against his to stare down in his eyes, "Right now."

Roughly turning them around to the side to lay Ibuki's back down onto the elevated sill by the bath he looked down at the lovely girl to take in every bit of the figure that he was going to take advantage of. Man, that body of hers… '32-22-32. Wait, that was over a year ago. She grew some.'

Ibuki just grinned up at him, posing and spreading her legs for his benefit. The look on his face let her know that he was thoroughly seduced, as if she hadn't already known.

Almost hypnotized by the pretty pink folds of flesh, Naruto drew himself ever closer, "…Wanted to do this for a while." He said half to himself and half to Ibuki, "I didn't think Cam would be a fan of trying this if she didn't even want to kiss, but for you-." He finished before burying his face into her appealing cunt.

There wasn't any time for Ibuki to demand him to get his head up and give her what she really wanted as that complaint died in her throat when she felt Naruto's strong, soft tongue coating her core. He had never done this before? With every brush of the tongue she was doubting that more and more. Her breathy pants heaved her chest up and down, head turning from side to side as she held tight to the back of Naruto's neck as if she could pull him deeper.

Anything more she could coax from him, anything she could make him do to send her spiraling further into ecstasy, she wanted him to do it. That damnably roving tongue eventually flicked her clit and nearly drove her insane, pulling a loud cry from her that echoed through the empty bathhouse, "God! Why would you think Cammy _wouldn't_ have wanted this?"

The poor thing wouldn't know how much better her first sex with Naruto could have been until he took it upon himself to spike his resident Doll once again.

The heat pooling inside of Ibuki was growing too fast for her tastes though. She needed things to calm down. She didn't want to cum that soon. Not like this. She didn't want to expend her first orgasm with Naruto on oral sex, even if it was more incredible than she'd been expecting.

For the benefit of prolonged enjoyment from her new lover, Ibuki had to push him away with her foot on his shoulder, and it nearly killed her to do so, especially when she got a look at his face and found him to be rather displeased. He'd clearly not been finished yet from how he'd licked at his own lips while glaring at her. The taste of his kunoichi apparently wasn't something that he appreciated having taken away from him.

Ibuki sat up, flushed and red-faced and idly wondered how the hell the dominance had switched from her to him.

To hell with it, she didn't care. Licking her own lips with a half-lidded gaze obscured slightly by fallen locks of her long hair, she looked down at his erect cock and Naruto got the message without her having to say it.

From here it was definitely his show. Ibuki might have been more forward than him in her approach to force him to take her, but she had still never had sex before. Even if he'd only done it once, she was still deferring to him on how to proceed and if the lovely lass was willing to put that kind of faith in him how could he let her down?

Naruto grabbed her legs, moving them off of the ledge and turning Ibuki over onto her stomach much to her confusion. She was standing and bent, not exactly what she'd been expecting to have happen until her eyes nearly lit up upon feeling the head of Naruto's dick prod against her entrance, "Never did it like this before either." She heard his cheeky little tone. Cocky fucker, no pun intended.

"Well you're the one with experience here love. I'm here to learn." Ibuki said, getting some of her seductress back as she wiggled her bottom for him with a sly look over her shoulder, "Teach me what you want me to know senpai." Butterflies danced in her stomach, but she wasn't going to lose her nerve.

Naruto grabbed on tight to Ibuki's ample, curvy thighs and gradually gave the girl her first penetration, going slow as he gradually spread her apart and savoring the throaty moan from her that was somewhat muffled from her face being buried in her arms on the ledge. He managed to make it all the way inside with no real resistance to him other than how tight she was.

Still though, ever thoughtful he gave her a few seconds to adjust to the foreign feeling of having the full length of a man in her pussy, but Ibuki wasn't having any of that. There was an unexplained feeling of completeness inside of her and she wanted more, "I'm not some fragile little civvie girl you've got to coddle. Stop taking it so slow and bang me already!"

A tick mark rose on Naruto's head and he began to thrust in and out at his own previously established pace. Screw being nice about it, if she wanted him to wear her out that was what she was going to get. Hearing her whimper and cry out as he steadily pounded her pussy from behind only spurred him on further.

"Atta girl Ibuki." Naruto said to her as she started rocking back toward him to impale herself deeper on his stick. She was definitely not shy about it.

Pushing herself up on her elbows, Ibuki looked back lustily over her shoulder as her sounds of desire grew in volume and echoed out freely, "That's it! Ooh, I hate you for making me wait so long when I needed it like this!" Thinking about it simply wasn't the equivalent to getting her walls stretched so delightfully.

Snaking one arm under her stomach and bosom to pull her up against his chest, Naruto laid into her, shoving his forehead into the crook of her neck as he focused on lavishing love into his favorite kunoichi.

Under Naruto's breath Ibuki could hear the quiet and focused chanting of 'sorry' repeatedly and rapidly from him with every pump of the hips he was giving her. He could hear and understand her but he was so lust-driven he couldn't put a decent sentence together to apologize. That was okay, he was apologizing to her just fine right then and there.

She wanted to giggle at his expense but a particularly sharp series of strokes from her virile lover almost caused her legs to give out and made her slump forward, "Oh my God! This _totally_ can't be the second time you've done this!" She shouted in disbelief before screaming uninhibitedly.

"Grr… I found your spot." Naruto grunted out over Ibuki's now constant shrieking of passion and the wet sound of their respective sexes coming together. It was the second time he'd been with a woman, but he felt like he was getting addicted to this.

From where her hands were on the tiled surface he could see her fingers tightening and shaking from the tiny fists she had them balled up into. He had to be in heaven or something. Who or what did he have to pray to out of gratitude for the beautiful girl eager to wrap her wet, slick core around his cock?

Ibuki's mind was in a dizzy haze, the girl barely able to stand as Naruto pulled out of her and turned her around, 'Eighteen months. I've been waiting for this from him for eighteen months.' "…We're done?"

The out-of-it girl hadn't noticed that he'd sat her up on the tiled ledge only to plunge back in her again. His own moan upon the recompleted connection was lost underneath the sound of her own howl of pleasure.

She wrapped her legs around his waist tightly and took that rollercoaster as high as it would let her go, "Fuck!" Wrapping her arms tightly around his head and neck as Naruto's manhood pierced her as far in as it could go, Ibuki shook violently as she shuddered out her orgasm, and yet Naruto didn't stop. He didn't slow, because he wasn't done, 'Oh what did I start?' She thought to herself, pulling her face back far enough to shove her tongue into a very receptive Naruto's mouth.

Ibuki _did_ tell him to use her to work all of his passions out after all. She'd let him ride her out as long as he was hard enough to do so.

XxX

E. Honda's bathhouse was connected to his house so that he could run the business that he was able to purchase with his sizeable sumo winnings from home, and on his way to head over into the bathhouse to give Naruto some clothes to wear until he had to leave he stopped at the door to the main floor of the bathhouse when he heard sounds from within.

"Don't stop! Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop! OH MY GOOOOOD!"

The face-painted sumo just squinted his eyes at the obvious sound of a woman being taken to paradise and didn't even bother opening the door at that point. He'd bust Naruto's chops about it later, but he doubted he would even care from the way he was making Ibuki cry out, "Makes me wish I was seventeen again."

He felt kind of bad for his employees who would have to clean the place where the teenagers made love after they were done, but hey… at least it wasn't him that had to clean it.

XxX

(Naruto's Mindscape)

The last thing Naruto remembered doing in the real world before dozing off was cuddling up with an exhausted and sexually satisfied Ibuki in one of the tubs to relax after their little workout. She was so sexy, purring against his chest with her eyes closed in slumber.

But hey, hey, that had nothing to do with this, because he wasn't in a bath with her in his mind. He now stood in front of a titanic cage with the Kyuubi behind it.

"What's going on Kyuubi?" Naruto asked, standing before the great beast. Like the Kyuubi or hate it, it had good enough timing to leave him alone while he was getting his fill of sexy kunoichi. Some gratitude had to be given for that, "You wanted to talk?"

"**Well first of all well done, I just wanted to say that."** The massive fox said with a shadowy grin behind the bars of his cage, **"True, complimenting the appearance of a human would be akin to you complementing a mouse, but I am aware of the fact that the girl you just mated with is seen by your species as extremely beautiful. I wasn't healed enough to applaud you the first time this happened."**

As odd as it was to get a verbal pat on the back from the fox inside of his body for getting laid, Naruto still wanted to be cordial at least after how things between them had changed, "…Thank you?"

"**Now down to business. Do you remember what I told you?"**

"About making a deal with you to get your help for more chakra."

"**Yes."**

Naruto clenched his knuckles until they were red from the pressure. Whatever he had to do, as long as it wouldn't hurt anyone that didn't deserve it, it would be fine with him. Karin came before his comfort in dealing with the Kyuubi, "What do you want me to do?"

"**First let's talk about something else."** Kyuubi said casually, **"There's no rush. The passage of time when we're both here moves very differently in case you haven't noticed."** He waited for any refusal from Naruto but received none, prompting him to continue, **"I want to ask you a question we've spoken of before. What is your opinion of returning to the Elemental Nations now? The last time we spoke of this was around one year ago."**

"I don't know." Naruto remarked with a shrug, "There's more important stuff going on than me ever going back. If I ever do that's cool I guess, but right now I want something more important." His desire to return to Konoha had waned heavily over the last year with everything that had happened to him and his loved ones here.

The Kyuubi stared long and hard at Naruto. That answer wasn't what it had been looking for. It still sounded like he had been hedging his bets like a politician with that response. **'Make a hard choice Naruto. Show me the kind of human that I know you are.' "I'm going to give you two options, and I will only do one for you. I can give you a way to control at least double the amount of power that you can wield as of now, or… I can let you in on the method that you used to come to this world to begin with."**

"Wow! You can give me that much control just like that?" Naruto responded spiritedly without missing a beat, "There's got to be a catch Kyuubi. Using three tails feels like my brain's in a sauna but you can let me get at least six?"

Okay, the second part of that offer just went straight over his head. He'd be surprised if Naruto even heard it… and that was exactly what Kyuubi had been hoping for as far as an answer went.

An empty promise that had become obsolete years ago was not more important than the people that he loved here and now. At this point he had been amongst his allies in this world longer than he had been a registered Konoha ninja. Other than that, the chakra creature was not a fan of returning to a place such as that anyway.

"**Very well. I will show you what you need to do to gain more control of my chakra. No tricks."** The Kyuubi said, getting a fist pump from the heavens from Naruto, **"But first, our arrangement. I need you to do something." **As Naruto stood at the ready for the terms of their agreement, Kyuubi gestured underneath its chin for something to move forward.

Interested, Naruto squinted into the darkness until it was no longer necessary. When he was able to see what had come from the Kyuubi's half of the cage, Naruto glared at the fact that he was staring at himself, only with dark and warped eyes, "…You." Naruto said.

Dark Naruto wasn't smirking and didn't seem to be spoiling for a battle or for control this time, "You didn't think it would be that easy to get rid of me did you?"

"I kind of did."

"It wouldn't have gotten rid of you so why would you think it would get rid of me? I am you after all."

Naruto and his darker half shared a chuckle at that. Good point. All Naruto did was make his darker half's logic falter in the face of what was going on around him. Even so, he was ready for a fight. He could only imagine what the Kyuubi's request would entail. Win a final battle of wills to the finish for his body against his dark half seemed like it was leading the way.

"**I need-, no, you need to accept this half as a part of you." **The Kyuubi said, **"The two of you can control the same amount of my power even though your dark half can do so easier. Working together in tandem you can control more than you could separately."**

"Why?"

"**Both of you use different methods to establish a measure of control over my power. The Naruto that is usually in control utilizes sheer will power to force his body to access my chakra, imposing his will is a good way to describe it as he does so with a mantra that he will not let it control him. The dark Naruto easily accepts the more malevolent portions of my power without a thought to the possible outside consequences of doing such, to freely embrace the aspect that destroys. Both of those things can only take you so far without the other."**

So what the hell was it saying then?

"**I'm proposing that the two of you share control when accessing my power past what only one of you could control otherwise. It's a fundamental difference between how the two of you operate, wired in the two of you that cannot be remedied with mere training."** The Kyuubi looked at the light Naruto, **"So do you want to struggle for two years to obtain control over one or two extra tails at best, or are you willing to accept that other half of you that drives your darker thoughts."**

"I want to kill Seth." Dark Naruto said with an angry, emphatic sneer on his face, "I want to kill him more than you. He took Rin-Rin away to do Kami knows what to her… and the way he held her under his arm and threw her away to deal with us… like she was _nothing_." He let out a bit of a dark chuckle, "Heh, whenever you were so pissed you couldn't even think of anything else, where did you think you were getting it from?"

Every dark thought of seeing just how attached that stupid yin-yang thing was to the rest of Seth's body the hard way was Dark Naruto. Every thought of holding Seth down and using Rasengan on his head until he could see what the inside of his head was made of was Dark Naruto.

When he got out of this conversation with himself and his inner chakra monster, Naruto figured that he needed to give Ibuki a good long kiss or something that meant a massive thank you for giving him an incentive to break his dark train of thought with her body. He figured his thoughts had been getting blacker and blacker in regards to revenge, and now he knew why.

It was as if the Kyuubi could see that Naruto was thinking about just how legitimate this could be, even though it had already given him its word, **"This is the only quick way I can personally give you without you learning how the seal that binds me truly works."** There was still skepticism there, and with good reason. It had tried to take control of his body once with the use of four tails and only Akuma tearing him a new one stopped that potential hellstorm, **"I owe you. Now do you want to learn the hand-seals or not?"**

Naruto looked up at the Kyuubi and then over to his dark side before speaking to Dark Naruto intently, "If I trust you with this, give you half of the influence over this body when the time comes, Karin comes first. If you don't accept that, I'm pulling the plug, I'm fighting you with everything that I've got, even if it gets us killed. I'm not getting my body taken over again, even by myself."

"I want her back too." Dark Naruto said, glaring at Naruto for even insinuating that he'd put anything before getting his captive boss lady back, "Anything that gets in my way, even you... well I'm pretty sure you know how that's gonna end."

Yes, he had been obsessive to the extent that he felt killing everything that they loved was the only option for them, but the events of the Second World Warrior Tournament put the kibosh on that mindset.

The two sides of the same coin just stared each other down, neither backing down until both of them extended their hands at the same time and shook on it. If the dark side was going to hang out in his soul no matter what… he might as well put it to use even if it was dangerous to do so.

XxX

(Real World – E. Honda's Trophy Room)

Being a highly successful sumo, E. Honda's office had a ton of the accolades he had obtained over his career lining the walls and his desk, but more importantly it was a quiet place for Chun-Li to get her much needed intelligence from the people she'd sent off encrypted files from the onboard Osprey computer to.

It must have been a slow day, or there were Interpol hackers trying to get on her good side because they'd worked double-time to get the job done. While they hadn't gotten into even one percent of what had been on that hard drive, they'd managed to get what was most important for Chun-Li first and foremost.

"Those coordinates are where?" She asked with an incredulous look on her face, phone to her ear as she listened to what her hacker contact was telling her, "That doesn't make any damn sense. There's no stop-offs in a hidden place to refuel or anything? There's no way that an Osprey can go that far in one straight shot."

"_I'm telling you what we found. One final set coordinates straight through, across the Pacific. You said they were experimenting with new self-sustaining engines didn't you? This could be how powerful those things are. Anyway, I'm telling you what we found. That's all."_

"…Las Vegas, Nevada in the United States though?"

"_Read the coordinates baby. Now about that payment on this rush job you had me get my people to run…"_

She rolled her eyes but acquiesced regardless, "Yeah, I'll go on one date with you. But it has to be after I finish with the investigation. We're kind of on the clock here. And if your guys are still working, tell them to start on anything with BLECE in the title. I don't know if that's an acronym or what."

"_Got it. Just don't die out there, and make sure you get something sexy to wear on the date. Being seen in pictures with a girl like you on Facebook afterwards would get me so much-."_

"Later." Chun-Li said before hanging up the phone. So… they were going to Vegas now. Why Vegas? What the hell would S.I.N. have a base in Vegas for? It wasn't on the books otherwise they would have known about it after starting the investigation, so it was strictly for something like the dam in India more than likely.

Stepping out of the office, she cleared her throat before cupping her hands to her mouth and calling out for the others.

"Assemble!"

Sakura was front and center from the room E. Honda used to train at home as were Guile and Cammy while Batsu slogged into the hall from a room where he'd been getting some sleep.

It took a bit longer, but E. Honda ambled into the hallway after a loud knocking noise came from elsewhere in the house. And then roughly a minute or so later, Naruto and Ibuki sprinted into the hallway much to the sumo's apparent amusement.

"Guile." Chun-Li said first, saving any questions she had about why the last two to arrive did so at the exact same time looking so flustered for later, "We need transport on the double to the U.S. Las Vegas."

"On it." Guile said, waving over his shoulder as he walked away to go and handle that while everyone else seemed surprised about the name-drop of their destination.

"The rest of you, how's your English?"

Cammy: "Fluent."

Sakura: "Fluent."

Ibuki: "Ah… good enough I guess."

Naruto: "I've been to America already. My English is pretty good. We're really going to Las Vegas though? Ken told me all about that place."

Batsu: "My English is way better than my Chinese or my Thai, but I can't go."

That got everyone to look at him in amazement. He didn't want to go? He always wanted to go and mix it up with the bad guys, "What?" Sakura asked out of curiosity, "What's the matter? Why don't you want to go?"

"I want to go." Batsu replied before pointing to his hastily bandaged wounds, "But I'm hobbling around already here. The last time this sort of happened in Thailand I was a liability. Unless you think knocking on their front door and asking for your rich girl back is gonna get her, I'm pretty much only gonna be good for distance support, and I suck at that."

They were all fairly beaten up to varying degrees, but Batsu's actually might have required a hospital visit. Instead of doing that though, he tried to sleep it off and apparently it hadn't worked to fix much of anything.

"But it's Vegas B." Naruto said, "Vegas. Think about what we can do after we get Karin back."

"I _know_." Batsu sounded almost forlorn at missing out on this one, "I don't know if it'll be better than Bangkok or Hong Kong was, but I can't do it." Damn it, Batsu was their heavy. That was going to be a pretty big blow to take to their manpower, "I can't walk off the same injuries people get in head-on car crashes like you can." It had only been a few hours since Seth had picked him apart, "Get a replacement."

"Like who?" As soon as Naruto asked that question his eyes widened as if a light bulb had gone off and he placed his hand out for someone to give him something, "I need a phone. Mine is kind of broken and covered in black stuff."

Sakura shrugged and handed over hers only to watch Naruto easily punch in a number without taking a moment to say anything else, "Naruto, where are you calling? It's midnight. Nobody's going to be awake."

Naruto just waited through the tone, tapping his foot impatiently on the ground until someone finally picked up, _"Who is this? What do you want? And how did you get this number? Answer quick or you can talk to Frenchy here."_ What a mean and cordial way to refer to Abel.

"You awake Sasuke?" Naruto asked, leaving no doubt on the table that it was him calling.

"…_Fuck, I'm hanging up now."_

"Come on! You said call you if I had Juri Han."

"_You have Juri?"_

"No."

"_So I'm hanging up."_

"She's gonna be in Vegas! If you don't get her there you're not getting a better chance to pin her down anytime soon!"

"_Like 'America' Vegas?"_

"Like 'The Hangover' Vegas."

"_I didn't see that movie dobe. I have better things to do than go out of my way to watch American movies."_

"You didn't-? Are you out of your-? Nevermind, that's not important. Yes. Las Vegas. So are you in or are you out?"

"_Tch. I don't need you to go to America. But you're actually gonna chase after somebody to fight? You must really want revenge for that crappy apartment of yours that they took out don't you?"_

"They took Karin."

And without prompting, the mood swung in the opposite direction with no more playing around or taking jabs at one another between the two of them. Sasuke might not have been the biggest fan of the people that Naruto kept around him, but he wasn't heartless, and he could understand just how high the stakes were right then and there.

"…"

"…"

"…_Call me when you're on the way. I'll get ready. Frenchy's coming too."_

"Tomorrow." Naruto hung up the phone and lobbed it back over to Sakura before walking off past the others to go get in touch with the Kyuubi again. He had some hand-seals he needed to spend the rest of the night memorizing.

* * *

><p><strong>Okay, now that the fanservice portion of this story arc is finished for now it's time to get to the travellin' and the stompin' and the other stuff. Now I've got to do some entrepreneur stuff for one of the last two classes I need to make... and I don't have any ideas at all yet to make some money without spending more than $50, but I have a month to do it or I don't graduate, so game on.<strong>

**Who has two thumbs and is six weeks away from the real world tapping him on the shoulder and slapping him across the face?**

**Hopefully this guy.**

**Kenchi out.**


	48. What's Mine is Mine

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Street Fighter. Which is a shame. It's almost enough to make you cry… doesn't it? Does it make you want to cry for me? No?

…You guys are coldblooded.

**Chapter 48: What's Mine is Mine**

* * *

><p>A riverside bridge in an open park in Aohura City was the agreed upon meeting point if Sasuke was looking for a ride to America without having to jump through hoops and make tons of arrangements in a city he'd never been to; Las Vegas.<p>

He figured he'd been given the correct coordinates to wait at because after an hour or two of hanging out he was joined by others. First by a small teenage brown-haired girl in a blue school uniform with a pink bow at her neck and a white headband around her head. Batsu's girlfriend Wakaba Hinata. She was there for… whatever reason she was there for.

And yes, Uchiha Sasuke was aware enough of Naruto's friends to know that much about their personal lives, especially since everyone who knew everyone in this town was a fairly capable fighter, including this girl apparently. Who knew if it'd save his ass one day or not?

Alright, so he was definitely in the right place if nothing else. And apparently she found him disengaging enough to just sit off on the side of the bridge railing instead of trying to make small talk and shoot the breeze with him. That was good. It was clear that she was bored and wanted to have some sort of a conversation from how her legs were fidgeting, but constantly scowling and looking all standoffish was enough to dissuade her.

Eventually he turned his head to find Abel making his way onto the bridge, dressed in a blue gi and white vale tudo shorts, "Sorry for being late monsieur." He said in a quiet, aloof manner as he seemed to be followed by Akira, "This girl was rather… pushy requesting to be taken to you when she had been wearing her helmet. She is a friend of yours, no?"

"Yeah." Sasuke said as Akira did nothing more than just take a place standing with him, leaning against the bridge railing and not saying a word, "Don't worry about it. You're still early. The idiot isn't here yet."

"Oh God, what happened to your arm?" Hinata asked, pointing out the still bandaged stump beneath Abel's elbow. Certain things she just couldn't ignore or stay quiet about, spirited as she usually was. Seeing someone missing part of their anatomy basically pushed that over the edge.

"It isn't that bad an injury madame." Abel said, trying to brush off something that had basically almost killed him, "You shouldn't concern yourself with it."

As Hinata started asking Abel questions about what exactly had happened to him, Akira put a hand on Sasuke's arm and looked up at him, getting him to raise an eyebrow at her, "You'll be careful?" She asked, almost quiet enough to be a whisper, "You do a lot of reckless things."

"It doesn't matter." Sasuke said in return, "It'll be fine. I do this kind of thing all of the time."

"Even so… I enjoy having you around." Akira admitted, tapping her fingers on the motorcycle helmet she held under her arm, "I'd like you to promise that you'll come back."

"I'm not going to do that." Completely unfazed by the almost pleading way that Akira had asked him to make her a promise, Sasuke barely even blinked. He didn't make promises. Who was he, Naruto?

Right then, Akira figured that she'd made an error. But it was after her brother had accepted her choice to try and pursue Sasuke, after they had been getting rather close (by their respective standards), and even after hearing from Daigo that Sasuke had actually come to visit her a few times in the hospital while she'd been asleep after she'd been injured by Juri.

Even so, any sort of personal commitment just wasn't Sasuke's style. Any sort of show of emotion other than annoyance and occasional anger, especially anything positive, was extremely rare. She should have known better than to try and coax something like that out of him, and the frown that overtook her face was because she did indeed realize this.

"I don't have to promise that I'm coming back because I'm not going to lose." Sasuke continued, speaking as if it were as simple as that. As if it were as much of a foregone conclusion as the next breath he was going to take, "I'm going to win, and then I'm going to fly back here, and you'll find me in that stupid restaurant being tormented by that old bastard gnome Gen, just like always."

He didn't have to make a promise that he was going to come back and things would be just as he left them.

For some reason despite vehemently refraining from making a promise that Akira had asked him to make, his reply set her at ease and put a smile on the quiet biker girl's face. She started to reach out to try and hold his hand, but stopped herself from doing so. Holding hands _definitely_ wouldn't have been the kind of thing that Sasuke would have been okay with, even on his best tempered day.

Sasuke saw the subtle motion out of the corner of his eye, but made no action one way or the other regarding what he knew she had wanted to do. Instead his eyes flickered over into the direction where he could hear helicopter blades, eventually seeing one come their way.

In a matter of moments it had found a clear open spot to land in the grass. Everyone that had been waiting wandered over to it to see Guile flying before the doors open up to reveal Naruto and Batsu in the back, "You sure you don't want to try to go?" Naruto asked the darker-skinned teenager as the latter climbed out painstakingly, "You don't have to actually fight on the trip."

"Nah, if I'm not fighting I'll just be an empty place-filler." Batsu said, wincing as his feet touched the ground, "This ain't the time for that. Don't worry, I'll sit this one out. Just make sure you hit that chrome son of a bitch a few good times for me." His eyes then moved over to the sight of the company that they had, on one person in particular running up to them ,"Besides, I think I'll have enough fun here healing."

"Batsu-kun!"

He found himself grabbed in a big hug by his smaller girlfriend who immediately started fretting over the clear and visible bandaged injuries. Yeah, Naruto was sure that a lot of 'healing' was going to take place while Batsu was temporarily sidelined. Like he was one to talk though after last night, so he kept to himself on that one.

The next group that Naruto saw coming their way was Sasuke, Abel, and Akira. He could guess which two were actually going to come along on this little trip since Akira had not been discussed as a passenger, "Ready to go to Vegas?"

"Vegas? As in Las Vegas?" Akira muttered under her breath. She'd heard about that place. TV featuring or portraying America in some way referenced that place all the time. It wasn't exactly the kind of place she wanted Sasuke to go to. Thus she glared at Naruto, whom she had never particularly been a fan of for several reasons over the years.

In this case it was all his fault that Sasuke would be going to an incredibly sinful city that did not tie in with his personality, and if anything off-kilter happened to besmirch Sasuke's admirable character while he was there she would be blaming the previously aforementioned blond dunderhead.

And he would suffer the consequences for it. It didn't matter that he was disgustingly more powerful than her. There were more ways than simply trying to fight him to do it.

A shiver went down Naruto's spine as once again he found himself the subject of a very cold Kazama Akira glare. He seemed to get those quite often when in her presence. Hers wasn't quite as scary as one from Karin or as blood-chilling as receiving one from Cammy, but it was effective for the kinds of people she would probably usually level it upon.

Geez, you grab a girl's boob one time by semi-accident and she holds a grudge for that long? Come to think of it, he couldn't remember actually ever apologizing for that. Maybe that was part of the problem? Meh, whatever.

"…Right." Naruto said, tearing his gaze away from hers before she turned him to stone like Medusa. What was important at the time was getting Sasuke and getting the hell on the way to Vegas, "Anyway, you ready to go?"

"Yeah sure." Sasuke said, gesturing for Abel to climb into the helicopter first while Sasuke bid Akira farewell. The heartfelt departure in its entirety consisted of Sasuke curtly nodding his head upward and Akira offering a small smile in return while giving him a short, single wave.

You could just feel the abundance of sentiment within those elaborate gestures.

After Sasuke entered the aircraft, the door was shut and Naruto tapped Guile on the shoulder to prompt him to take off. Getting a thumbs up as he began to work the controls, the helicopter ascended and flew off to where their real transport was waiting for them.

Plopping back down in his seat, Naruto lolled his head back and let out a sigh. It was only a matter of time until the game would be afoot, and it couldn't come his way soon enough. He was going to wreck that jerk Seth, no matter what it took.

To occupy his time for a bit he kept his eyes closed and slowly ran through the short hand-seal combination that would activate his ace-in-the-hole jutsu, without placing any of the chakra behind it.

Not finding the scenery from above very interesting, Sasuke turned his attention to Naruto, finding something strange about him. Stranger than normal. He didn't think that Naruto could focus on anything outside of combat, but there wasn't anything reading on Naruto's face other than outright concentration on the task at hand.

Wow. He was a different kind of angry this time. That kind of special breed of pissed off that made you all the more functional because of it and let you zero in on a target. Tunnel-vision pissed. Sasuke knew it well.

Well, as weird as it was, at least it would keep Naruto's mouth shut for much of the trip while he pondered all the ways he would tear S.I.N. a new one.

XxX

(Some Time Later – United States of America – 20 Miles West of Las Vegas, Nevada – Spring Mountains)

Karin's manacles were completely annoying, as were the tacky white clothes that she had been presented to change into after getting cleaned up from the ordeals of the last two days. There was nothing wrong with them as far as poise went, but she felt that the tennis dress she'd been taken captive in was more elegant than what they'd given her to wear after getting her to their base.

At least they were learning, as the entire reason they'd taken her own clothes away, aside from them being rather dirty, was due to the fact that they didn't know what else she would try in order to break free if given the opportunity.

So between the armed guards watching her around the clock, restrictions on her arms and legs, a room that had a one-way mirror of a wall (and was _far_ beneath her station as far as amenities went), and a complete lack of positive human interaction, she was quite effectively subdued.

That didn't stop her from still trying to come up with some way to break free from her captives however, but it was very slow going.

'Whatever S.I.N. desires with me cannot be good.' Karin thought to herself as she sat in a chair and pulled futilely at the manacles clasped around her forearms that held them together, 'For me, the zaibatsu, or anyone in general.'

The moment they'd gotten back, Seth immediately threw himself into working with some scientist that had greeted them upon their arrival. She never particularly liked science, and had a foreboding feeling in the pit of her stomach as far as this went. A little too coincidental for a scientist to be Seth's main concern after capturing her, who was supposedly important to his plans at-large.

Hopefully they wouldn't find it necessary to experiment on her. Scientific experiments had a habit of turning the subjects into quite unsightly beings.

Down around her ankles she also had restraints, keeping her from being able to do anything more than walk at a fairly brisk pace. So she would definitely not be fighting with all of that crap on. She could take no martial arts stance, nor could she effectively defend herself. She wasn't completely helpless, but she was as close to helpless as she'd ever been in her entire life.

The door to her room/cell slid open, and in walked Seth, towering and hulking in the same formal wear he'd been dressed in at her family's mansion. His usual chilling smile was on his face as he stopped and simply observed her, "I want you to come with me. There's something I want to show you." He seemed to be rather proud of himself for whatever reason.

Karin wasn't particularly in a position to decline. All she could really do was stand and walk herself with as much dignity as she could, prisoner or not. She didn't say a word, simply wandering out into the hall into a circle created by her armed guard. She hoped that it would at least separate her from Seth, but that deplorable lifeform merely entered her protective barrier and stood by her side as he led them along.

She wasn't going to say a word to him. The last thing she'd said, about how Naruto was going to kill him, had been all the peace she'd needed to speak. She would not dignify a creature so foul with another word, hence her silence ever since being taken off of the aircraft that had brought them there.

Everything there looked and felt so cold and sterile. A man could go mad living in a place designed as such.

"Let me welcome you to the science wing of our Southwest U.S. base." Seth said, smiling over and down at her as if thinking of a joke, "Of course we have many bases all over the world, but this one is particularly important right now. We've had a breakthrough here."

Karin put out an appearance of not caring, but her eyes couldn't help but to follow to where she was directed to look after they entered through the heavy iron security doors of the aforementioned science wing, because the resulting series of thuds on the unbreakable glass window made her jump in surprise.

Behind the glass a red-skinned human, at least she thought it was a human, pounded away at the glass and tried to break its way free. It alternated from beating on the glass and the even more secure door to make its escape.

"What in God's name…" Karin muttered quietly to herself, walking closer to the glass to get a better look. The man was berserk. His muscles and veins all over his body were swollen to twice that of what they appeared that they should have been. His skin was blotched with black spots, almost making him seem like a plague victim, "…Is this?"

"Finally breaking your 'vow of silence' I see." Seth chuckled before leading her onward, "This is the incomplete version of what BLECE is meant to do. It enhances the human condition, but at the cost of mankind's sense of reason, and all emotion other than rage."

Clearly self-preservation or any sort of reserve wasn't present in the creature due to how it was hurting itself just to try and get out to kill all of the people it could see outside.

"He's not really so threatening." Continued the artificial overlord, "If you want things set in layman's terms, were he to break free it would possibly cost the lives of at least ten of the humans here, not counting yourself were you not bound of course. From what I know of you, you would be able to easily acquit yourself against him."

"You did not count yourself." Karin pointed out, keeping from looking at Seth as they continued onward.

"That's because I am beyond human comprehension." Seth said before gesturing to the next observation window where there were S.I.N. scientists in heavy white quarantine suits cleaning up what could only be construed as a mess of humanity, "What you saw before was a partial success; 17 percent rate of occurrence. This is an outright failure of the project, complete destruction of the cells; 72 percent rate of occurrence."

Why was he showing her this? She had no idea. What did he expect her to say aside from the obvious of referring to him as a monster? A 72 percent chance of turning the recipient into slurry and a 17 percent chance of turning them into a berserk subhuman? What did the remaining 11 percent do?

Seth continued to lead her along, still surrounded by his armed guard, "You may be wondering why I'm doing this. What I could possibly hope to accomplish with BLECE and why I'm even showing it to you at all."

Yes, but once again she wasn't going to say anything.

"I'm going to destroy this world and build something better my dear, and the Kanzuki Zaibatsu's worldwide distribution system is going to help me do it." Seth said, leading her into another place where there was an entire platoon of men and women in formation with pitch black eyes, wearing tight black military gear with the S.I.N. symbol emblazoned on the front, "Let me introduce to you the 11 percent."

They were soldiers. His soldiers. And they were the 11 percent outcome of whatever BLECE was supposed to do?

"These men and women are the pinnacle of humanity." Seth explained, waving his hand to signal for all of them to begin generating ki as easily as breathing, "The original intention of the BLECE project began back when Master Bison was still in control of Shadaloo. He wanted an easy way to create and replace high level fighters to serve his cause or to be lent for money to militaries all over the world. He had the Dolls, and they were superior to all of these people you see before you, but they took far too much time to train and condition."

"You're making an army?" Karin asked, looking them over. So eerie.

"Yes and no." Seth admitted, "At first with the failure of the project to create any discernable subjects at all I was content with using it as a weapon, but with the samples we've obtained from the Bison clone known as 'Abel' we've finally been able to raise the success rate of BLECE's application to 11 percent. Aside from that, it's still extremely viable as a weapon, and that's where your company comes in."

"_You _are the arms company." Karin told him with a glare, "You distribute it. If anyone is fool enough to try to use such a horrid creation they would purchase it from you and not from us. I do not care what you do to me."

The grin that spread across the chrome-skinned creature's face was absolutely inhuman.

"You think BLECE would be a sanctioned weapon?" Seth said with a laugh, "Silly girl. You could never sell this without putting it on the black market, and aside from that this is not meant to be sold. It will be smuggled in many of the other goods your zaibatsu has a hand in, and distributed to millions. Billions even."

So only 11 percent of those infected would survive in any workable fashion? And then what? This was beyond madness. How could anyone justify doing something like this to the entire world? There were definitely ways to get this to happen. Pharmaceuticals, food distribution, the avenues were numerous.

"And you think I would allow that!?"

"You will not have a choice." Seth said, never ceasing in his grinning, "I said that Master Bison's method of creating the Dolls was unwise if one wanted enhanced conventional forces. You could not train a large group in this manner. However, for focusing on a small group, especially one person in particular, it has proven to be very effective in breaking young women such as yourself."

Whatever was done to Cammy, whatever was done to the rest of the Dolls to turn them into soulless assassins, Seth planned on putting her through the same treatment. But that was foolish. That kind of treatment would have to take months, if not years, to enact in its entirety.

"If you're of the mindset that it will take an extensive amount of time to break you…" Seth said, cutting off her train of thought before she could really get started, "…You would be mistaken. To train the Dolls, records show that it took six months in total at the longest before they were field ready. I don't need you field ready. I simply need you to be obedient enough to carry out my orders for your company of your own 'free will'."

"Do you really think it will be that easy to subdue me?" Karin snapped in a low hiss, "I have already told you; I will not allow it."

"It doesn't matter if you attempt to resist or not. The longest any of them held out before breaking was one month. The shortest; one week" And at that he decided to let her in on a little secret that made her sent a chill of fear down her spine, "Killer Bee wasn't the one that lasted the longest despite being the best of them, so strength and ability have absolutely nothing to do with this."

With that being said, Seth left the circle of guards. Karin angrily bared her teeth at him in a snarl and looked as if she were about to attack him despite her current state. The two dozen guards all aimed her rifles at her, and even the special BLECE-enhanced S.I.N. soldiers seemed ready to pounce if she made a move.

Shackled and manacled as she was, against that many she wouldn't stand a ghost of a chance.

"Do not fret my dear." Seth said as he walked away, "When it's all over you won't remember that it even happened. You won't remember anything I don't want you to."

"I would kill you if I were able." Karin said softly.

"But you can do no such thing. No mere human can. Now take her away, and make sure the Lady Kanzuki enjoys the rest of her time before all preparations for her conditioning are complete."

Karin blinked back the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes, losing only one that slid down her cheek as she was led back to her cell. This was not going to happen. The entire world was not going to be led to ruin because of her family's company. Because of her.

She needed something, anything. She needed someone to save her. For once in her life, there wasn't anything she could do to get herself out of her dire predicament. There was no combination of intelligence and force that she could provide to allow herself an avenue to escape and succeed.

It was the only time that she could possibly remember where she felt entirely powerless.

'Naruto-san…' It was the first name that Karin could think of as she was led away. The only person she knew that could be counted on to save her, 'I need you.'

"_There isn't anything I wouldn't do to protect you."_

Despite his apparent status as her bodyguard, she never needed or asked him to fight any battle for her. She fought alongside him time and time again, whether he wanted her to or not. But now she so desperately wanted to believe in him, 'Please.'

XxX

(Some Time Later – With Naruto – Outside of Las Vegas – Mojave Desert)

Whether or not it kept him down for too long or not, Seth still beat Naruto's ass the first go-around. One could tout that the chrome being had the whole element of surprise thing, but the fact of the matter was that he was strong enough to repel three tails in one move. Even with surprise, it would have taken some serious, Bison-esque firepower to pull that one off.

Hell, with three tails, Naruto still overpowered Bison only with Cammy's assistance after his friends had already tired him out elsewhere on his base.

Ugh, that was irrelevant. It had occurred a full calendar year ago, thus it was an extremely dated reference to his own strength. He had become stronger since then and he knew it. Still though, it took up residence in the back of his mind.

Still, he had lost some really tough battles in that span of time.

He hadn't defeated Sagat for real in their tournament match, and then there was always the big, open wound on his ego known otherwise as the run-in with Akuma that put him out of commission for a full month.

But those hadn't been with anything ultra-important on the line. Not like this.

The ride out to the coordinates taken from S.I.N.'s grounded aircraft had to be done by dropping off those heading in with a stealth helicopter. Guile was piloting, which meant that he couldn't go in himself as he had to look out for the military's merchandise that he was being allowed to use.

Despite giving Guile access to the helicopter, he was not to engage the enemy directly. The U.S. military was officially not sanctioning any sort of aggressive actions on S.I.N. for multiple reasons, most notable of them being that they supplied the best weaponry available to buy. This meant that there wouldn't be any backup outside of what they already brought.

Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Ibuki, Cammy, and Abel. Chun-Li wasn't cleared to pursue a direct conflict with S.I.N. either, as despite the evidence she had managed to stockpile, Interpol hadn't managed to get things through all of the red tape necessary to sign off on an official mission for her. It probably wouldn't have been too popular with her higher-ups to send their strongest agent off to fight with an arms company with only kids as backup.

Sitting in the helicopter, the entire party set to fight the upcoming battle sat in relative silence. Sasuke's face was fixed in a scowl, arms crossed over his chest even as he tried to rest his eyes before he was needed. Abel absently rubbed the vacant space beneath his forearm that Juri had severed during their first meeting.

Every so often, Abel's eyes drifted over to Cammy who chose to comfortably rest her head on Naruto's lap until action was needed to be taken. He still had no idea how to talk to his little sister/cousin/whatever-she-was. He didn't know how things were supposed to work with genetic copies.

She did seem to be happy living with Naruto though. Content. They had spoken briefly during the flight, and Abel had learned that even though Cammy didn't remember anything that she'd done before getting her amnesia short of what came to her in sparse nightmares, she was just fine living on as she was.

Sitting on the other side of Naruto, Sakura regarded the grave expression on his face for several minutes before reaching out to grab his hand, "You're not going to lose it when we get started are you?"

"No, I'm mellower now." Naruto assured Sakura, looking over at Ibuki and giving her a smile, "Thanks for that by the way." He said cryptically, at least as far as Sakura and mostly everyone else onboard the aircraft were concerned, "I really mean it."

"The pleasure was all mine." The kunoichi basically purred in return, her Cheshire smile hidden by the facemask of her ninja outfit, "Just make sure that when this is over you're still alive. No dumb hero stuff. I still need you more than anyone knows."

From the front of the helicopter, Chun-Li let out a groan that went unheard by everyone except for Guile, who was up there with her piloting. She had long since figured out what had transpired back at E. Honda's place in Tokyo, "…Teenagers."

"Aren't you only twenty-one?" Guile replied, getting a roll of the eyes from the Interpol agent.

Sasuke opened his eyes from his temporary resting position at the utterance of Naruto's words from before, "Don't get mellow idiot. The second we set foot off of this thing you'd better fight to kill, no matter who's in the way. That goes for all of you, because if you don't-." He then grabbed Abel's arm and lifted it to show the stump, "…-This will happen to you. And the bitch that did this isn't even the leader."

"-Or the strongest." Sakura added on after the fact, "No combination of any of us has ever beaten Juri anyway, and she's not even the biggest threat."

"You're not losing your nerve are you Sakura-chan?" Ibuki asked. She was the only one there that had never fought Juri at all, so she lacked the direct experience of just how violent that sadistic woman could be. She'd heard and seen enough to know that she was ultra-dangerous though, "We can't turn back now."

"I don't want to turn back." Sakura insisted. Karin might have been the first rival she'd ever had and a headache at times, but she was one of them. Their friend. There was no way Sakura would just sit back and let this happen if there was something she could do about it, "I'm just saying, our track record isn't really the best against her so far."

"So what?" Naruto said, squeezing Sakura's hand encouragingly, "My lifetime track record against Sasuke sucks." He beat him once when they were twelve because Sasuke didn't know he had solid clones at his beck and call at the time, "I'm still gonna beat his ass the next time we fight."

"Like hell you are." Sasuke interjected with a detached mutter.

Ignoring him for the time being, Naruto continued explaining his viewpoint to Sakura, "I can accept failing. Everybody fails at something. But I can't accept not trying at all."

The last time the situation was this real for Sakura, then she had Ryu and Ken, along with other adults such as Guile, Chun-Li, and Charlie that could and would take final responsibility for what occurred, even if it wasn't the desired outcome. While the safety of the world had more or less been at stake then, the pressure hadn't rested in her stomach as heavily as it did at that very moment.

With soulful brown eyes, Sakura looked Naruto's way and then down at their joined hands. He always made her feel stronger, because he was the man with the strongest spirit she knew. So this time she would be strong for him. Stronger than she'd ever been. It was why she had always trained, wanting to catch up to him. Every step forward she'd taken.

She wanted him to keep an eye on her, and walk next to her instead of ahead of her.

"Coming up on the drop point." Guile said from the front, "We're lowering altitude. You kids get ready to go. We're going to be moving fast here." Guile said before an alert went off up front, "Damn it."

Chun-Li cursed when she saw trails of smoke flying up from the mountainside, "Camouflaged surface-to-air defenses?" Well they were definitely in the right place. If the ground defenses around were better than their sensors it was definitely S.I.N.'s technology.

"Sometimes Sakura-chan…" Naruto said, sliding the door open to the helicopter, "…Even if it's dangerous, you can't always think about what you're gonna do next. If it's to get to what you want, sometimes you've got to do something really, really dumb." With that being said he jumped out of the helicopter, immediately cloaking himself in two tails of the Kyuubi's chakra before roaring in the general direction of the missiles that had been fired at the helicopter.

The force of the roar disrupted the propulsion of the missiles and caused them to blow up in the air, with Naruto's body falling through the fire, basically unscathed. It was quite the show for everyone else left back up in the safe vehicle.

"I don't know if I've said this to everyone already." Ibuki said after watching Naruto land on the ground in a sandy dust cloud before walking out of it, the red chakra from before no longer existent, "But in case I didn't, I'll say it again. So gonna be my boyfriend. _MY_ boyfriend." Sakura just stuck her tongue out at her behind her back.

"Tch." Sasuke, not one to be shown up, chose to bail out of his own nearest door, temporarily accessing the second stage of his cursed seal to use his wings to glide his way down to the ground, "Showoff."

"Alright, for those of you that aren't insane showboats or the people irritated by them-." Guile started to say, "-Remember the crash-course I gave you in fast rope descent and good luck."

XxX

(S.I.N. Underground Base)

This was not going to be a surprise attack, as S.I.N. had been aware of everything entering their airspace. From the smallest bird, to any commercial aircraft flying overhead 10,000 feet, nothing that came within the range of their facility went without notice.

After the attempt to shoot down the helicopter that had gotten too close had failed, word was sent to the higher-ups present to inform them of the situation.

A grin came to Juri's face upon being told of the situation within her own quarters, "I fucking love these people so much." She said to herself, laughing in a chair in her room, "Honestly, I keep kicking them around and they keep on coming right back. They're like hitting dummies that yell back and bleed."

Honestly, who could endure being outsmarted and outfought at every turn and still line themselves up for more? This was the most fun she'd had in a while. She could have honestly cried tears of joy.

Entering little ego-driven tournaments like the World Warrior Tournament in both of its incarnations simply didn't satisfy her. No-holds-barred. That was the way that fighting should have been. Not for accolades, not for money, not to prove your strength to the world or to yourself, not for the wellbeing of others. Not for any reason but simply to feel the rush of adrenaline that came with putting your life at risk.

If she knew that these kinds of people existed in the world she would have sought them out to fight against even sooner. But now she had the Feng Shui Engine, so not only could she enjoy the chaos and insanity that came with battle, she could win no matter what.

She would have paid someone money to take the asskickings she was doling out to the attacking party, and instead _she_ was the one getting paid to plant her foot firmly between the lungs and colons of others.

"Oh well." Juri said, giggling and spinning around playfully in her chair, "I guess if they survive Seth's flunkies that are all souped-up on BLECE they'll be warmed up enough to play for a bit longer."

XxX

(Elsewhere in the Base – Isolated Chamber – With Karin)

For upwards of 36 hours, Karin had been kept in a dark room, held by iron bonds against a table-like surface with her arms held open. Above her there was some unseeable apparatus steadily letting one drop of water fall onto the center of her forehead every four seconds.

It was extremely simple, and as the first stage of a method meant to break her will and psyche it seemed extremely weak. But it was meant to do one thing, take her mind away from the need to internally steel herself. Even for someone that was somewhat used to pain or harsh conditions this was an effective way to soften their concentration… when done for an hour or two.

After that point, the monotonous solid drips would begin to eat away at the victim's state of mind, making it a slow-burn form of torture in of itself. Unable to sleep, Karin was unable to even so much as move her head to try and avoid them in the slightest due to the binding around her neck holding her in position.

Once the fourth hour had passed, a low droning voice that echoed quietly in the enclosed space spoke in a loop every five seconds, _"Obey."_ Random flashes of bright, nearly blinding light would hit her right in the eyes when she least expected it every so often.

It was progressively getting louder to Karin, and she had long since gotten past the shouting at nothing phase of the torture to try and coax the voice to shut up. The skin around her neck was worn and red where she was locked down to the table to keep her from moving her head.

She was so weak… and there would be more to come. Even if something happened that would allow her to go free right then and there, she doubted she would be in the slightest condition to try and fight her way out. They would only continue to build upon what they were already doing to turn her mind to mush.

"I know you're watching me." Karin said weakly, staring straight up in the dark, presumably at whatever was dripping water onto the center of her forehead, "_Someone_ is watching me." She knew she was being observed from somewhere. Those flashes of light were being manually operated, "If I were in your position, I would run."

"_Obey."_

"I would run as far and as fast as I could."

XxX

(With Naruto)

Around fifty devastated armed guards were strewn outside of the main steel doors concealed in the shadow of the mountainside. Hey they'd tried, and they'd given it their all to stop the extremely pissed off blond guy that had walked up to them, made multiple copies and proceeded to attack them, but at some point when it got down to the last few people they probably would have been better served dropping their guns and laying down on their bellies with their hands behind their necks.

It probably would have been less painful or un-fatal to just surrender.

Sasuke just stood back and watched, because it wasn't like he had to do anything to get past the S.I.N. soldiers, and it wasn't like he actually wanted to fight them. He was there for one reason and dealing with interchangeable nameless jabronies was not it.

"Open! The goddamned! Door!" Naruto punctuated with a back kick to the giant iron doors each time, "What's this thing made of? Rasengan didn't dent it!"

"Sure, because kicking it is going to convince whoever's behind it to open it." Sasuke said sarcastically, "Look. Doors like this are usually going to be the most durable part of the front of a base like this. Now do you think it goes down or goes up?"

What the fuck was this, a pop quiz?

"Building the base upward would be pretty stupid." Naruto said, wanting Sasuke to get to whatever his point was, "If it was built upward all anyone would have to do to take it out would be to bring down the mountain."

By this time, Sakura, Ibuki, Cammy, and Abel had caught up and heard the tail-end of Naruto's answer to Sasuke, "You said that like it would be easy to do." Abel remarked, having never seen the kind of devastation that Naruto or Sasuke could unleash if they cut loose.

"I could actually destroy the mountain right now." Sasuke said, crossing his arms nonchalantly over his chest as if what he said wasn't such a big deal. It would take all of his chakra that wasn't required to run his basic bodily functions to do it, but he still could. And no one else needed to know that.

Naruto's head slowly turned in Sasuke's direction as everyone else around could just feel the jealousy wafting off of the blond. He wanted to yell 'bullshit', but Sasuke didn't lie about things like that. Actually, he couldn't remember Sasuke lying in general.

Cammy, as analytical a girl as she was, remembered watching Naruto and Sasuke fight. They had torn up a lot of stuff and completely destroyed the sizeable martial arts temple that the tournament had taken place at, and had done it almost casually, but nothing that could pulverize a mountain happened.

Unless…

"If you honestly could destroy this mountain-." Cammy began to say, "-It's probably due to a technique that is more time-consuming, costly, and bothersome than it's worth to set up. Otherwise you more than likely would have used it during your fight with Naruto." Or to blow up Gen's restaurant in Hong Kong with the man still in it, "…Unless you've learned it very recently, and I don't think you have."

The muscles in Sasuke's face slowly twitched as he turned her way and tried to dismiss it, "Tch. We're wasting time."

Naruto just smiled Cammy's way and gave the petite girl a big hug, much to her confusion. She still returned it however, "I just love having you around. So much. You're so good at pointing stuff out." Sure, she traded that for a lack of tact or know-how when it came to many social things, but hey you couldn't have it all, "But I still don't get what you're talking about bastard." Naruto said to Sasuke.

"The base isn't in the mountain." Sasuke said, bangs shadowing the twitching of his brow, "So where would it be if this is the front door?"

"…Underground?"

"Yes. Very good. Now what would you rather destroy? This door that you can't break, or-?"

"Rasenshinsen (Spiraling Tremor)!"

Everyone moved away quickly when Naruto shoved his hands into the hard, dry ground and applied his Rasengan principles to the earth. Effort on his face was clear as a red coating of chakra surrounded his body and with an echoing yell of exertion he let loose with a Kyuubi-charged jutsu that twisted everything up and eventually made the ground look like a blended smoothie.

A blended smoothie that proceeded to collapse inward on itself like the whole thing was made of limestone.

Abel just stood with his jaw dropped, "_Mon Dieu_, did he just… create a sinkhole?" He moved closer to the hole and stared down in shock. Due to the dimming light of the desert evening he couldn't see all the way down, but it was farther than was safe for a regular person to drop, "How far is that?"

"It goes until something gets in the way that Naruto's chakra couldn't manipulate." Sasuke said, smirking as if everything had gone to plan, "Like the metal walls of an S.I.N. facility."

"So we're back to where we started with the door?" Sakura asked, turning around to look at said door and then at Naruto, returning to normal after his brush with the Kyuubi's chakra. Seeing him cloaked in red, if only for a moment pulled a sense of longing from the dark reaches of her mind, but now wasn't the time for that.

Sasuke shook his head, "No. I said it already. In places like this the people that build the bases count on the natural surroundings to be good enough defenses, like the mountain or all of the ground Naruto cleared out of the way. So basically the metal walls are just building frames."

With lightning crackling around his entire body, Sasuke deftly dropped straight down the dark hole, lighting it as he fell with his volatile chakra electricity. There was no other sound for a few seconds until Sasuke's voice echoed back up.

"Gouki Kagizume o Oshite (Grand Talon Press)!"

With a mighty metallic clang, sparks and bolts of electricity flew up out of the sinkhole, forcing those that were gathered around to flinch and dodge away to keep from getting hit with a stray jolt. A horrible sound of tearing metal was heard before echoing sounds of panic came from others, signifying that he had broken through.

Well hurrah.

"Alright then." Naruto said to himself, jumping straight down after his chief rival, wielding akimbo Rasengans for the first fools to get in his way. There was no way he was going to take his time with this one. He wanted Karin back safe and sound and he wanted her back right then. If you got in the way and weren't doing so to point him in the right direction, you were about to have a very unpleasant evening, "Hey kids, wanna see a dead body!?"

The sounds of gunfire and general chaos from down below already seemed extensive, and strangely in sync between Naruto and Sasuke's dual anarchy-making.

"I can't tell if those two hate each other or just act like they do." Sakura said to the others, able to hear the anarchy raging down inside of the base before sighing, "Right. Well…" Pulling her gloves tightly on her hands, she proceeded to take the plunge as well, supplementing her body with ki to strengthen it for the eventual landing, "If this breaks my legs I'm gonna be really upset!"

Ibuki grinned and pulled her facemask up over her mouth to cover her delicate features before following suit, choosing to jump wall from wall on the way down to ensure she'd make it cleanly without injury. It paid to be extremely well trained in the acrobatics of a ninja when you weren't a natural juggernaut of chakra or ki like Naruto or Sakura, "Come on guys!"

At the top Cammy rolled out her gauntlet-clad wrists, regarding Abel before she went as well, "Will you be alright?"

"If you will be, I will also. I am the same as you from what I've been told on the flight to America by your… I don't know what to call him, boyfriend?" Abel said before reassuring her, "I will be fine. Shall we?"

"Naruto talked to me before we got here as well. He said you were like my brother… or something." Cammy told him abruptly, stopping Abel before he jumped down, "He didn't quite know, but he tried to allude to me that we were something like family. I don't know much about what that means to me yet, but I'd like it if both of us stayed alive long enough to find out."

Surprise showed on Abel's face until a smile broke through the usual stony façade of the scarred Frenchman, "But of course. I'm not sure I can think of anything that would make me happier than to have a little sister."

For a few moments she gave him a gorgeous smile fully reflected in her blue eyes before her face returned to its normal almost blank state, "You can fight?" She asked him before directing attention to his stump of an arm, "…Like that?"

Without directly answering, he dropped down to be followed immediately by Cammy who immediately targeted several enemies upon getting through the metal ceiling, one wave of an advance force attempting to pincer the slightly quicker-on-the-ball Abel and open fire.

Not tonight they weren't.

"Cannon Strike!" With a well-aimed driving kick, visible purple energy around her attack leg as she did, Cammy struck at her enemies with the impact of a javelin and the force of a howitzer, a shockwave of her ki pushing outward powerful enough to shake the base corridor.

In other words nothing she made contact with survived, nothing close to where she made contact survived, and it was lucky that the floor was made of such durable material and had great foundations underneath, because in a normal building none of it would have survived. She was gaining enough control over the remnants of Bison's Psycho Power that he'd placed within her as his clone to use in battle freely instead of just under duress.

"Tornade Jeter (Tornado Throw)!" Abel didn't seem to be having too much trouble either, having grabbed a hapless enemy by the collar of his uniform, swinging him around in a blur, weaponizing the poor soldier in his grasp. If he had any bones that weren't broken after smashing into every comrade he had within sight, he wouldn't have known it after Abel let go of him and sent him flying as well.

And he did that with one full arm.

Okay, maybe he could take care of himself.

Both of them added to the already considerable amount of downed bodies in the vicinity that their group members had already defeated prior to the entrance of the blond/blonde clone duo. They had no idea what could be happening further within the base at the moment, thus they followed the trail of destruction more than likely left by Naruto and Sasuke than anyone else to catch up in a hurry.

XxX

(Elsewhere in the S.I.N. Base – With Naruto)

Sasuke stared directly into the eyes of someone Naruto was holding up directly in front of him. Uchiha-style interrogation. Less messier and unpleasant for all parties than the manual alternative, but a minimum of one active Sharingan was necessary.

For Ibuki and Sakura, it was rather creepy to see Naruto completely alright with holding up some guy that they'd managed to stop without killing him or rendering him unconscious. Sakura especially knew what it was like to be locked in one of the more intense eye-contact initiated illusions that Sasuke was capable of using.

After a while Sasuke blinked, signifying the breaking of his genjutsu, "Tch."

That was all he really needed to say to let Naruto know that he didn't get anything good out of the soldier, "Damn it. That's the third one. Doesn't anybody know where shit is around here?" How could no one they'd come across so far know where Karin's cell was? He knew full well that every single person in the base had to have known when Seth had arrived with her.

The flashing red lights of the base had by now been long ignored by the intruding party, but it couldn't be ignored any longer when the metal floor opened up and on an elevator lift Naruto saw something that made him feel as if he'd seen a ghost.

If ghosts could be land-based war machines with gigantic cannons and machine guns in it.

At the sight of the hulking land vehicle, Ibuki squinted and tilted her head as if she were seeing something familiar that she couldn't quite put her finger on, "Huh… is that a tank? Why doesn't it have treads? There's just a big glowing ball underneath it."

"Aww…" Naruto said, shaking his head and backing away slowly, "No. No-no-no. They have another one of these things?" Sasuke stepped forward only to be shoved directly out of the way along with everyone else by Naruto when the tank fired its main gun at them.

Who used a tank indoors? And since when did tanks shoot blasts of ki?

The entire place shook as the blast exploded further down the wide corridor.

Narrowing his eyes on the tank, Sasuke lifted his arm with a Chidori around it to aim at the glowing orb underneath the vehicle before he realized something and stopped, 'No, if I rupture that part of it, it'll take down this whole base with all of us in it.'

There was too much energy inside of that thing. It was unstable. But it was the oddest engine he had ever seen in his entire life. Something about it reminded him of the power he saw generated from Juri's eye for the split-second she'd used her ki attacks in his presence.

From the look on Naruto's face, it was clear that he was just about to warn him not to do what he'd been planning on if he hadn't figured it out himself, "Alright dobe, you've dealt with this thing before so how do we stop it?"

"Other than flat-out blowing it up I don't know." Naruto admitted, scooping up Sakura to dodge machine gun fire from the tank. It had two of those now instead of one. Nifty, "The first time me and Batsu fought one, the underside was the only weakness we found that we could get through! And we can't blow it up in here or we're all dead!"

That main gun was charging much faster than the one on the last tank he'd fought as well. It had cut the time down to less than half of the time it took to charge it than the last time. So not only was it the same space-age super-durable tank with a zero-degrees turning radius and more mobility than any ground vehicle had the right to be, but it had improved combat capabilities.

"It doesn't really care too much about blowing things up in here though. This thing doesn't have an ammo limit?" Ibuki commented, diving from behind the cover of the metallic crates littering the corridor once she heard the main gun fully charge to fire once more. Once the gun went off again and blew everything apart she was certain that she didn't want to be anywhere near where it was aiming, "This is ridiculous! If you can't get through the armor, and you can't get to the engine without killing us all, what the hell are we going to do?"

Still holding Sakura in his arms behind a pillar for cover, Naruto and she shared a look between each other before she quickly seemed to sync thoughts with him on what was running through his mind. It was crude and simple, which was why it was so easy for her to read in his face, "You're going to try and flip it aren't you?"

"You have any better ideas Sakura-chan?" He was asking because flipping it wasn't an original idea. He'd already tried it once during his first tank-related run-in and only got it high enough for Batsu to target the engine and take it out. But since they didn't want to detonate a miniature ki nuke in an enclosed space, he had to get it all the way over, and he wasn't sure he could if he didn't the first time.

"No, but you've got to have something better than that." Sakura told him, flinching when she heard the main gun go off again, this time aimed at Sasuke that could easily outpace it but was having worse trouble with the machine gun, "That thing is gonna cut you down before you even get close, either with the cannon or the machine gun."

"Fine. Something else then." Naruto grumbled, poking his head out of cover to yell at Sasuke, "Sasuke, where's the hatch? Maybe one of us could get on it and pry it open or something, maybe get to the crew?"

"How the hell should I know!?" Sasuke yelled right back at Naruto, barely out running machine gun fire before sliding behind another support pillar, "I haven't seen one!"

"The fuck? You see everything!"

"Well there's no hatch then!"

"Then how did the crew shooting at us get in it!?"

"I didn't build the goddamn tank dobe! Don't ask me!"

Ugh. Sakura's head was starting to hurt. Between the tank shooting at anything that moved, and Naruto and Sasuke bitching at each other, she was starting to lose it. They found the stupidest times to fight with each other as well. A conversation about a tank hatch degenerated into this?

Wait…

Sakura poked her head out to find that Ibuki had scaled up to the ceiling to hide in a corner behind a pillar with a Naruto-clone until something good could happen or the tank found her again to shoot at, "Ibuki-chan, do you see a hatch on that tank from up there?"

Ibuki heard Sakura yell at her before quickly looking down and over from where Naruto's clone was cradling her only to see nothing, "No, I don't! How'd they get in it? The underside?"

"No way!" Naruto-clone assured the girls, "I was under one of those things before! There's nothing down there!"

Son of a bitch, it was unmanned. There was probably nothing underneath that armor other than seriously valuable electronic equipment that made the thing go from a remote location, or independent of quality control altogether.

"Are you telling me a fucking robot tank pinned me down in rock field for an hour straight? There wasn't even a human driving it?" Naruto asked the schoolgirl in his arms, "Oh Sakura-chan… my ego."

"Well if it's a robot tank…" Sasuke said to himself, letting his flame-like cursed seal spread over his face to fill him with its dark chakra, "…I'm sure a few strikes of lightning will shut it down." The moment he ducked from behind cover though, he found the main gun trained right on him, with its energy fully charged if the telltale click was anything to go by, "…Crap."

A green, blonde blur with a purple outline around her legs streaked past the others before Sasuke could be blown away and launched right at the tank with a spinning drill of a dropkick, "Spiral Arrow!" Cammy kicked the gun and forced it to turn, causing the tank to shoot a side wall instead of Sasuke and giving him an opening to get closer and end things himself.

Throwing an unsealed fuuma shuriken directly over the top of the tank, Sasuke timed his hand-seals perfectly for his jutsu that he'd already prepared by pouring lightning chakra into it beforehand, "Taka no Ame (Hawk's Rain)!" Talons of lightning formed around the spinning shuriken and dropped down twin bolts of lightning directly onto the hull of the tank.

Electricity surged across the surface of the armored vehicular weapon, a frying noise crackling openly through the open corridor. Slowly everyone moved out from their places of cover and walked up to it to ensure that it was sufficiently deactivated without needing to destroy the engine underneath that was still active from the unnatural glow emanating from it.

Crouching on the ground where she'd landed after kicking the main gun to the side, Cammy sighed in relief and stood back up straight, "I got here in time." She said to herself before turning around to the others with a reserved smile, "Is everyone okay?"

"Fine." Sasuke said, retrieving his shuriken without another word. He was not going to admit that Cammy kept him from taking some serious damage.

"You're some kind of special Cam." Naruto pointed out with a grin as he jogged up to the former Doll, "You know that you just ran straight at a tank just to kick the gun out of the way, right? Are you trying to make my heart stop?"

Cammy blinked and looked her entire body over to ensure she hadn't been harmed, "But… I'm fine. I was quick enough to get to it before it could account for me, so it was as if I wasn't even there."

She didn't know why Naruto sighed before leaning to put a kiss on her cheek. Dangerous and reckless or not, she managed to save their asses from fighting a prolonged battle with a stupid unmanned weapon. The girl was so innocent in so many ways though. Despite how powerful she was, it was hard at times to believe she was a programmed killer.

Before long Abel brought up the rear, notably exhibiting that he was the slowest of the currently amassed fighters despite his strength and skill in regards to what he could do.

"You all…" Abel said after a moment of catching his breath from all of the sprinting after the rest of the group, "…You all are extremely fast."

Loud sarcastic clapping came over the base intercom system after the wilds of battle died down, _"Well done. Really, that was funny watching all of you get shot at like that. I wish I had some snacks or something to watch the show."_

"Alright, enough of this crap!" Naruto shouted, "Juri, give me Karin back or I'll shove a Rasengan up your ass!"

"_Ooh, do you promise?"_ The kicking specialist taunted, laughing at the irritated look on Naruto's face, _"Anyway, she's not mine to give. Seth wanted her to control. He's giving her Bison's old Killer Bee special the last time I checked… and that was a while ago."_

The Killer Bee special? As in the brainwashing crap?

"_By the time she gets out of there, she won't remember anything other than what Seth tells her. It's actually… really messed up."_ Juri surprisingly admitted, _"Sleep deprivation, gradual voice conditioning. Eventually he's going to start on positive reinforcement behavior manipulation after she cracks enough."_

Growling to himself, Naruto simply took off down the hall despite the fact that he still had no idea where he was going. Eventually though, he came to a branching intersection of multiple paths, with dozens of soldiers seemingly waiting on him to arrive. From the form-fitting dark suits they all wore and their stony expressions that revealed nothing despite the fact that they had to know that nothing thus far had slowed them down for any longer than a few moments, they must have been the elite foot-soldiers.

They didn't have any guns on them though. And why were their eyes pitch-black?

It didn't take long for the others to catch up and find out why Naruto stopped. Abel just stared at the lot of them, most notably their eyes. Something seemed familiar about them.

"_Really, Seth says thanks for all the blood you lost when I hacked off your arm Lurch." _Juri said to taunt Abel over the intercom, _"Because of you, S.I.N. scientists were able to stabilize Seth's little science project enough for him to actually go forward with pushing his BLECE Project forward. You're looking at future. Seth's words, not mine."_

Sure, they looked like they meant business, but Ibuki couldn't see what the big deal about them was, "Okay? So what? It's not like we haven't been tearing your soldiers apart since we got in here to begin with, right?" Sakura seemed to be a tad stunned from what she could sense from them however.

"_Not these ones. These ones are kind of special."_

On cue, white pupils appeared in the pitch-black eyes of every last one of them, white ki forming around their hands. They could outwardly manipulate ki. Well wasn't that just lovely?

"…_Kill 'em."_

The entire invading team scattered when the S.I.N. soldiers started firing speedy bolts of energy at them from their hands.

"What the hell is BLECE?" Ibuki asked, legs working to rapidly keep her out of the way of being hit with anything, "You couldn't fill a civic center with all of people that can fire ki in the entire world! Now S.I.N. has more than a hundred of them!"

Naruto didn't care one way or another. Making multiple clones, some of which died due to the sheer number of ki bolts flying through the air. He picked a hallway that seemed to be the most heavily protected and barreled straight for it, "Out of the way!"

"Shinkuu Hadoken (Vacuum Surge Fist)!"

A large beam of ki blasted straight through the wall of people that Naruto was preparing to charge straight through with a Rasengan barrage. Turning over his shoulder he saw that Sakura had fired it to clear the way for him.

She gave him a reassuring smile that he returned, as there didn't need to be anything said. He was going the right way. She could hardly sense Karin's signature it was growing so weak, while at the same time she felt a void of nothingness coming from that way.

It would be Seth. And if Karin was really important, he would have stayed close to her, especially since he would know exactly why their group would have located his base and attacked it; for her.

In the meantime, they had a few dozen superhumans to deal with. From what she could sense none of them were as strong as they were, but the sheer number that they had was too dangerous to be left to pester them.

So what if they were suddenly able to use ki and fire it as if they were martial artists that had trained to do it for years when they quite clearly had not? Between Sakura, Ibuki, Cammy, Abel, and Sasuke this was still firmly in their favor.

Wait… where did Sasuke go?

Ugh. A word that he was going to step out and move past the battle wouldn't have been too much to ask out of common courtesy, would it?

That would have to be put on hold when Sakura sensed someone else coming toward them. With the current fracas going on, if that person joined the fight she'd be an absolute terror in such a chaotic environment.

"Guys I'll be right back!" With that, Sakura took off down another corridor before coming to a stop upon meeting who she'd been sensing coming their way, "…Juri."

Hands on her hips, Juri tilted her body to the side to look past Sakura at the fight still going on between the others and Seth's BLECE-injected elite pawns, "You know, I was watching you guys take them on and I just couldn't help but feel a little left out. You're my favorite people in the whole world to try and kill. You always make it so interesting."

She wanted to try her hand at beating up everyone at once, including that ninja girl that she hadn't gotten a chance to fight yet. But then again, she had unfinished business with Sakura to begin with. This time there wouldn't be any malfunction of the Feng Shui Engine. Even if Sakura pulled out that strange ki of hers that caused her eye to overload back at Karin's mansion, it wouldn't matter at all.

Yes, this would be very enjoyable.

"I want to see you cry this time." Juri said with a low, meaningful tone, smirking as she prepared herself to fight, "I'm just not gonna be satisfied until I see tears rolling down those pretty little cheeks of yours. That would really make my day."

There was just something about Juri that Sakura couldn't show empathy to. She'd never despised anyone before, but from all of her dealings with this woman, she was making it very easy for Sakura to consider disregarding her own respectful sentiment.

She would have rather Juri simply said she was going to kill her because it was her job to. No, instead Juri was going to fight her for the sole intent of making her suffer and watching the results. Just to crush the fighting spirit out of her, because it would be entertaining to see.

"When I finally get you bawling like a baby-." Juri said saucily, "-Then, _maybe _I'll let you leave. I'll finish off the failed clones, and I'll handle the ninja girl too if she wants to tangle. Oh… I hope you survive what I'm going to do to you, because I think it would be priceless to see you look Uzumaki in the eye after I kill Killer Bee and her useless clone brother in front of you. If he even survives where he's going that is."

She wasn't doing this for any reason. Not for a living, even as dishonest as it was. Not out of any sort of obligation for some higher reasoning, even if it was twisted. She fought and mutilated just for the sake of getting her blood pumping.

"I…" Sakura said, running a hand through her short hair as the dark place in her mind started pulsing at the sight of Juri's infuriating smirk, "…I really think I hate people like you." She just had to remember what Gouken taught her so far. The Satsui no Hadou would consume her if she let it. Even if she really abhorred the sight of Juri's face.

Juri pointed at herself with a false sense of distress, "You hate people like me? I didn't think you had it in you."

Yeah, that angry part of her heart that told her to lash out at her enemies was seriously pushing itself forward now, "No. Actually, that's not true. I'm sure I just hate you in particular."

When she gave way to how she felt the desire to cause Juri the pain she'd caused others around her, to dominate the S.I.N. agent in battle and assert her own place as the one that was better, the one that was stronger, so that she could show Juri how a real martial artist with strength was supposed to operate-.

-It felt so good just to think about.

Why was it so easy to feel that kind of hate?

Holding those feelings back was such a struggle for her that when they were particularly strong she felt discomfort and pain. But when she let it go, even a bit, it felt so much better. Like a weight was taken off of her. She could indulge a little couldn't she? She still knew who she was, the kind of woman she wanted to be, and she wouldn't allow the Satsui no Hadou drive her, but it was so much easier to give a little ground.

And after all, if anyone deserved to be the subject of a little turnabout as fair play… Juri Han of all people _really_ deserved it.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright, having been thoroughly slapped by the real world since finishing up my classes for my bachelor's degree I felt it was time to dip back into this little tale and bring you the next installment.<strong>

**And now it's time to get back to the workin' world. Or try to at least. I haven't been able to trade up to a decent job in my actual field of 'expertise' yet… so yeah, I've got all that going for me.**

**Later everyone. Kenchi out.**


	49. Beyond Human

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. Happy birthday to a hell of a man, my father. If I did own Naruto or Street Fighter, rest assured that a good amount of the income that would come with it would go to supporting him and my mother and repaying them for the damned effort it took in raising me and my jackass brother.

**Chapter 49: Beyond Human**

* * *

><p>While constant movement was simple for speedier fighters such as Ibuki and Cammy, for Abel, mobility wasn't particularly his thing. He was a mauler of a martial artist in close but when being targeted from afar, the way that the S.I.N. elite troopers were doing with their ki blasts, it was an extremely troublesome affair for him.<p>

Since they had by now figured him to be the slowest target, they had tried to focus the bulk of their attack on him to bring the big man down first.

With that plan of action though, the speedier girls were able to take them out when they weren't looking. Cammy wasn't a ninja, but she wasn't a prideful warrior, more like a pragmatic soldier. She would go for the throat and she would do it in a heartbeat if you gave her your back. Blood on her hands didn't really bother her. Her gauntlets were red to begin with.

Too many learned this the hard way and were forced to take the pressure off of Abel lest they all find themselves slaughtered by the petite Doll.

In a blur of her own speed, Ibuki slid friction-lessly across the ground dodging ki blasts until she got close enough to an enemy to slip behind them and grab onto their head. Holding on she used the S.I.N. trooper as a human shield to launch kunai from, taking down several enemies in front of her before she simply broke the shield's neck, "Kubi-ki (Neckbreaker)!"

A rather brutal method of disposing of the enemy yes, but even so it wasn't just some tame fight in the middle of town. They'd taken their friend away and had tried several different times to kill them, including right then. Being nice stopped a long, long time ago.

Besides, Naruto and Sasuke had mowed through a gross share of conventional soldiers before they'd left to the inner sanctum so to speak. Basically those two had set the tone for the battle from the outset, which basically translated to; if you're in the way and you're not pointing them in the direction that Karin or one of the big bosses are in, you're going to have a hole punched through you one way or another.

It served to be a very effective way of dealing with riffraff.

Taking a moment to look around, Ibuki saw Cammy giving her enemies fits with their inability to hit her with any of their ki blasts. Fighting her up close was suicide, but she wasn't giving them any other options.

Abel was doing very well after the pressure had been taken off of him, as Ibuki saw him crack a pair of skulls by messily smashing the heads of two S.I.N. elites together. Ew.

Well, there was still work to be done. With that in mind, Ibuki grabbed more kunai between her fingers and put herself back into the fray.

XxX

"Come on!" Juri taunted, rapidly kicking away at Sakura's defense while standing on one leg, "For someone that's supposed to hate me you're fighting so conservatively! Or are you just so afraid of me you can't bring yourself to fight back?"

Sakura didn't want to get suckered back into the trap of having to deal with Juri's legs, but it was like the proverbial freight train coming down the tracks; just because you knew what was coming didn't necessarily mean that you could stop it.

Despite her best efforts early on in the fight to keep Juri at a comfortable distance, she was simply too fast for Sakura to keep away for long, improved Hadoken or not. Eventually she did get too close for Sakura's comfort, and all she could do in response was cover up and weather the storm.

Stepping up on Sakura's bent knee, Juri sprang up and kicked the girl underneath the chin, knocking her to the ground for just a second, but it was long enough that Juri found it laughable, "What's so funny now?" Sakura asked after getting right back up.

"You're not just fighting me because you don't like me." Juri stated confidently, "That's not enough for people like you, so I'm going to guess you have another reason. A blond, blue-eyed reason all covered in orange and blue."

"What about him?" Sakura felt no need to really deny it, even if it was so clear how she felt that an enemy could see it.

"You want so badly not to be left behind by him." Juri purred, "I can see it. A guy like that likes a girl that can move and needs one that can keep up with him. But that ain't you. You're not tough enough for someone like that."

What did she know? She always had to equate everything back to fighting, to survival. As if that was all everything was about to her. As Sakura considered this she realized that it would truly be a miserable experience to be Juri Han.

Sakura smiled sardonically, wiping a small trail of blood away from her lip, "I feel sorry for you." At that, Juri's grin fell and was replaced with an extremely caustic look, "Loving someone doesn't have anything to do with any of that. Even if I couldn't throw a punch straight, I don't think it would have mattered at all to Naruto. I used to think you were better than me because of how strong you are, but I was wrong."

"Oh really honey?" Best intimidation face from Juri aside, Sakura still smiled and it was pissing her off, "You sure about that?"

"Yeah, that's right. I want to be a strong fighter for a bunch of reasons." Sakura declared, "To prove that martial arts can do more for the world than hurt people, to show Ryu that I'm a worthy fighter and make him proud, to walk with Naruto and support him no matter what. Those reasons are why I do this. But the only reason you fight is because it's the only thing you've got that gives your life any value. Without it you really wouldn't be anything, to anybody."

Juri's hands began to shake at her sides, her glare turning markedly more murderous, "You might want to shut up now." But Sakura didn't shut up.

Scaring her was no longer an option, and she'd have to listen until the schoolgirl was done, "Maybe once you had something else, but you never looked for anything else after you lost whatever it was." Her smile was no longer mocking Juri. It was sad and understanding to some degree, "I think that's why no matter how hard I try, even if I say I do, I can't really hate you."

Pity. That was why. Sakura finally realized why she couldn't truly despise that woman no matter how much she tried to demonize her in her mind.

If Sakura never lifted her hands to do battle with anyone ever again, she more than likely could have been fine with that. She had seen things at such a young age that most people would never see or ever come close to understanding. She had many friends and people all over the place that cared for her. She had someone close to her that she saw every day, someone that she had fallen in love with and had a full chance of pursuing. She had good grades, she would be going to college, and she knew what she was going to try and do with her life.

If Juri never took part in a fight ever again, what would she have? Absolutely nothing.

The look in Sakura's eyes, the look of pity, it angered Juri deeper than anything she'd ever experienced in her life. Losing her family didn't anger her this much, because she didn't have to face all of the looks of pity that she'd received for her loss, for the loss of her eye. She ran away from all of that and threw herself into doing what she had to in order to garner vengeance. Vengeance that she never got for herself.

Sakura didn't flinch when wild blades of ki flew past her head, each threatening to either take it off or split it in half. At worst though, she merely received a cut on the shoulder. It began to bleed rather badly, but compared to the alternative she was entirely unharmed in comparison.

Visible pink ki flowed uncontrollably off of her body, causing a ringing, vibrating noise to emit from the metal surrounding her, "Little girls… should know when to shut their mouths."

"Hadoken (Surge Fist)!" Sakura fired an oversized blast of blue ki Juri's way, only for it to be cut in half with a kick where it hit and landed on both sides of the corridor in separate blasts, "Maybe Naruto has a point? It might be a good idea to learn how to counter ki blasts."

Her legs as deadly a weapon as ever and with real motivation to actually maim her foe, Juri wasted no time making her move to tear Sakura asunder with her kicks, "Senpuusha (Piercing Windmill)!"

Sakura was able to evade the attack by the skin of her nose, choosing to attack Juri immediately upon her landing out of the constant rotating kicks. Her punch moved right past Juri's head, missing her. Juri wrapped her arms around Sakura's forearm and flexibly lifted her leg, swinging it around in a curve to try and break or remove Sakura's arm at the elbow.

Sakura just used the stand that Juri had given her in the form of her own body to push up over her head and behind her neck, all in an effort to smash both of her knees into the back of her neck. When she actually felt herself make contact it almost surprised Sakura herself. She'd actually hit her.

In the past it had taken multiple people just to strike one blow against Juri.

Juri fell face-forward to the ground, more stunned that she'd let herself be outmaneuvered. Sakura was faster than she remembered, but that was no excuse for letting this lone little girl hit her with any sort of attack.

Getting up onto her hands and feet, Juri turned her head enough to peer at Sakura, her Feng Shui Engine eye glowing bright pink for a split-second before she blurred out of the girl's sight in a quick show of raw speed.

Before she could even gasp, Sakura's entire body was battered by blunt and forceful attacks, battering her time and time again before she could even fall to the ground. She let out a cough and took a knee, shaking slightly.

"Heh!" Juri jumped high into the air with her target in clear view, "This is more like it. Shinkusen (Flash of Suffering)!" Diving down from the sky like a bird of prey, Juri nailed Sakura with three chaining kicks, the last of which bounced her off of the wall.

Her target not yet beaten to satisfaction, Juri dashed to Sakura and before she ever touched the ground she rapidly kicked her four more times before finally letting her land on her face. Watching her writhe in pain on the ground was so gratifying it was almost sexual.

Walking over to her she intentionally stepped over Sakura, planting a foot in the small of her back to stand on top of her for a moment just to belittle her.

"Aww…" Juri kneeled down by Sakura and pinched the brutalized girl's cheek, pulling away when she tried to bite at her, "You were so cute giving me that little speech of yours, but you know what? Whether you were right or wrong doesn't matter. The only opinion that matters is from the person that wins. You see you're a girl that just so happens to be a fighter. Well I'm a fighter that just so happens to be a girl. And you're just too soft to ever beat someone like me."

"…mmrph."

Hearing Sakura mutter, Juri leaned closer, grabbing a handful of Sakura's short hair to hold her head up, "What was that little girl?" Her wrist was caught in the suddenly iron grip of her downed adversary. She could feel her bones creak from the pressure and could see the skin on Sakura's fingers underneath her fighting gloves begin to darken, 'What in the-?'

"…Don't you ever shut up?"

Looking down at Sakura again after her dark-sounding comment, Juri could see that her eyes had turned to the color of solid red. A red kanji for 'spirit' had been carved into the back of her top with the intensity of the dark red energy drifting from her body.

The girl stood up from the ground, still holding onto Juri's hand that had a grip on her hair, and stared into her eyes. With a squeeze that painfully dug her fingers into the tendons of Juri's wrist, she freed herself.

Biting back a cry of pain, Juri lashed out instinctively with a front round kick that Sakura blocked with her other arm, drawing a smirk from the girl. A hard punch from her soon followed that knocked her adversary away from her almost casually.

"**There."** The dark thoughts in Sakura's mind were louder, clearer, and more concise than ever, **"Doesn't that feel so much better?"** And it did. She felt so much better now.

Sakura flexed out her fingers and pulled her gloves tighter onto her hands as she walked Juri's way to keep fighting, "You were saying something about me being too soft to beat you."

As far as Juri was concerned, freaky power-up or not, nothing had changed. Even after taking Sakura's punch she never went down. She had the wind knocked out of her for a moment, but she was able to mask that and get everything together quickly enough, "You are. You had to lose your shit and go bipolar just to start getting me back. And now that my eye has gotten all the bugs worked out of it, I think it's time I give you what I gave your little friends back at the Kanzuki place."

Sakura just grinned at her darkly and gestured for her to come on. Juri did not like the shoe being on the other foot in terms of fighting her battles.

The two women met in a violent clash of melee, speedier than any of them had been forced to move in order to keep up with any opponent they had fought prior. All of it culminated with Sakura and Juri stalemating in an uppercut/ax kick collision that released a shockwave, denting the walls on the sides of the corridor.

"It sucks for you…" Juri said through the strain of the test of strength, "…Poor little girl is going to die a virgin."

"Heh, shows what you know." Sakura giggled maniacally before making quite the stunning remark, "Naruto already took my cherry a lo~~ng time ago."

"What!?" Taking advantage of the shock and awe her statement created, Sakura used her front leg to sweep Juri's grounded leg, knocking her onto her back. The second she hit she spun her hips and kicked at Sakura's head, giving her enough of an opening to get back up before anything bad could happen, "There's no way you have the heart to let him do that to you."

"Well of course, it was my fault anyway after all. I could never blame the future father of my babies for that." Sakura said, still giving a very Cheshire grin, "It was just a training accident in a spar that got a little too intense. Those things happen really."

"Bitch, you know what I meant!" Juri backflipped onto a wall and launched herself at Sakura, drilling her angrily with a javelin of a kick that was fast and accurate enough to actually hit her dead center. It was blocked, but it still did damage behind her arms. Flipping off of Sakura's arms, she landed on the ground and snarled at her.

"Aww." Sakura said, pacing around with her hands on her hips as she continued to laugh uncharacteristically cruelly, "Don't like it when your nasty little jokes don't work on other people? Well since we're on the subject I've got a joke for you."

"What is it?"

"Die."

"…That's not a-."

"Gouhadoken (Great Surge Fist)!"

Juri wasn't going to risk trying to block a huge Hadoken that size that was tinted red, so she simply moved out of the way of the powerful ki blast, rushing forward at Sakura before stopping short and letting loose a kick that Sakura was prepared to counter, "Fuuhajin (Wind Breaking Blade)!"

Sakura went wide eyed at the blade of ki released from the end of Juri's foot, and due to her already having moved to counter what she originally thought was going to be just a kick she wound up taking both the ki and the actual physical attack head-on.

Despite her target's best efforts to try and lean out of the way, Juri felt nothing but contact on both fronts and licked her lips in satisfaction when she saw blood fly through the air from the attack that she had delivered.

Freaky power boost enhancing her every feature or not, Sakura was still flesh and bone. That kick still should have cut her into two. It most certainly did not.

"Oh well. If at first you don't succeed…" Juri said to herself, crouching to put as much force into her legs as she could before jumping high into the air, "…Try-try again!" Her hands touched the elevated roof and pushed off, propelling her back down in a falling stomp aiming right for Sakura to spill her guts.

Under normal circumstances, Juri's downward kicks had the ability at full strength to split a moderate-sized building in half as if it were a stack of demonstration bricks. Dropping from fifty stories in the air, and pumping out enhanced ki due to the Feng Shui Engine, the danger factor with her chosen method of offense increased horrendously.

As her diving stomp landed, all of the metal on the walls and the floor in the vicinity crumpled inward, a crater actually forming beneath her point of impact as she ripped through the metal.

She missed Sakura though, who had avoided a finish by the slimmest of margins, turning her body to the side and moving it out of the way by mere inches. Lying down on the ground, Sakura's school uniform top was shredded to tatters, with a horizontal gash from the middle of her clavicle to just underneath her left arm

"Tch." Juri pulled her leg out of the deep hole she'd torn into the earth beneath the metal floor and kicked Sakura aside like a can in the road, "No tears." Juri said before charging another release of ki from one of her legs, "I said… I wanted to see you CRY!"

Sakura came back to life and rolled away from the ki blade as it ripped through the floor and glared hatefully at Juri before speeding headlong at her with the Ashura Senku speed technique. She violently grabbed Juri's face, palming her head like a sports ball as she took her off of her feet and ran with her in her grasp.

Yelling as she lowered her body enough to drag Juri across the floor by her face, Sakura lifted her up and threw her into the air, timing her descent with her own follow-up; a short jumping uppercut with a twist that knocked her back into the air, followed by two more, the height and power of each increasing each time, "Cry! For! ME! Midare Zakura (Tumultuous Cherry Blossom)!"

The last punch knocked Juri back into the ceiling, this time her entire body smacking off of and sticking to the metal surface. A bloody cough spilled crimson from her mouth to the floor below, a nice fresh and blackening bruise forming on her belly and around her side, creeping down to her hip beneath her pants.

"Okay." The sadistic kicking mistress whispered to herself, "All of that actually hurt… really bad."

"I'm not done with you yet." Sakura declared darkly, placing her hands together as she began to build up a blockbusting level of ki between them. So much that it constantly shifted colors, resembling an unstable force of rainbow, "You said I was a girl that _just so happened_ to be a fighter? Well what if I _just so happen_ to kill you? Tenmetsu Shinkuu Hadoken (Flashing Vacuum Surge Fist)!"

Juri's left eye glowed bright pink as she bent her legs and planted her feet on the ceiling to assist her in dodging the sure-kill attack by any means necessary.

XxX

(Outside of the Base)

In the helicopter, Guile and Chun-Li tried to circle the area at a safe distance without putting themselves back at risk from the base's defenses. It was a rather troublesome way to spend time, especially for someone such as Guile who was used to being able to make a difference on the battlefield one way or another.

He was chomping at the bit to land the damn chopper and go storming in himself to bring up the rear and fight, but orders were orders. Their respective organizations would not let them get involved for official reasons, and he had to just trust in the kids to get the job done

That trust was stretched severely when they watched a massive rainbow-colored beam punch its way out of the ground and into the sky. Better than any laser show you could ever ask for, and scarier as well. Lighting up the night for a few seconds before everything went pitch dark once more, it was almost a certainty that the blast could have been seen from Vegas.

Whether or not it would have been distinguished from the glow in the sky that The Strip provided on a nightly basis was another matter entirely.

"…Was that a Hadoken?" Chun-Li asked rhetorically, several seconds after it dissipated, "That was a Hadoken." No one else had a beam sort of attack in their arsenal other than Sakura. Even if that was a funky-colored version, and way stronger than her regular Shinku Hadoken, it still had all of the typical symptoms of the pulverizing ki attack, "How the hell did she get the power to do that?"

XxX

(Elsewhere in the Base – With Naruto)

Great shaking of the ground underneath his feet or not, Naruto charged through the halls, taking the last direction Sakura gave him to heart as he searched for Karin. There was a distinct lack of guards in his way, as all of the legitimate manpower that was stationed in the base had probably already been thrown at them.

If they were sending out experimental super-soldiers en masse they couldn't have hordes and hordes of troops left to throw at him to deter him from advancing.

As he continued to run, Naruto caught sight of a simpering little man in a lab coat that looked more troll than human. The man held sample after sample of some black gunk in cases in his hands and a flash drive in his mouth as he looked around fearfully and tried to scamper out of the base.

Before he even realized that he had been spotted by possibly the most dangerous person he could have come across, the scientist was grabbed by the back of his collar by Naruto, "Name."

"S-Senoh!" He crowed in fear involuntarily. He surprised even himself at how quickly he coughed that up. What was that feeling of absolute despair coming off of this person? He felt as if saying the wrong thing would get him killed, "Who are you!?"

"Where's Karin?" Naruto asked, getting straight to the point.

"W-What?"

"Kanzuki Karin! Where!?" After hearing him go silent, but still shaking in his grasp, Naruto spotted the black gunk in the cases that the man held. Grabbing one of them, Naruto opened its top and held it over his head, "I've seen this stuff before. It's pretty nasty stuff, and I'll make you drink it if you don't tell me where she is."

Oh that was just not an option for Senoh. As Seth's lead scientist he'd seen firsthand just what the BLECE substance could do to the human body in its endeavor to forcefully release the ki of the recipient. A quick death would have been preferable to being subjected to that prolonged torment, "No! My body isn't strong enough to withstand its effects! Don't!"

"Karin." Naruto demanded, pouring some of the gunk out onto his face. Apparently it was only effective upon being ingested somehow, so it wouldn't do anything but scare the piss out of him in this manner.

"Observation cells at the back end of the finished product section of R&D! Down the hall!" Senoh sputtered desperately. He wasn't about to get BLECE'd for Seth. He'd rather have Seth kill him, "Don't!"

Naruto let him loose and watched him skitter away like a mouse, dropping containers as he scampered off simply to put distance between the two of them. Looking down, Naruto saw the flash drive Senoh dropped after getting caught and stomped on it before pouring the rest of the black gunk in his confiscated container on top of it.

With his direction confirmed for him, Naruto charged forward faster than ever before and saw the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

Knocking down a heavy-duty door to enter an open, eerily lit laboratory area, Naruto stopped as he could feel that sense of emptiness that Sakura had been alluding to. One that he'd sensed personally up close. She had been referring to Seth, and it wasn't very hard for Naruto to see him.

The synthetic human sat lazily in what appeared to be a mechanical throne descending from an elevated platform, smirking at Naruto as if killing intent wasn't flying off of the blond young man at the mere sight of him.

"So you were foolish enough to come and face me again." Seth said, standing up from his throne as it finished lowering. He gestured around himself, "Don't worry about destroying anything here. All of this research has been backed up for posterity so feel free to flail away with all your might just like the first time."

Trash-talk aside, Naruto really only had one burning question at the moment.

"Oi… where are your clothes?"

And indeed, Seth was not wearing clothes. At all. That was weird. Naruto had fought guys wearing tights, had fought in a bathhouse, and his lovely little roomie wore a leotard that left very little to the imagination. He'd never fought a naked chrome humanoid thing before however, and it was kind of unnerving.

He also had no junk. Total Ken-doll syndrome. Which was hilarious, but now was not the time.

"Where's Karin's cell?"

"Oh I can't give her back yet. I'm not quite done with her you see." Seth said with his infuriatingly constant grin, "I'm not done retraining her, so you'll have to wait. She probably won't remember you when I'm finished though, but you didn't have any problems retraining the last hand-me-down Doll that fell into your lap so you shouldn't have too much trouble with this one."

Naruto couldn't have turned on the Kyuubi's chakra quick enough to shut his mouth for his tastes. Two tails right off the bat, just to punch that stupid remark back down his throat.

This time Naruto's first blow landed, but hardly turned Seth's head to the side. It definitely didn't wipe the smirk off of his face, "I just wanted to make you feel that as an inferior being you had a chance to defeat me, if only for a moment." He grabbed Naruto by the wrist and threw him over his head and behind him effortlessly.

Like a cat, he landed on his feet in a crouch and decided to keep from screwing around. A third chakra tail formed, the crushing power of the boost warping the floor beneath Naruto's feet.

With a laugh, Seth disappeared in a teleport and reappeared behind Naruto, hands clasped together in a hammer position that he slammed down on the back of his neck in an attempt to break his neck.

Naruto remained on his feet with a growl despite folding up extensively due to the blow taken, forming a Rasengan in one hand and covering it with his other as he ignored the pain, "Rasenbakufuu (Spiraling Shockwave)!" A red shockwave expanded out all around Naruto's body with enough force to flip a stationary vehicle. But it barely forced Seth to stumble backwards seven steps, 'That should have turned his front into pulp.'

"Don't hold me to the standards of you humans." Seth said, his chrome body hardly even scuffed by the abusive counterattack, "I've already tried to assimilate your abilities. There was no technique you were capable of worth taking and using. But I already know that nothing you have can defeat me." With his back still turned, Naruto lashed out with a series of primal kicks that Seth blocked.

Smashing his forearm into Naruto's ankle after blocking one of the kicks, he spun him around and hit him under the chin with an elbow uppercut. Showing off the dominance of his blend of fighting techniques, Seth landed a kick that spawned an uncountable number of lightning-quick follow-up kicks on his target of choice, "Hyakuretsukyaku (Hundred Rending Kicks)!"

An unseen force was what Naruto figured dealt him the damage, as he saw Seth throw one kick and follow through with the spin behind it while he felt the impact of the others on his body. It felt like he stopped time and kicked him dozens of times before restarting the clock.

The cumulative force sent Naruto flying through a glass shelf of stored chemicals that broke and spilled out onto the floor. His chakra cloak was dense enough to keep them from splashing onto his body and harming him, but they burned away a portion of his fighting outfit, revealing mesh armor underneath.

Seth simply walked over the corrosive chemicals on the floor, ignoring the steam rising up from the burned floor as he gestured for Naruto to keep on coming at him. He didn't need to wave that red cape in front of this particular bull any more than he already had as Naruto attacked head-on.

Rushing forward in an improvised Shunshin, Naruto's speedy rush placed him right in front of Seth with his fist cocked back. This time, Seth didn't let the punch land, catching it in the palm of his hand despite the resounding blowback wave from the blow making impact with something.

The taunt meant to emanate from Seth's mouth after blocking the punch never came to be as he found himself surrounded by dozens of clones, all snarling at him before launching themselves at him. His attention averted for a moment, this allowed the original Naruto to punch him in the stomach and knock him into the air where his personage was then assaulted by every last clone end over end, "Uzumaki Naruto Mugen Rendan (Naruto Uzumaki Infinite Combo)!"

Seth was held up in the air in place seemingly by the unlimited barrage his body was forced to endure on all sides by the red-tinted blurs bouncing off of the walls, floor, and ceiling to batter him from all sides.

The original Naruto didn't sit idle however, inhaling deeply and drawing large amounts of chakra to the back of his throat, "Chou Ikitaihou (Super Breath Cannon)!" In a red flash, Naruto blasted Seth and all of his clones used to immobilize the artificial being.

It was the largest of this jutsu's ilk that Naruto had ever released. He'd never tried it with that much chakra before because there was no way that it would have been safe to use even in the isolated junkyard that was his heavy training area. He would have turned it into a vacant lot if he had.

Everything in the direction that he fired the blast in simply stopped existing in its complete form. That was all there was to it. An entire half of the massive room, the wall at the end of it, and a good portion of the wide hallway outside was turned into a burning, melting, devastated wreck.

Breathing heavily and coughing a bit at the harm he'd done to his own throat with that jutsu, Naruto stared at the devastation he'd wrought, "And that's why I'm the best ninja in the world… you big chrome bitch."

"That was more impressive than anything I thought you were capable of."

Standing behind Naruto yards away, Seth stood, badly scuffed up and no longer as shiny and pristine as he was before, but since he should have been at most a disembodied bottom half after the last attack he was comparatively unharmed.

Naruto wasn't even angry to see his face. He was simply shocked, "How-? How did you survive that?"

"I don't know if that would have destroyed me or not." Seth admitted, "I wasn't willing to try and assimilate that blast. Luckily I already assimilated another technique from you that allowed me a reprieve from testing a limit that I'm not sure I would have been able to endure."

"From me?"

"I believe you refer to it as Kawarimi no Jutsu." Naruto's jaw dropped, "I can't use your ninja techniques, but after studying it, it was fairly simple to modify my teleportation to perform such a task."

With a subtle placement of his hands in front of his Tanden Engine, Seth forcefully reeled Naruto in with the inescapable force of a miniature black hole, "Let's take this to the next level. Tanden Storm!" As Naruto was incoming, Seth swirled his hands in front of his body, creating a second black hole. The force of two cataclysmic forces caused a reaction that warped the physical realm around them.

Naruto was the closest target and screamed in bloody horror as he felt the sensation of his body being crushed from both the inside and outside while the lab crumpled inward on itself. Things that weren't strong enough to stand up to the force did their best impression of aluminum cans in a trash compactor.

"GAAAAAAAAH!" Naruto's mesh armor simply fell apart around him, his skin rippling and his muscles tearing and reattaching in real-time right before Seth's eyes. For once, he was honestly impressed with what he was seeing. As grotesque and violent as it was, a being such as him had no grievances about inflicting carnage when it was necessary.

"A human being with an ability to endure such injuries and regenerate? No, not quite regeneration. Advanced healing I would surmise." Seth mused aloud under the sound of Naruto's agonizing wails. They simply didn't matter enough for him to disregard the fascination he had for watching Naruto's body try to heal the horrible injuries being inflicted upon it almost as fast as they were occurring, "I wonder-."

SHIRK!

From behind, a hand covered in black-colored lightning punched into Seth's back and straight out through his chest. He didn't waver however, merely curiously peering down at the hand inside of his torso.

Behind him, Sasuke stood in his Level 2 Cursed Seal form, wondering how this thing was still standing after taking a black Chidori through the heart.

…Did this thing even have a heart? Apparently not.

Seth slowly pushed Sasuke's hand back out of his chest and turned around to face the winged Uchiha in his transformed state, "A human being can undergo such a radical transformation to their given skeletal structure?"

"What the hell are you?" Sasuke asked, sneering at him.

Seth grinned as his wound seemingly knitted itself back together. His hypothesis correct in assuming that his past assimilation of Naruto in his Kyuubi chakra state gave him potential access to the same ability to quickly heal his wounds as long as he had the necessary power to facilitate the process. With the Tanden Engine inside of him he would never run out of energy.

"…I am eternal." The advanced being crowed majestically.

To the front and the back of Seth's head, Naruto and Sasuke both delivered punches that they figured would have rendered anything else into a fine red pulp complete with mist. Seth was not amused.

Bringing his last attack back up from his playbook, Seth began to create two black holes due to its effectiveness the first time around. Both Naruto and Sasuke saw what he was about to do and both used their right legs to kick at one of Seth's arms, knocking his hands into one another just as the two black holes formed.

The backlash was horrendous, as instead of attracting, it repelled. Repelled everything, including the room itself. The entire hollowed out underground area that the lab was built into groaned and shook as many metal panels came down, exposing the earthy walls that originally adorned the manmade groove in the crust. Emergency sirens blared and emergency lights flashed without cease to periodically light the otherwise shadowy room, meant to inform the scientists that worked there of critical emergencies in the base emanating from the main lab.

There was a critical situation happening in the lab, but it had nothing to do with science.

A bloody mess as a result of enduring Seth's Tanden Storm the first time around, Naruto squinted with one eye, in pain as he stood up off of the wall his body had been hurled into, "Hah… hah… Sasuke…"

"…What?" Good. He was nearby. Naruto caught sight of his best enemy shoving a heavy amount of twisted metal off of his body, "You look like shit."

"What are you doing here?"

"As if… anyone could miss you turning up the heat with your chakra all at once… dumbass." Sasuke figured that if Naruto was willing to jumpstart his power to three tails that quickly, it was for a big reason, "What is that thing?"

"The guy that runs S.I.N." Naruto explained, "Gonna kill him, and go get Rin-Rin."

"You know where she is?"

"She's close."

"Then go get her." Sasuke said before spitting blood onto the floor, "This place isn't going to be left standing by the time this ends. So go get her out."

A look of concern crossed Naruto's battle-frenzied face at the thought of leaving Sasuke alone to fight Seth, even for just a while, "Sasuke… you can't beat him alone."

"Don't you think I know that?" Sasuke spat bitterly. He was highly self-confident, but he was no fool, "Hurry up and shoo the Kanzuki girl out of here and get your ass back in the fight. I'm the only one that's allowed to kill you, and I'm not dying until I make you pay for getting us sucked into this stupid world."

A small grin came to Naruto's face, "How do you know it wasn't your fault?"

"Tch, just go. He's back up." At that, Sasuke formed another warped, darkly chirping Chidori and swung his arm, sending thousands of black electric needles across the room rapidly at the synthetic being, "Habataku Chidori Senbon (Flapping One Thousand Birds Senbon)!"

Knowing that something like that wouldn't get the job done, even as powerful as it was, Sasuke used that as a cover to Shunshin closer to Seth. His hands had already completed the hand-seals for the first ninjutsu he ever learned.

"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu)!"

From his mouth he sprayed a massive flamethrower-style blast of flames to cover Seth's body. With the chemicals that were already on the ground from earlier, a great portion of the floor caught ablaze as well. The site of the battle had become almost a literal embodiment of hell itself at first glance.

'Just die.' Sasuke thought to himself as he continued to shoot fire. It was all for naught though as he could see motion from within the flames with his Sharingan and canceled the attack for safety's sake, 'Of course. A guy that could assimilate the abilities of others would pick up the one thing from the dobe that still pisses me off every time I think about fighting him.'

"It's been fascinating to see just how my newly assimilated healing factor works." Seth said as he walked through the fire with a displeased look on his face, "It does nothing for the pain however. I cannot say that I am pleased with enduring so much from someone who could never kill me. You have nothing to worthwhile to offer me from your assimilation. So you may die now."

XxX

The back end of the lab. That was where Naruto was told to go by weasely scientist guy from before. And lo and behold he found a small hallway that led to several isolated rooms. Trying each door he only found one that was currently locked, and that was the one he chose.

Reinforced to endure any sort of punishing blow that a superhuman being could deal out, the same couldn't really be said for the wall surrounding it. Three-tailed Naruto simply ripped the door out of the wall and hurled it away to enter and find Karin subjected to a torturous amount of mind-altering stimulation to her senses.

Right then his boner for murder died and he lost his chakra boost as he scrambled to pry off the bonds holding her limbs, torso, and neck down to the table. He was strong enough on his own to rip those off, especially when motivated, and wasted no time after doing so whisking her back out into the hallway, slamming his back against the wall and sinking down to the floor with her in his arms.

Her breaths were short and panting, as if she had to strictly regulate her breathing to keep from panicking and snapping while enduring all of that torment.

As he could still hear the sounds and see the sights of the 'conditioning chamber', Naruto sneered and tossed an explosive tag in through the open doorway, cradling Karin's body tightly as it detonated and blew everything in the room to ashes.

"Karin." Naruto repeated to her over and over, tilting her face towards his to try and prompt her to focus her eyes on him, "Shhh… It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. I've got you. It's okay. I promise."

"Not okay." Karin replied in a whispered panic, tears spilling from her eyes at finally being able to let her guard break, "Not okay. Make it stop."

Getting mad all over again wouldn't do her any good now that he had her. She'd been there for two days. Seth had been subjecting her to the kind of conditioning that broke the Dolls for two days. Why did people in the world have to be willing to do such ugly things to others?

The horrible method of preparing female assassins should have died with Cammy's amnesia, which might have been a blessing in disguise. The fact that it was brought back to be used again in any way just told him that some people never learned, at least not in that way. The only mistakes that evil people seemed to learn from the fall of their predecessors were ways to more effectively use their resources to cause others pain and torment. That pain and torment had been inflicted on Karin.

Even after minutes passed and she went quiet in her desperate rambling pleads to make whatever she was seeing behind her eyelids every time she blinked stop, she wouldn't cease her shaking. He never thought he'd see the day when he saw such weakness in the proud girl.

"I'm so sorry Karin." Naruto said, pressing his headband-covered forehead against hers, "I'm weak. If I was strong enough, this wouldn't have ever happened. If I was strong enough, Sasuke wouldn't be out there buying me time."

Dealing with Charlie in the past and Guile in the aftermath of that loss taught him that dwelling on things could ruin you as a person. But it was different when you were staring the results in the face and soothing her tears away.

"You really should shut up about that. You came to retrieve me did you not?" Karin murmured quietly, reaching up to touch at his saddened, battle-stained face, "Oh, you are hurt." Kissing his cheek once and peppering him repeatedly with short ones, "He hurt you." He was coated in blood and grime. Her hands were sticky with it, and it was marking her white dress.

"He hurt you worse."

"I am fine. He did not harm me physically."

"He didn't have to! This is worse! You won't stop shaking and it's scaring me to death!"

Psychological torture scared Naruto more than the thought of physical torture. He could heal anything that anyone did to him physically… as long as nothing was cut off. An attack on one's psyche was life-altering.

Karin softly rubbed the filthy blond's cheek before her eyes sharpened on his and she slapped him, "Do you really think me so weak that I would allow this to cripple me? Let go of me." She demanded, fussing to get out of his grasp to prove a point. She was not going to let the man she supported lose his nerve.

Per request, Naruto let go of her and watched worriedly, still sitting against the wall.

"Are you aware… of just who I am?" She asked as she shakily put her feet beneath her and pushed herself up, swaying slightly before using the wall opposite of Naruto to keep herself upright until she could do so on her own, standing tall and straight-backed, "I am the current head of the Kanzuki Zaibatsu, the most powerful conglomerate in the eastern hemisphere; Kanzuki Karin. Tawdry bells, whistles, clicks, and intruding prods are incapable of breaking me."

"…My boss lady." Naruto said quietly to himself as the entire facility shook around them, "Tenacious as a goddamn pit bull."

That was the constant of all of the incredible women in his life. They came from four different walks of life and were all so markedly different in most every fundamental way one could bring up as a possible point of contention. Despite that there was one thing that Karin, Sakura, Ibuki, and Cammy had in common.

All of them simply wouldn't roll over and be timorous, no matter what happened to them, and no matter what they had to deal with, either due to the life he led or due to whatever hand was personally dealt their way. Nothing would make them turn back. They all embodied resolve, doggedness, drive, and it was never any clearer than right then.

Snapping out of it, Naruto stood back up and put his hands on her shoulders. Her body gave a tremor every now and again. She wasn't even close to being alright, he could tell, but she was putting on her poker face for the benefit of his peace of mind. He would never forget the tormented expression on her face he saw upon opening that door as long as he lived.

Her show of strength was short lived as Karin's eyes fluttered and she collapsed against Naruto, the low strength in her tired body lapsing momentarily, "You came for me, the way I hoped you would… like my knight."

'_Yes. Smile at me. Show me the face that will always make me believe that everything will be alright, the face that changed my life simply by being a part of it. I am not afraid. I will not be afraid as long as I can look upon you.' _

"-I knew from the very beginning that you would save me."

'_Would you listen if I said these words to you? Would you understand why I adore you my beloved? What you've done to me? You give me strength and weaken me at the same time, and it feels _wonderful_. You cause a storm of contradiction in my heart."_

"-No matter what you do, you can never let me down."

'_I wonder, do you feel my heartbeat? I can feel yours; ferocious, constant, and strong. It soothes this distressed maiden's mind.'_

"-Because I know that you would never accept such an outcome."

'_Oh, my koishii, mi amado, __bien-aimée! No matter what __language__ I say __it__ in, __you will never know how much I adore you, even if I told you! I simply do not possess the vocabulary in any vernacular to aptly articulate what I feel. I could scream it were it not so unsightly to do so, and it still would not convey the proper passion… so I fear it must go unsaid until I find a way.'_

She simply didn't have the strength of body to fortify her courage and say what she truly wanted to his face. How she truly felt. It wasn't the same as admitting attraction to him. It was nothing like it at all. It was different than standing up to face an opponent in battle that was frighteningly powerful. There simply was no comparison.

Karin couldn't muster what it took to speak the words she wanted to say over and over to him. Not then.

"Come on. Let's get you out of here Rin-Rin."

"Of course Naruto-san."

'…_I love you.'_

XxX

(Elsewhere in the Base)

Whatever Sakura and Juri had done, it almost caved in the entire segment of the base that had also been shared by Ibuki, Cammy, and Abel. Even though it had been far down a separate corridor from a conjoining chamber, the horrid shaking that resulted from Sakura's Hadoken vaporizing a giant hole straight to the surface brought the fight between the remnants of S.I.N.'s present elite foot soldier force and the invading martial artists to a temporary halt.

It caused a cave-in of rocks and sand that fell through the new hole and covered the floor. Even at their distance they could see all of that fall inward onto the ground.

"Sakura-chan is still over there." Ibuki whispered worriedly, reconvening with Cammy and Abel temporarily while everything was at a standstill. Even if she was still frightened by that same power that Sakura almost turned on her with in a fit of rage at school, she was still her close friend, "D-Do you think she-?"

"No." Cammy said resolutely, "Even though none of us can sense energy intentionally, all of us felt the power she had. That amount isn't enough to destroy a force like that. It would have had to be enough to bury her alive to even have a chance."

Abel didn't know what they'd felt, or how a girl such as Sakura could generate such a power. To him, it was something that triggered a primal fight or flight response in him, but there was no fight response. His body screamed at him to stay away from that energy. Were he to stand against it, he felt that his body would betray him in order to avoid confrontation with such a force.

'How could so much might exist in such a young girl?' Abel could barely register that sort of power as natural, 'It felt like a spiritual manifestation of sheer wild passion.'

"RRAAAAAGHH!"

The sound of someone crying out drew their attention to the sight of one of S.I.N.'s BLECE soldiers. Dropping to the ground on his knees he started to bleed from his pores despite being uninjured during the course of the battle. Soon thereafter another fell, and another, and another.

What the hell was going on? They were a formidable ki-spewing fighting force one moment and the next they were dropping like flies, writhing in pain on the ground.

Cammy squinted as she started to see what she thought was a glow underneath their skin before it started to burn and blacken from the underside up, "Oh no." She said, holding a hand to her chest in sympathy, "Oh…this is terrible."

"What?" Abel asked his little sister of sorts, "What do you see?"

Cammy took off the little hat on her head and shook her head in sorrow. In battle she had no mercy against her foes, but this wasn't a case of combat, "Their bodies. Whatever BLECE is, I believe it forced the ability of ki manipulation unto its recipients."

"You can't force something like that!" Ibuki exclaimed. She knew that much. It took constant physical and mental training just to gain enough lifeforce as well as learn to reach and control it to utilize ki to enhance oneself. It wasn't something meant to be accessible to everyone automatically. Clearly this had not been a concern of those in charge of this project, "Ki isn't supposed to be used at all! If it was, we wouldn't have to work so hard just to get the access to it that _we_ have!"

Ki was a naturally created energy, but it wasn't meant to be utilized to strengthen and revitalize the human body. It wasn't meant to be used as a weapon. That was something martial arts discovered in order to build upon the limits of humankind.

None of the current Aohura City trio could shoot ki bolts or use it externally unless they were still touching it directly. It had been a curious wonder as to why so many of these soldiers had the ability to perform actions that less than a fraction of 1% of the trained fighter population of the entire world found themselves capable of.

"This is progress?" Abel spat bitterly, "Was this just a next step in what we were supposed to be? A bid to create the perfect human specimen?" Cursing in French he then let out a sigh as he watched Cammy sit down cross-legged on the floor, "Is there anything we can do?"

The question went to her, as no one amongst them knew more about the human body than Cammy did. It was integral to the method of speedy operational style of fighting that she used to accurately attack joints and vital areas whenever available. There was also clearly a practicality to it outside of battle. She knew more by simply watching a person's body than anyone else would, "Are you a doctor?"

"…" He had no comment. It was obvious that he wasn't.

"Are you a holistic healer adept in ki-related treatments?"

"..." Again, nothing.

"There isn't anything we can do then."

No one could ever say that Cammy was tactful in how she addressed unpleasant things.

As this portion of the battle seemed to be over, Ibuki joined the clone pseudo-siblings in watching all of this through to the end, no matter what. As a ninja it was disrespectful to the lives she'd taken already that day to turn her back on this, even if it was graphic and horrible.

She merely got down on her knees, sitting on her heels in a proper seiza with her hands pressed together in something of a prayer to end their suffering quickly. They would wait it all out until it finally concluded.

XxX

With a forceful kick, Juri sent a large-sized piece of stone flying off of her body across the partially caved in corridor. Sitting up from where she'd been somewhat buried under debris, she shook her head out and dabbed at the cut that had opened on the side of her head and bled down the side of her face.

"Stupid _bitch_." Juri emphasized by kicking a metal beam out of her vicinity as she stood back up, "I hope the whole damn mountain fell on her head."

Once again, gross amounts of reinforced property found itself obliterated as a result of one of her battles, but this time it wasn't her that initiated the massive amounts of destruction. No, it was her opponent that had done so.

She had to have blown everything she had to bring out that kind of energy. Just thinking about it gave Juri goosebumps. Or maybe that was just the cool desert night air drifting down the open and gaping hole that led up to the surface.

"And me with my lovely little source of extra ki." Juri said to herself, rubbing her eye with a pleased purr, "I ain't spent yet." The crunching sound of chunked dirt, sand, and rocks came from beneath her feet as she stood up and dusted herself off as best as she could, "Tch." She looked around and smirked before blowing a taunting kiss at nothing in particular.

Now that all of this was over with and done, she still felt frisky enough to go back and slaughter the other three rubes that had been left back fighting the BLECE soldiers.

In hindsight, that battle had been fun. What a thrill, to face someone that was so willing to inflict the kind of bodily harm on her to win that she was willing to dish out back in return.

Her musings on what a good fight that had been came to an end when she heard the sound of crumbled rocks falling down the main pile caused by the cave-in. Slowly, Juri turned her head around and to the top of the pile to where she saw Sakura, sitting and staring up forlornly at the moon that bathed her in its light through the hole in the roof.

Juri snarled at her adversary through her teeth, "_You_."

"Me." Sakura replied casually, slowly letting her solid red eyes drift down and over to Juri, "You aren't done aren't you? I didn't break you without even finishing you did I?" She asked, "Come on. Aren't you all about making chaos for fun? Isn't this what you want?" She slowly stood up in her raggedly tattered school uniform, covered in blood, "You're not scared are you? Of little old me?"

Gritting her jaw shut, Juri opened wide and let out a shrill, horrid scream as she unleashed as much pink ki from the glowing Feng Shui Engine through her body that she could force out of it to enhance her every action, "Scared!? You're really pushing my buttons little girl! By the time you get to hell you'll still be screaming after what I've done to you! This is the end for you! Kaisen Dankairaku (Spinning World-Ending Descent)!"

The pink blip faded from sight and began smashing Sakura up higher and higher into the air with a barrage of vertical spinning kicks from Juri, making her look like a blurry, pink top. Reaching the apex of her attack, Juri flipped over Sakura and delivered a downward ax kick that sent her target flying to the ground.

With another flash of the Feng Shui Engine eye, Juri was able to move her body and beat Sakura to the ground where she caused the girl to land back-first with a flexible lifting back kick that held Sakura over her head, her body held up and bent in a manner that enabled Juri to stroke her face with one last bitter taunt before she stopped the show, "Nighty-night baby girl."

There was no response aside from the discomfort of being beaten up on Sakura's face, as she rested almost eye-to-eye upside down with Juri. After hearing Juri's taunt, Sakura simply reached one hand out to the side and as quick as lightning, she plucked her left eye out.

Straight in, straight out. No bumping around the socket, just perfect aim and execution. Damn near surgical precision.

It was as clean as the act of removing a human eye with your bare fingers could possibly be.

Sakura severed every wire and every artificial nerve attached to every _real_ nerve inside of the woman's head as if she'd been practicing the art of maiming others for years. It was almost done casually.

It took a moment for Juri to register the pain and the loss of enhanced ki, but when she did finally feel it, the pain was blinding. No pun intended. It didn't matter that the eye was sort of a machine. It had been legitimately connected to her nerves, optical and otherwise. For all intents and purposes she might as well have gotten the real one ripped out all over again.

Dropping Sakura to the ground without delivering the killing move of her technique, Juri hit the deck and began writhing and howling at the top of her lungs. Blood spurted through her hands freely as she clutched desperately at her now empty socket.

This time hurt infinitely worse than the last time. The first time she lost her eye it had been damaged while in the socket. She had not had to endure someone reaching into her skull and pulling it out.

"YOU BITCH! I'LL KILL YOU!" Juri wailed in between her rolling around, covering herself in her own blood, "MY EYE!" She sobbed terribly.

Sakura simply stood over Juri, looking down at her coldly as she raised her right hand to deliver a killing downward blow, but upon seeing blood drip from her hand she stopped and opened it to look at it, only to see the Feng Shui Engine built into the eye looking right back at her.

Getting a gander at that, Sakura's own eyes went wide and slowly drifted back to their original emotive brown color, the whites of them returning as well. Her skin color receded to its original fairer tone once the dark power of the Satsui no Hadou fully left her.

All that remained was a horrific feeling in the pit of her stomach about what she'd done to another person. She could have done anything in that situation. She'd let herself be captured in that position to prove a point, to assert that she was the alpha woman fighter, not Juri. And she was entirely willing to punish her for every reason she'd come to despise her for in the most brutal way she could think of at the moment instead of just escaping the combo and countering in a more textbook manner.

Juri continued to wail and thrash about in pain and despair. All the while, Sakura stared at her bloody fighting gloves and felt the warm life fluid on her fingertips as she slowly backed away shaking her head. The artificial optical orb finally fell from her open hand and seemed to echo as it bounced off of the ground, 'What have I done?'

* * *

><p><strong>And that's the chapter peeps. Violent enough for you? Next time, the end of the fights and the aftermath.<br>**

**Goddamn Chael Sonnen can run his mouth. After he beat Mauricio Rua tonight on Fox Sports 1's first UFC event, he ran down Wanderlei Silva on the mic. **

**Admittedly that would have been ballsier to do in 2005 when he had the world convinced that given two minutes he would slaughter any being alive with his bare hands, but even now that man would still scare a shake into my knees if I found out I had to fight him in three months' time.**

**Ah… damn it I loves me some Chael Sonnen. I don't know why. **

**And now that I've alienated a good chunk of my audience that may or may not know what the hell I'm talking about I'll stop.**

**But Sunday night… War Bryan Danielson. You know what I'm talking about people that know what I'm talking about.**

**Again… I probably alienated another huge chunk of my core audience here, but whatever. **

**Since I was in middle school I followed that man, following his career while he was busting his ass doing 60+ minute matches for peanuts. I watched him get his retina detached in a match in the bid to make it big. After all of that, it's good to see him get his night to shine.**

**So now that you're all sufficiently estranged from me due to everything I just said, Kenchi out.**


	50. Peace of Mind

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. If I did, I wouldn't have to worry about my computers BSODing on me like I do right now. So fucking annoying. I'm legit pissed.

**Chapter 50: Peace of Mind**

* * *

><p>Sasuke was no hero. He would stress this to anyone that made the mistake of assuming otherwise. He was a ninja turned assassin that only fought for himself, for money, to test himself and prove he was the best, and whenever he was angered enough to want to make others hurt.<p>

In other words, he was kind of a prick.

He didn't come to Vegas to save Karin. He didn't care about that in the slightest even though it was the primary motivation of everyone else in Naruto's group. No, the only reason he'd come was to get him a piece of Juri Han, and it didn't even look like he was going to be getting that any longer. So why was he still there? Why was he fighting? Why was he taking on the top brass boss of S.I.N. when there was nothing to gain? Why was he fighting someone with powers that humans shouldn't have? Powers that let him take the abilities and techniques of others (And yes, he realized the irony of that sentiment)?

It was _not_ because he and Naruto were friends and he needed the interference run for him.

Either way, he was fighting, and nothing else was important at the time other than finding a way to survive and if all the planets aligned correctly, win.

It wasn't looking good.

Sasuke's body flew through a wall of flames and landed on the ground in a heap before he picked himself back up, "Ugh… this is killing my wings, damn it." The dark-haired Uchiha said to himself as he faced Seth making his way harmlessly through the fire, "Shit."

"Sonic Boom!" With a swipe of one arm, Seth sent three spinning blades of yellow ki at Sasuke that he dodged, "You're quick." He noted as Sasuke took to the air with his wings, "I somehow keep finding myself amazed at the things that humans are capable of. Hmm."

Creating a Chidori in his right hand, Sasuke took aim from the sky at Seth before finding that he'd vanished without a trace, "What the-?"

He found himself turned upside-down and grabbed around the waist as Seth held him and drove him into the ground headfirst, "Spinning Piledriver!" The impact broke into the floor and Sasuke's body bounced limply before hitting the floor as Seth let him go.

Getting right back up, Seth simply watched Sasuke's motionless form before noticing his Tanden Engine had assimilated something, "Oh. Let me see." He said to himself before grunting in effort, eventually sprouting wings from his chrome body, "Hah… they're functional as well. How wonderful." He remarked as he started to flap them and fly around as a test.

'This is ridiculous.' Sasuke thought, slowly pushing himself up, 'Now I know how annoying it is to other people when I copy their moves and use them in front of them.' He was seeing red, and it wasn't because of the blood on his face or the Sharingan, 'Look at him. He barely knows what he's doing with those things.'

…Wait.

He barely knew what he was doing with those things. Sure, he knew how to fly, but it didn't seem to be as technical as Sasuke's flying had wound up being. It was as if Seth was just flying for the sake of having flight instead of knowing what he actually had to do to use them functionally in a fight.

Come to think of it, he'd seen Seth do that a bit with quite a few of the powers he'd used.

Chun-Li's kicks, he'd used them in his own way, but they weren't done in the manner that they were supposed to be used in. Guile's Sonic Boom, it wasn't used as a way to control his opponents' space. He used it as nothing more than a fast projectile. Zangief's Spinning Piledriver, instead of coming forward like a tank and grabbing hold of his opponent, crushing them as he dropped them, he just drove them down.

Could it be? Yes, it had to be. For all of his fighting data that he'd analyzed, for all of the techniques and abilities he'd copied, Seth didn't understand the correct way to use those moves.

Not only that, but how many actual fights could Seth have been in really? Who had he fought before all of this started? All he had was strength and data. He didn't know anything about the actual intangibles of combat.

And all of a sudden in Sasuke's mind the sun seemed as if it peeked through the clouds.

A newfound sense of purpose in this battle, Sasuke had quickly formulated a plan of action, but he needed a little assistance from his enemy to get it done, 'If I could just sucker in him in.' And that was the beautiful thing. Seth was making eye contact with him. A little hint-hint with the suggestive properties of the Sharingan genjutsu, and it was a matter of setting things up, "It's time to turn this around."

"Oh really?" Seth asked, flapping his wings before dashing with them at Sasuke, "Show me more then!"

Timing it just right, Sasuke Kawarimied with a chunk of floor stung at Seth from behind with his prepared Chidori Senbon attack. As expected, all it really did was piss him off as he teleported out of the way and healed it. Coming at Sasuke again, he grazed him with a full-body shoulder charge and knocked him to the ground. The surprisingly resilient former ninja/current assassin got back up in a roll and took to the sky.

Flying around, Sasuke waited for Seth to take off after him before smirking and vanishing in a Shunshin. Seth had no idea where he moved to, and rotated all around, not knowing that Sasuke was directly behind him, hovering there out of sight until he felt Sasuke's index and middle finger pressing against the small of his back.

Spinning around to swing at him, Sasuke rotated with him, spinning Seth around when he was back above him and smashing him with a spinning backfist to the face, following through with a hard front punch with the other hand that sent them to the ground, and a wheeling ax kick to the neck that smashed Seth into the fire on the ground, hitting with enough force to extinguish a good measure of nearby flames, "Shishi Rendan (Lion's Barrage)!"

He didn't expect that to work. For all of the strength he had behind that combination with the second stage of his Cursed Seal to add onto it, he was well aware of the fact that if he survived a Chidori to the chest it would take more than that to finish him. It was all a part of the plan.

Seth reached for his head and cracked his neck back into place as the front of his throat healed the massive heel-sized groove in it. Damn it Naruto, why couldn't you get some other freaky ability for someone else to steal other than damn near regenerative abilities?

Sasuke floated up the ceiling and stuck himself there waiting patiently for Seth. Normally he would have jumped all over his downed form like a jackal, but it wouldn't do any good. He wouldn't die until he finished his plan. It would be a sure-kill.

"Come on." Sasuke taunted with a smirk, "You talk about all of that power, but all I've seen you do is steal other people's moves and do them half-assed." Again, ironic statement, but it was made for a reason, "If Naruto was here he would have ripped that stupid yin-yang out of your stomach and made you eat it by now."

Actually getting damaged and then hearing the person that did it mouth off afterwards, this was something Seth wasn't used to. Insults and taunts? No one did that to Seth. To say such things to the perfect being was a death wish. And he had enough power to waste on an attack that would eradicate this upstart. He had enough power to do it a thousand times in a row and suffer no ill effects for it.

With that in mind, Seth bent his body around, standing on his feet and head with the Tanden Engine aimed right up at Sasuke as it spun rapidly, "Behold the glory of the Tanden Engine. Tanden Typhoon!" A horrible black tornado was released from the engine, the size of a real one that would be found in nature.

Sasuke had been anticipating something incredible that he would have to dodge by the skin of his teeth, but he didn't know how he was going to do something like that.

No! What kind of quitter bullshit was that? It didn't matter if he could see a way to dodge, he'd find a way to do it regardless! He wasn't going to die there until he found a way home! Until he proved to Naruto that he had always been better than that dead last! Until he killed Gen and pulled that old tormenting bastard's stupid wispy beard and mustache off as a trophy! Until he heard Akira ask him if he wanted to-!

Grr… all of that other stuff still stood!

He wasn't going to die in some pit underground!

XxX

(Outside of the Base)

In the helicopter, the terrible sound of the ground splitting sounded out as if an earthquake were hitting. Chun-Li bit her lip at the thought of something horrible occurring underground again. They hadn't seen or heard a peep since the massive rainbow-colored Hadoken went up and blew through the ground in another place, but this felt like a release of nothing but blank energy.

Guile was then forced to maneuver the helicopter frantically as a large black tornado tore through the ground and up into the sky. This wasn't like the Hadoken. It caused the edges of the hole to collapse inward as if it were a sinkhole, revealing more and more of the base down below.

What?

Did something down there just create a tornado powerful enough to rip a hole up to the surface of the desert? That was all different kinds of wrong.

"Okay, I don't care about this crap saying we can't get directly involved anymore." Guile said, bringing the helicopter down in the nearest safe place he could, "I'm not about to let a bunch of kids fight whatever the hell just did _that_. I don't care how good they are, that's not the principle here."

Chun-Li agreed. They were probably going to catch hell if this wound up coming back around on them, but at some point you had to take your orders and shove them. Making sure that the people you cared about were alive and could walk home was more important than any damn command of discretion.

"Come on, come on, come on." The Chinese Kenpo specialist chanted impatiently, fidgeting in her cockpit seat to get down, out, and over there to find out just what the hell was going on.

If Seth or Juri hurt one of her damn loved ones… it wouldn't matter how strong they were. There would be hell to pay one way or another even if it was the last thing she did. Those teenagers down in that deathtrap were like little cousins to her, maybe even brothers and sisters if she thought about it hard enough.

They were tough enough, but how strong were they really? Some were stronger than her, but how much more?

XxX

(S.I.N. Base – Main Laboratory)

Seth was extremely pleased with his renovations to his stronghold, mostly because he had been the one to cause it. It was a monument that would stand as a testament to his power. People would look upon this even after this place was abandoned without a trace and would wonder who had the ungodly might to cause this.

And they would know it was Seth. The most powerful being ever created.

"Katon: Gouryuuka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire Jutsu)!"

Flying from a towering pile of rubble, a massive dragon's head comprised of pure fire flew at Seth, giving him no room to dodge or teleport to on short notice. He covered up and let out a yell of pain at the heat of the flames as the crashed apart upon contact and all began sweltering up.

Sasuke freed himself from the rubble having regressed back to his normal state after escaping the destruction of Seth's Tanden Typhoon. He could fry for all Sasuke cared.

'Come on.' The wounded Uchiha thought to himself as he warily eyed the towering inferno, 'Just a bit longer. Stay down for a few seconds. Give me a little time here.' It wasn't over yet and he hadn't expected it to be. His eyes panned up to the open ceiling that Seth had caused and he had to hide his smirk.

Chilling, echoing laughter emanated from the flames as Seth came walking out of them. His skin had been burnt off, but seemed to just peel the blackened, burnt epidermis off to reveal pristine chrome skin beneath. He'd already healed it. Who the hell would create something like this? Seth was a monster.

"Do you see how futile this is?" The S.I.N. overlord asked Sasuke, smirking infuriatingly as ever despite everything he'd done and endured, "No matter what you try, I have an ability that will overcome you. No matter how you try to strike me down, you will never destroy me. There is _nothing_ a mere human can do that can ever kill me. As I've said, I am eternal."

As he said this, a faint clap of thunder sounded out above. Ah, even nature itself was bowing down to the will of the most dominating life form in existence. It was an appropriate heralding to the awe-inspiring majesty of Seth.

So why was Sasuke smiling? There wasn't anything worth feeling positive about, unless he had finally accepted that the most notable parts of his person would live on through Seth via assimilation.

…Not particularly.

All he did was lift his right hand high into the air as the thunder started to sound out louder and louder from the black clouds in the sky. He opened his mouth, and spoke only one word in regards to everything that was happening.

"Kirin."

An earth-shaking flash of lightning struck down from above and filled the entire interior of the lab, leaving no portion of it untouched.

In the blink of an eye, just as quickly as it had come down from the heavens, it had vanished with nothing left behind in its wake. Literally. Anything that the Kirin jutsu had hit simply stopped existing as any material other than rubble. It had extinguished all of the fires, had removed all of the wreckage blocking off the formerly open floor of the laboratory, had cleared everything out. There was nothing left.

That was the power of nature's lightning. The power of nature's lightning when it was manipulated by someone with the capability of doing so.

Damn that jutsu was hard to set up. But it had such a payoff to go along with it. Nothing got up from that after getting hit with it.

"So STUPID!" Sasuke crowed victoriously and uncharacteristically, smiling despite his heavy wounds and using pretty much all of the chakra he had left to complete his plan. Even if it had been difficult and almost killed him more than once, it paid off. The entire top half of Seth's body had been blown off along with one of his legs.

And that was what he got for being an invincible, insufferable prick. He got his head blown off. It wasn't very assassin-like, but to hell with that. It wouldn't have worked on anyone even halfway aware of how dangerous a real battle could be. Seth had never had to deal with the consequences of combat since he hadn't fought in very many, and by the time he'd been subjected to this one he'd gained Naruto's ability to heal but on steroids.

"There's no kill quite like overkill." Sasuke said to himself as he sat down against a wall and rubbed at his shoulder blades. Growing those wings that came with the second stage of the Cursed Seal hurt like hell, "There. Beat that dobe. I'd love to see you try."

There had been no other option but to hit Seth with his absolute best shot, and now that he had there wasn't really anything left in the tank to hit another homerun with.

Which was why his blood ran cold when he heard the heavy footsteps of the ascended being known as Seth walking on solid ground again.

Through the smoke and the haze of the lab, Sasuke made out the winged form of his enemy coming toward him again. Growling to himself, he found enough in him to form one last Chidori in his right hand, chirping audibly with electricity, "You can't stop what you can't see. Chidori Zetsuei (One Thousand Birds Absolute Shadow)!"

Putting everything he had left into one last Shunshin, Sasuke's blinding speed allowed him to tag Seth in thirteen vital spots back and forth with a Chidori-enhanced version of Gen's ultimate quick-assassination technique.

Coming to a stop, arm extended from his last strike behind Seth, Sasuke turned his eyes to see that he'd taken thirteen massive chunks out of Seth's body, including parts of his head.

"Are you done?"

Yeah… yeah he was done. Sasuke couldn't muster enough chakra to light a candle, let alone enough to allow him to keep battling. He threw every useful piece of junk attack at him that he could think of. Everything he had that was heavy enough to kill anything that moved. Nothing worked.

But even so, he had an image to maintain.

Turning around with a haughty sniff, Sasuke kept his head high and didn't let the fatigue show on his face, "I don't know if I'm done." He said in response to Seth's question, "Do you think you could take my best shot?"

Seth's eyes lit up in interest, "So you have more? Show me."

Hell no he didn't have more. Nothing that would work. He couldn't even keep his Sharingan on any longer.

As a bluff he started to move his hands together but it turned out to be unnecessary, as Seth's body was crushed into the ground by a double-stomp from above before a figure jumped out of the newly made crater and landed next to Sasuke.

A quirk of movement came to Sasuke's lips upon seeing that the fight had been rejoined by Naruto who still didn't look any better than he did to keep on going. Still though, he knew that at least Naruto would have the chakra to keep fighting.

"What took you so long loser?" Sasuke asked before his body gave out and he collapsed, "…Don't say anything."

"Thanks." Naruto said with an honest inflection as he made a clone to get Sasuke out of the way in a hurry before Seth got back up. His last attack should have broken his back, but if it hadn't ended yet and the place looked the way that it did that probably wouldn't end it.

"I told you not to say anything." Sasuke muttered right before he was hauled off to somewhere safe.

Whether he wanted it or not, Sasuke had Naruto's full gratitude, and it would be repaid in kind one way or another after this was all said and done. Sure, first everyone would have to survive, but after seeing Karin and seeing that Sasuke had thrown everything he could muster at Seth in order to win a fight he shouldn't have had any motivation to fight, how could Naruto justify letting himself lose.

Everyone else had come along and fought so hard. All he wanted was for them all to be gone and out of the way. They'd done everything he could have possibly asked of them, and he didn't want them to risk anymore. He got Karin out. _They_ got Karin out.

Now they would all go home together.

They all needed to go home together.

As Seth climbed out of the crater that Naruto had created using his body as a landing cushion/doormat, he seemed grossly unamused that Naruto had taken over the reins of the fight from Sasuke who simply seemed to keep surprising him in their conflict, "Why have you returned?" Seth asked, "You have nothing else I want to see from you. To fight you again, I would learn nothing. You should have taken the good fortune of your friend's intervention and fled from me."

"I can't do that." Naruto commented, "Someone like you, there's just too many things that you don't understand and don't even want to try and understand about the value of life. I can't let you survive. I just can't."

"There is no value to life." Seth insisted smugly, "Do you really think you're special or significant? Do you honestly believe that any of the humans you brought to fight against me are unique? Maybe they are, but human life can be duplicated so easily it's laughable. Killer Bee and her older male counterpart are proof of that. The girl you came here for, Karin? She isn't special. Her position as the head of the Kanzuki Zaibatsu could be placed on any run-of-the-mill life form. Even your friend who displayed such splendid power, his skills can be given to others. I could create a human and develop them any way I choose, and in the end I can create a new version of any person on Earth."

Naruto shook his grimy head with a bitter grit to his teeth, "And that's why you don't get it. You can't just give people certain stuff like titles or powers or anything like that, tell them what you want to tell them, and think you can make copies of others. It takes the experiences they've had, the motivations they have to keep going, the people around them that shaped their lives! Everyone's life has value, because no one's life can ever be recreated!"

Seth just began cackling at the emotion the young man began pouring out into his words. He thought what he said sounded so profound, but he was speaking on deaf ears. As far as Seth was concerned, anything that was special about the human condition could be manufactured or recreated. These intangible things that Naruto had touched on, they didn't matter.

"I want to kick Sasuke's ass. I want to do stupid things with Batsu." Naruto said, holding a single hand-seal trying to will himself onward, "I want to see Cammy smile and let her get to know her brother. I want to make Ibuki happy and live her dreams. I want Karin to be the kind of amazing girl I know she'll grow up to be. I want to stay here with Sakura-chan, with everybody!"

Seth raised a nonexistent eyebrow as he saw a chakra shroud with three tails sprout around Naruto's body, 'This again?' And then he felt the sharpest increase of power in the shortest amount of time that he'd ever felt in his very short life, 'What?'

Instead of three tails, now he had six. The red chakra had turned darker, covering his body entirely in a tighter, more intense shroud that more sleekly took the form of a fox around a human body. The outline of fox bones grew over the back of his torso, arms, legs, and head like some sort of armor.

"More than anything else right now, I really want to break you." Naruto said as his voice seemed to echo double-time. His right eye turned solid white, but his left eye turned pitch black, "Sou Biju Seigyo (Twin Tailed Beast Control)!"

"Wha-?" Seth opened his mouth to say something, but when he did his upper jaw was grabbed by this new version of Naruto as he stood on his right shoulder, "Aahhh?"

Naruto jumped into the air as high as he could, dragging Seth up with him as they flew straight up to the surface through the opening that Seth had carved open earlier with his Tanden Typhoon. After getting high enough into the air, Naruto wheeled the two of them around and hurled Seth's body in the direction of the mountain that the underground base had been in the shadow of.

The synthetic human's body smashed ten feet into the face of the mountain before he pulled himself out and glared hatefully at Naruto. What sort of barbaric attack was that? He grabbed him by the roof of his mouth and threw him a half-mile away.

Firing rapid-fire Sonic Booms with both arms, Seth tried to hit and kill Naruto who moved past them across the hardened dirt of the dry Nevada plains, closing the distance between them until he could jump up and smash Seth back into the mountainside hard enough to cause something of a rockslide from above.

Several impacts from within the mountainside with corresponding rockslides later, and higher up on the mountainside, Seth's body was kicked forcefully out of it where he landed in a heap onto the ground.

Still though, he could heal. He could recover and do it quickly, just as long as he had his Tanden Engine. This boy would run out of energy before he did, no matter how much of a monster he was fighting like.

He could see the glowing red form of Naruto standing in the hole that he'd carved through a portion of a mountain with his body, tails waving behind him. There was something different. Even when he'd been angry at the start of the battle, Naruto hadn't fought with nearly this sort of ferocity.

Swirling his hands around his Tanden Engine, Seth created a black hole in front of it and in his hands as well, the latter of which he threw into the air before firing the other one directly at it, "Tanden Cycle!"

The two black holes collided forcefully in the air and expanded, creating a massive dark void that began pulling everything in except for Seth himself. Hearing yells and screams, Seth grinned Naruto's way as he clawed himself into the side of the mountain to keep from being sucked into the deadly crushing force of physics.

Those voices were Naruto's people. All of them. This black hole wouldn't end until Seth wanted it to, and he didn't care how much matter he drew into it never to be seen again as long as it culminated with Naruto being taken in.

"Do you hear that? Those remarkable lives you spoke of can't escape the pull of this technique!" Seth shouted over the horrible sound of the active Tanden Cycle as it drew in everything and crushed it to nothing, "The only way this _might_ end, is when you die! The more it takes in, the more powerful it becomes! I will destroy this city, this state, this country, this world! All of it! As long as I make them all realize at the end that Seth! Is! ETERNAL!"

Red beams formed on the tips of the rooted in Naruto's six tails before he began rotating them around in a blur, aimed directly at Seth. It wasn't that strong yet, and he wouldn't let it gain any steam. The rest of them had been activated and deactivated by way of Seth's Tanden Engine.

"Jidou Shinkoshoku Hanabi (Automatic Crimson Fireworks)!"

Like a gatling gun, Naruto's tails fired the pure destructive red chakra of the Kyuubi, all honing in on Seth who found himself wholly unprepared for this sort of development. He figured Naruto might attack, but not with an attack he couldn't even time a teleport for.

The power of this attack forced all of Naruto's previous spitfire-related jutsu to pale in comparison in return. A machine gun of a Vulcan wouldn't have caused so much damage, and Naruto didn't stop until he'd created a brand new canyon in the ground with Seth's body at the bottom of it.

He only had a minute or two at best to stop that black hole that he was willing to use indefinitely until he got Naruto.

You didn't get to just break the game when you lost. That was another thing that Seth had to learn.

Still on his back after getting his body brutalized by Automatic Crimson Fireworks, Seth felt Naruto land on his head and reach down at his torso. No, he was grabbing the Tanden Engine. That should have been impossible! It should have been burning the skin off of his hands! But then with all of the chakra around his body, if he could even feel anything through it, it was probably just like holding a hot bowl at that point.

"What are you doing?" Seth cried out as he could feel the supports holding the engine in place giving to the physical force that Naruto was putting behind his pull, "You have no idea what you're doing!"

"Yeah I do!" Naruto's double-echoing voice said as he started yelling and ripped upwards, tearing the Tanden Engine right out of Seth's body and effectively bisecting him. Seth's wails of pain didn't mean anything to Naruto who looked up at the black hole and hurled the Tanden Engine straight into it, destroying it and deactivating the black hole as well.

It was as if there had never been an empty void in the sky. Everything that had been drifting toward it dropped in place immediately, bringing the threat to a close.

That left Seth, arms and legs twitching on the ground. His eyes violently jerked all about following the loss of his only internal organ. As long as the Tanden Engine existed, Seth would have always been able to get back up, always able to regenerate, and from how it was made nothing Naruto could have done would have destroyed it. Fortunately, Seth had a technique in his arsenal that could have ended everything in existence if it had been given enough time.

It would have taken days, weeks, maybe months, but it was a black hole. You couldn't stop something like that. And Naruto doubted that once it got too large Seth could control it in the slightest. Power like that had a funny way of going wild.

Dropping down onto his knees, Naruto held Seth's head in his hand, clutching it hard enough to crack the skull, "You were gonna kill everything because you couldn't beat me?" All he got in response was a choking noise from the synthetic human. Narrowing his eyes, Naruto slapped Seth hard enough to dislocate his jaw. He knew he had. He'd felt it.

And he didn't regenerate it.

Well wasn't that just peachy?

"Die." Naruto said before headbutting the defenseless being, "…Die." A second headbutt that cracked his palette, and they didn't stop, "Die-die-die-die-die-die-die!"

This was the sight that his entire party bore witness to when they reached the cavity in the ground that Naruto had fired Seth into; the formerly sunny blonde pulverizing what was left of Seth with his bare hands and his forehead.

He had annihilated Seth. Whatever he had done to take that form it made him into a complete destroyer, generating more power with his last chakra attack than they had ever seen or felt from him in the entire time they'd known him. He looked more like a monster than a human at this point, and he didn't look like he was going to stop as long as there was a part of Seth's body that wasn't scrap or pulp.

"Naruto stop!" Guile yelled down at him, "He's dead!" He was thoroughly ignored however and didn't really feel like going down there to make himself known.

Seth didn't bleed, but he had still been a living thing even if he had been created artificially. It wasn't hard to imagine an actual human being in place of the body that was being pummeled into nothing.

Sakura dropped down into the cavity in the ground and got as close to Naruto as she could before the intensity of his chakra made her wary of getting any closer to him. When she'd gotten down there he'd turned on her and stared her down with more intensity than she'd ever seen in anyone's eyes before.

She hadn't been that scared before, even when she'd been looked at in that manner by Ryu when he'd been brainwashed by Bison and under the influence of the Satsui no Hadou. She'd been faced with horribly imposing power before, but this was different.

This was Naruto.

And that was why she decided that in the end there wasn't any reason to be afraid.

"Hey." Sakura greeted in an admittedly lame manner as she slowly walked closer, "…Naruto you can stop now. Kanzuki-san is safe. She's sleeping in the helicopter. You beat Seth. He's gone. The black hole thing is gone. You don't have to do this anymore."

"After all of this…" Naruto said, his bitter dark voice mixing with his softer lighter side's, spitting down on the ground at Seth's body, "It's too good for him."

"Naruto, you know I like your eyes more when they're blue. Now come on back to me."

"Sakura-chan." Naruto's dual voices said before he looked down at his hands/claws and making fists out of them. He hadn't gotten a look at himself since taking on six tails of power. He'd never seen what it had made him look like before, '…Turn it off.'

Inside of Naruto's body there was a silence before he heard his darker half speak up, _"I wasn't done yet. I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this for Sakura-chan. The next time we do this, it won't end until I say so."_ His left eye changed from pitch black to solid white, just like his right.

With that, the red chakra simply vanished and the fox skeleton draped over his body fell away and onto the ground with a heavy thud, leaving an exhausted normal Naruto behind. Looking down at what he'd done to a veritable corpse, Naruto's eyes slowly drifted up to Sakura's.

She just gave him a gentle smile and moved forward to hug him. Wrapping her arms around his neck she mewled at how tightly her body fit against his once he put his own arms around her. Being in that red state made him warmer than usual to her, and with her recent run-in with the Satsui no Hadou she was more receptive to the force of his chakra that was still stagnant in the air.

"Can we go home now?" Naruto muttered into the top of Sakura's hair, giving her a light kiss on her head, "I really, really want to go home."

XxX

(A Week Later – Aohura City, Japan)

"Alone, alone, alone…" Naruto said to himself, lying flat on his back in his new apartment that he'd paid for after his return to town. Thank goodness Karin had forced him to get a bank account, because if he still hid all of his money in the hidey-hole in his old place he'd have been destitute.

With all of the earnings he'd managed to amass with all of the work he'd done over the years, he was very well off. He probably could have found a house somewhere in town if there were any vacancies, but it was just too weird for him to do something like that. He liked having a smaller place better.

And he still had his adorable little roommate.

Cammy could have chosen to go with Abel and live with him, but she preferred staying with Naruto. The two clones might have had some common ground, but she'd seen and been through more with Naruto and wanted to remain with him above all else. Naruto didn't know what he'd done to get that kind of loyalty from the girl, but he had it and it was precious.

Even so, a lot of her days consisted of spending time with her brother. Being siblings was an important thing according to everyone else, and on this day in particular Abel was being fitted for prosthetic surgery in Tokyo. So that was where she was for the day.

Ibuki was spending more time at home in her village preparing for what was apparently going to be her last test as a ninja student. After she passed it she would have the freedom to do what she liked, and she had thrown herself into preparing for it any way she could. She'd even taken some time off from school to train.

When that girl wasn't willing to come into town to have some fun, things were serious. As long as she knew who to call on when she needed help, because if anyone had earned favors for life from him no matter what, it was her. His playful kunoichi could call on him for anything, and he would answer that summons.

Karin was resting at home outside of town thank goodness. She wasn't going to her parents' home anytime soon after the last time, and it wasn't the best environment for her recovery. She needed to be somewhere with people that would care for her unconditionally. Her mother openly loved her greatly, but she wasn't a care-giver, and being around her father would offset any positives that would have come with the maternal presence. Being watched over by Ishizaki and Shibazaki was fine for her.

The poor thing was still shaken up, at times visibly so. There were times when she would call him in the dead of night to talk or come to her for comfort and security, but she was still hanging tough regardless. With a bit of time and affection she'd be just fine.

It oftentimes looked as if she wanted to say something to him.

He would be with her, either sitting with her while she read or doing some other leisurely task that she enjoyed doing, and he would find her observing something about him. She'd regard him closely and look long and hard at him with an uncomfortable expression, as if there was something just on the tip of her tongue that she wanted to express.

She would always refrain from doing so however. It was okay. He wasn't going anywhere. And whenever she found it in her to say what she wanted to him he would be right there. She was his boss lady, and nothing she had to say would ever change that for the worst.

Sakura… she'd frightened herself during the mission. Her dark side had done something that she never would have done in any other circumstances in how she'd dealt with Juri Han. Cruel brutality for the sake of brutality, to deal it to someone that had gleefully dished it out to others with no regard for the consequences of her actions. Giving her a taste of her own medicine, she maimed her for emphasis, that she wasn't as strong as she thought she was.

Juri wasn't stronger than Sakura even at her best, and her dark side wanted her to know it without a shadow of a doubt, by removing the object that gave her enhanced powers in the Feng Shui Engine. It had felt good until she realized what she'd done.

Back to Gouken she'd gone for intrinsic training as he was the only person that knew enough to help her. She didn't want to be controlled by that power. Even for the boost it gave her, it wasn't who she was. It didn't turn her into the kind of woman she wanted to be.

Either way, the women that Naruto spent the majority of his time with were all busy. And it was fine. They had lives. If they weren't so strong and able to do their own thing, they wouldn't have been the girls that he loved so much.

Still, that left him alone with himself, which even he was willing to admit was annoying.

He hadn't even finished unpacking all of his and Cammy's new things because it was so monotonous. If he'd made clones to do it they'd just knock around anyway, so it wasn't worth it. Consequently, that left him with a bare apartment full of boxes and brand new things.

That was a lot of packaging and trash after he was done.

"…I've got to start putting this stuff away don't I?"

XxX

(Elsewhere in Town – Saikyou-Ryuu Dojo)

When Sakura had come back to Dan's dojo after returning home from America, Gouken had been alarmed at how powerful her ki was. This wasn't the same seventeen year-old girl she'd been when she'd left. Something had occurred to force her to break through to a new plateau of strength on the battlefield.

Upon hearing her story it was no mystery as to the nature of the sudden change.

"The Satsui no Hadou has taken a deeper hold on your heart child." Gouken informed Sakura in the middle of a meditation session in the back while Dan was busy training the rest of his students in the front of the studio, "You're more powerful now, but that comes with a cost."

"I know sensei." Sakura mumbled quietly. She'd heard enough about what could become of her if she didn't get a handle on it, and she'd seen firsthand what she was capable of doing to others if pushed into a passionate frenzy, "I don't want to lose control."

"We know the source of your dark intentions. Your passion is your sticking point." Gouken explained, "The stronger you feel about something, the more of a danger you are to the things that surround it."

Her dark side took an extremist stance on the things that Sakura felt powerfully about.

When it came to martial arts and her view of the positive things that it exemplified and meant to people in the world, she got extremely defensive of how its positives outweighed the negative things it brought the world. Those that went against that and pushed that envelope too far, such as Juri, were expendable to say the least. When it came to the person in the world she loved more than any other, Naruto, anyone or anything that might take him away from her simply could not be permitted to exist.

"Well I don't really know what I can do about that." Sakura admitted, cracking one of her eyes to look over at her stoic teacher, "I love what I love. I can't help how I feel about things."

"And I'm telling you, there is no _controlling_ it." Gouken insisted strongly, "The more often you use it, the more the Satsui no Hadou leeches off of you. It becomes harder and harder to go back, until one day you don't at all. The only thing you can control is yourself. You must abandon attachment."

What kind of Zen crap was that? Abandon attachment? People actually tried to do that? People actually _could_ do that?

"Abandon your attachment on your principles. They can be changed, they don't have to be set in stone. Martial arts is a wondrously wide thing." Gouken continued to say, "Abandon your attachment to your ninja boy. People come and go. As long as you have him in your mind and heart, you don't need him."

"I do need him." Sakura whispered, her hands tightened into fists in her lap, "You don't get it. No one does. If it wasn't for Naruto, I wouldn't be here. If he wasn't in my life I wouldn't be the person I am right now. I'd be just some kid in school." Even then she could remember younger days of sitting in the grass and feeling Naruto's energy as he tried to teach her to bring hers out, "…He was the one that let me know how special I was, even when I wasn't."

A sigh came from the older fighter as he could clearly hear how fondly Sakura spoke of her dearest person. This was not going to be an easy thing to get across to her, and it was going to be even more difficult to make her accept it, if she ever did.

Passion was an extremely dangerous thing. It wasn't as fleeting as anger and hatred, but it was just as explosive in its exhibition. It didn't make a person as inactive as something as sorrow, but it had a tendency to last just as long in a person's heart if not longer. It could be the most intense and lingering thing that one could feel.

This was what made their fighting style so dangerous, and the real reason that it was taught to so few people at a high level. What Dan was doing with his twist on it was safe, if not effectively worthless against real fighters. Those students would probably never learn anything past fortifying their bodies with ki if they even learned that.

When you began to grow powerful, it was inevitable that the Satsui no Hadou would creep into a dark part of your heart and feed off of your most potent desire or personality trait. For Akuma and Ryu it was their desire to become the strongest and win no matter what, even at the cost of completely obliterating one's enemy. For Sakura it was something even harder to shed. Things she was willing to remorselessly assault in order to protect or maintain.

If Akuma didn't lose it, and Ryu still hadn't, what were the chances that Sakura would? Only Ken seemed to be immune from the Satsui no Hadou, possibly because he was so content with his life and had no fears to go with his current station in existence.

Only one man he'd ever known had mastered the dark energy, and Akuma had killed him long ago.

"I guess the only choice I have is to find a way to master it." Sakura declared bluntly, "Because if my only other option is to stop feeling the same way about Naruto that I do today, that's just not going to happen master, I'm sorry. I won't do that to him. I won't do that to myself."

"More to yourself I'd imagine." What Gouken hadn't expected was to be met with a glare from Sakura from that remark. She had never looked at him in such a manner. He wanted to believe that it was a portion of the Satsui no Hadou influence shining through, but he knew that it was more of a case of his putting his foot in his mouth.

Even if you were their master in martial arts, it was a dangerous game to say something like that to a woman. Even without having ever been in a relationship with one, Gouken knew that much.

Sakura's expression cooled and her eyes became sad as she spoke, "Do you know what Naruto is afraid of more than anything else? I'm the only one he's said it to. The thing he's more afraid of than anything else in the world is something happening that would end up with him losing any of us." It was why he reacted so severely to Karin's capture, "And you just want me to… drift away from him, like it's that easy. Like I can pretend that every minute we've spent together for the last five years just… didn't mean anything. Why don't you just tell me to shoot him?"

"I think you might be exaggerating."

"So you're saying it's absolutely impossible? That there's no possible way to control the Satsui no Hadou?" Sakura ignored his skepticism before she could lose her patience in this regard with her teacher, "That's impossible. You said you had a master that used it. Your style is a branch of his. Ryu's style is a branch of yours. My style is a branch of Ryu's."

"I strayed away from it. I discovered and mastered the Power of Nothingness through the Surge of Power path as opposed to the Surge of Murderous Intent. It's the only other option I've seen with our style, and it's the only way you can master it is how I've said."

"How do you know?"

"Excuse me?"

"How do you know I can only do one or the other? Who says I can't do both?"

"Sakura…"

"I mean it! I'd rather try and fail than give up on what I love."

"It's not safe for you or the world."

"…If I can't do it and I end up like your brother Akuma, I know who'll stop me." Sakura said as she got up from her meditative position to depart for the day, "And I'm going to them right now. I hope you'll help me, but if you don't I understand."

Ugh. Children and their tendency to make unflinching decisions. She knew how dangerous it was to use that power. Only Gouken's master Goutetsu could ever use it and keep his grip on himself. Did that not resonate with her? She had to understand.

She had to understand that it wasn't a matter of what she wanted. He didn't want her to have to give anything up. It was simply the fact that he'd never seen anyone overcome that sort of unrefined darkness before.

This cub was different from the two Gouken had already trained in the past, but did different necessarily mean she could do what he'd never seen anyone else accomplish?

XxX

(That Evening – Naruto's Apartment)

"And Abel's arm'll work almost like new? Like a robot arm?"

"I believe so. They say that the process of reattaching his nerves is much easier now with the new technologies available."

"Thank goodness Karin's company's spearheading that research and picked up the check on that surgery right?"

"I must pay her a visit to thank her for the sake of my… brother I guess I should call him?"

"Go ahead, you can call him your brother. It's close enough to what it is actually is. I don't know."

"So… would that make you something of my brothe-?"

"No. No! No-no-no-no-no-no. Not with what we do. Not your brother at all."

"I don't unders-."

"I don't want to explain it Cam."

"Okay."

After returning home to find that Naruto had put up pretty much everything that they'd bought to furnish their new three-bedroom apartment home, Cammy found him just watching TV in the living room/kitchen area.

She comfortably plopped down in Naruto's lap as if it were the chair that he were sitting in, and that was where they remained while she told him about her day. She had clearly been excited about it, because Cammy usually didn't talk that much in one sitting.

It was clear that she was happy though. That was all Naruto wanted in regards to her, to know that she was happy.

"You know you could live with Abel if you wanted to Cam." Naruto said to her, rubbing the girl's thigh as she regarded him curiously, "It's okay. You don't owe me anything."

"I don't want to. I'd rather stay with you." Cammy insisted with a small smile as she wiggled a bit in his lap, "If that's okay of course. It's just that Abel might be a bit like me, but when it comes to you there isn't any other place I would rather be, or anyone I would rather be with."

Abel wasn't high on moving in with them either, willing to rely on the 'hospitality' at Genhanten until he had enough money to afford his own place. He wanted to spend time getting to know his little sister better, but knowing what she and her roommate got up to every now and then was a little more than he ever wanted discover about her and he didn't want to risk running into that.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

As if she hadn't been having something of a moment with Naruto, Cammy got up off of his lap and brightly pointed to the door for him to get it. Without any reservations about leaving things like that, Cammy picked up Agent Jack Bauer from inside of an empty box where he was sleeping.

Mumbling to himself about how he just didn't understand that girl, Naruto watched her head back to her room to begin setting it up and headed to the door to greet whoever was visiting his new home.

Upon opening the door, his face lit up at the sight of his oldest friend in this world, "Sakura-chan! What's up?"

It was still astounding to Sakura that he could be so excited every time he saw her. To be honest, it made her feel good to know that he looked upon her so fondly and still felt that strongly about her, "Hey. Ah, can I come in or is this a bad time?"

Going into his pocket, Naruto looked at the clock on his phone. It wasn't a bad time, but it was a fairly late time. Not that something like that mattered to him, but Sakura had a parent so that probably wasn't going to bode very well for her when she got home.

He still invited her in though, and indulged her looking around his new place for a short while before he decided to say something once she had taken her shoes off, "What's the matter? You seem kind of jittery."

"Do I?" Sakura asked before closing the door. She turned to him and sighed deeply, "Sorry, I'm being weird, I know it. I just have something I want to talk about. It can wait if you want to sleep or eat or something. I'll see you tomorrow at school."

Naruto shook his head and pointed to his ears with a smile to let her know that he was listening. Sakura shook her head instead though and pointed to the hall leading to the back rooms. More privacy perhaps. Letting herself be taken by the hand, she followed Naruto into his room and watched him cut on a lamp by his bed that he then sat down on carefully.

Knowing that he was getting a questioning look from Sakura, Naruto explained without being asked, "My bed collapsed three different times after I put it up. Just being careful, that's all." Giggling a bit at his need to explain his quirky actions, Sakura sat down on the bed next to him and drummed her fingertips off of her thighs, "So what's eating you?"

"I was just wondering, what does it feel like when you use the Kyuubi's chakra?"

That was a fair question as far as Naruto was concerned. She'd seen him use it a few times and knew what it was. The entire world had seen him use it during the Second World Warrior Tournament, so it wasn't like he had anything to hide anymore, especially from her.

It was rather easy enough to describe anyway, "Well at first it used to feel like I was just really, really mad the entire time I was using it. The more power I used, the more pissed I felt, like it took everything I had not to just bite into whoever I was fighting's neck. After the tournament it didn't feel so bad anymore, even when I was using three tails, but with the technique I use to get control over more, it gives my dark side influence over what I do, and he's super-violent."

"Oh… and that's why he did what he did after you beat Seth?"

"He wasn't gonna let me turn it off until he felt like he'd made Seth pay." Naruto said with a shrug to try and downplay how violent he'd been at the end of the fight, "Even though he was already dead that wasn't enough. Even though I know it hurt, it wasn't enough. Why? You never told us what exactly Sunburned Sakura-chan did to Juri that was so bad."

"I… I pulled Juri's eye out."

"Ooh."

"Yeah." Sakura said, rubbing her own arm with an uneasy expression, "I just wanted to know, if I ever lost myself and I couldn't get back, would you stop me? You're the only person I could ask that would actually be strong enough. If I wound up like Akuma I mean."

With that, Naruto affixed a serious look onto her that made her feel small. It made her heart thump in her chest, and despite knowing that it was a look of reprimand, it made her feel safe and protected. It was strange that she ever felt the desire to be protected.

A long exhale came from Naruto before he finally shook his head, "If by 'stop you', you mean what I think you mean, I… don't think I could." He admitted after a long pause, "Sakura-chan, even if one day you started devouring people, and from that same mouth that you used to do it you turned to me and said 'I love you', I'd still be able to say 'I love you' the same way I do right now."

Sakura just looked at him in return with wide eyes before setting her head against him and laughing a bit, "…You totally stole that from Bleach, and you mangled that line by the way." She pointed out to his equal amusement, "…Trying to sound cool."

"It doesn't mean I didn't mean it." He replied, "I couldn't ever hurt you. It doesn't matter if it's you or if it's Sunburned Sakura-chan. You're both the same and I love you." Sakura let him kiss her and pulled herself against him closer when he did. Pulling away no farther than their noses touching, Naruto added something else, "You're never gonna let something like that happen though, because my Sakura-chan is tough."

"Do you even pay attention to half of the things you say to people sometimes?" Sakura asked quietly.

"I drift in and out." Naruto said before Sakura kissed him again and they laid on their sides on the bed just staring at each other in the low light of the room.

For God's sake, he made her feel like they were thirteen again or something. What could have been different today if she'd admitted back then that she'd spent so much time with him because she was crushing on him?

They'd lain this close to each other countless times before. It was just as good now as it had been then. Maybe even better, because both of them knew that if one wanted to make a move to get more intimate the other would be quick to reciprocate in kind.

"Can I spend the night here? _In_ here? With you?"

"Yeah… but this might be an awkward conversation with your mom when you go home in the morning to change for school."

"You can just sneak me in or sneak me some clothes out can't you? You're supposed to be the best ninja in the world right?"

"Damn straight."

* * *

><p><strong>That's chapter everyone. I hope you enjoyed it as this is going to wrap up the S.I.N. arc, with Seth dying a deadly death and all of that.<strong>

**Okay all, so check this out. My computer BSODed. Blue Screen of Death. It is effectively dead, and I had to borrow this one to write this at all. I had two completed chapters of a different story and I'd gotten a good distance in everything else that I've got active, and I lost it all because I can't get to it anymore, if I ever can again. All my notes, all my stuff, gone.**

**Not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, but since I'm in the middle of a contest that ends Saturday, that would have been over by now had my computer lasted twenty more minutes for me to post the two chapters of Naruto: Great Clan Days that I'd written. They were good too, and I can totally redo them right now, but it would just be so annoying man.**

**From now on, EVERYTHING I do gets saved on a flash drive as well. I wasn't doing that before because it's annoying and I'm lazy with my hobbies, but this really hurt man. I want my prize for 8 chapters posted in two weeks and I still have until 8/31 this Saturday to get the job done. This makes 6 of 7. I have two left. Let's do this.**

**The prize is worth it, and defeat… is not an option.**

**Kenchi out.**


	51. Life as You Know It

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. After January 1st of the next year I'll probably have to start dodging loan sharks at some point. They call them collection agencies, but that's just a nice way of saying loan shark.

I'm tempted to not do it, just to see what would happen... you know, aside from my credit being ruined for life right out of the gate?

Bring it on loan sharks. You can't get blood from a stone. It's even harder when that stone is punching you in the throat for trying to get blood from it.

**Chapter 51: Life as You Know It**

* * *

><p>Staring straight ahead at the figure who was returning his stern look, Sasuke finally opened his mouth to address the silent solicitor that had come to his place of business to assail him, "…Stop it," He said firmly, but nothing came of his demand, "…Stop it. Stop giving me that look dobe! I mean it!"<p>

Who knew that Naruto had such a scary deadpan expression in his repertoire? Somehow it was creepy on him. Naruto made noise and moved around, he didn't stay dead silent and as still as a statue. Any deviation from the standard expectations of his attitude was cause for alarm. On this day the reason for such a deviation could be summed up in one word.

"Kirin."

Sasuke didn't flinch so much as allow his eye to twich as the look on his Naruto's face slowly morphed to one of annoyance.

All Sasuke could really do in return was roll his eyes, finally understanding why Naruto had walked into Genhanten, sat down, hadn't budged or ordered a thing despite being asked by waiters and waitresses, and waited for Sasuke himself to come down and speak to him once it became outright loitering, "What about it?"

"You had a jutsu like Kirin in your back pocket this whole time, and you didn't think to break it out in the middle of our fight?"

Naruto was insulted. He was outraged. He was affronted by the slight that was Sasuke refraining from busting out the big honking lightning bolt from the sky in order to kill him during the Second World Warrior Tournament. God, he was sick in the head for actually _wanting _his enemy to use the strongest technique in their arsenal on him, but he did want Sasuke to have used it on him.

If only to say that he'd either dodged it or endured the devastation of the jutsu. Yes, he was sick.

"I don't need to explain myself to you," Sasuke said, crossing his arms over his chest and turning his head away from his blond friend/rival/bane of his existence.

As the seconds of silence dragged on, Sasuke knew better. He _did_ have to explain himself to Naruto, because being slighted in battle pissed Naruto off as much as he knew it would have upset him.

It was his pet peeve and he had done it to someone else, therefore it irked him to have that hanging over his head, "Okay, do you know how much setup that jutsu takes? It would have taken too long to put together!"

That was not a good enough excuse for Naruto, "I saw how you set it up! You're acting like I would have seen it coming!" He had been in half of a combat-high during their battle. He would have never paid attention to what happened in the aftermath of the setup move as long as it didn't hit him, "Don't give me that crap! You know full well if you'd have set it up you'd have blown my ass away!"

"I didn't want to use my trump card on worldwide TV."

It was a weak excuse and Sasuke knew it, but you could sell anything with a strong enough voice and a straight enough face, and he had the best two of those things going today.

Sadly it was a no-go.

"We blew out the feed by the time we were busting out the kill moves!" Naruto said, abruptly standing up from his table and pointing boisterously in Sasuke's face. The patrons of the restaurant were paying rapt attention to the goings-on of the dark, handsome restaurant manager and one of the most prominent figures in Aohura City, "You sandbagged your shit in that fight, just admit it! What pisses me off more than anything else is the fact that I caught you, and you're still lying to my face about it!"

Despite himself, Sasuke found his ire raising enough to engage in the shouting contest. From what Sasuke saw in Las Vegas, someone had very little room to talk about holding back, "Sandbagging? Look who's talking Mister Six-Tails! Where was that during our fight? It's good enough for Seth, but I'm not worth ripping limb-from-limb?"

"I just found out I could do that and not go totally black-out genocide-berserk!" Naruto then stopped and realized that they had an audience. An audience that became noticeably unnerved when Naruto referenced a Kyuubi-induced blood rage, "…Oh don't worry about that. It's totally not that big of a problem anymore. I fixed it with a technique that makes me schizophrenic to split control of my psyche, so it's cool now."

Yes, because that was a much more reassuring thing to say to people.

"…We're fighting again Sasuke. You know that right?"

"Tch. Get out of my restaurant dobe."

From the corner of the stairs that led upstairs to the apartment level and the office, Gen simply smirked at the sight of the two young fighters. If they stayed alive long enough, by his view they had a chance of winding up being the strongest ever.

…If Sasuke thought he was ever going to kill him though, he'd have to keep waiting. Even with leukemia he had too many decades on that boy to fall so easily.

XxX

(Elsewhere in Town – Karin's Personal Manor)

Rolling his eyes upon finding Karin in her underground training facility, Naruto just stood at the door of the strength and conditioning room as he watched Karin do hanging crunches in a weighted vest, a dogged focus to her actions, "Rin-Rin, stop training all the time."

"Do not presume that you can tell me what to do," Karin stated bluntly, continuing her exercise without surcease, "I will never show such weakness and vulnerability in a time of crisis again. It was absolutely reprehensible."

If training was her way of coping with the things that had happened to her while being held captive by S.I.N., there wasn't really anything wrong with that, as at least it was productive, but she was overtraining. Shibazaki had in so many words expressed his concerns ever since Karin's return to Japan. For that person to express concerns to Naruto of all people, someone that he had never kept any secrets about holding absolutely no love for, he had to mean it.

Karin had gotten her fire back, and then some, but it seemed that she'd regressed in some manner and had clammed back up to a degree. It wasn't that she'd turned cold once again, but she seemed to be determined to attend to her own concerns solo.

…And it had taken so long for everyone to show her that it wasn't a problem to let others help out.

Walking all the way past the other equipment and leaning against the place that Karin had suspended herself upside-down from, Naruto sighed as he watched her work, "Stop being upset about the whole Seth thing. There was nothing you could've done."

"You did something."

Well that stung. The truth was known to hurt from time to time, but it wasn't supposed to hurt after you did something that was actually right. She hadn't even intended it to. She was simply making a point. She held herself to the best standards, so why couldn't she hold herself to Naruto's standards when it came to vanquishing freaks and baddies?

Somehow going into ego mode and saying something like, 'Well yeah, of course I did something. I'm awesome,' didn't seem like the right thing to say despite the fact that it was on the tip of Naruto's tongue.

"I don't count. I'm kind of broken if you haven't noticed," Naruto argued lightly, patting his stomach for emphasis before ticking off things on his fingers, "I'm kind of hard to kill or keep down, I've got a super-strong source of extra energy inside of me, and I still had to go into a berserk blood rage to finish the job," Naruto could swear he still had some black residue from Seth's Tanden Engine on his hands after ripping it out, "It's been like that since day one."

"And what does 'day one' constitute to you Naruto-san?"

"Since birth, or my first real mission as a ninja. Whichever one drives the point home better."

Karin paused abruptly in the middle of one of her sit-ups and stared at Naruto intently, an eyebrow raised before sighing it off and unhooking her feet. Planting her hands onto the ground, she nimbly landed on her feet where a towel was promptly presented to her by Ishizaki to wipe herself off, "I do not care what sort of unnatural powers people like you or Sakura-san, or anyone else for that matter happen to possess. I refuse to acknowledge anyone as my better merely because of that. I can be better."

At that, she took off her vest and gloves, letting them drop to the floor with heavy thuds that shook the floor, much to Naruto's interest. They didn't seem to inhibit any of her movement or even hinder her much at all, "How much did those weigh?"

"The vest was 250 pounds, the gloves were 150 each," Karin stated nonchalantly, taking some measure of satisfaction from the impressed expression on Naruto's face, "It was a light day."

'A light day she says,' Naruto thinks to himself. Sure, he could pull a damn jeep behind him across town at twenty miles per hour by now, but that was him, and he was a freak.

"Do not look so surprised," Karin said, running a finger lightly along his jaw, "It is just as I told you; I will never show such weakness and vulnerability ever again. The next time I may just be the one rescuing you."

Naruto just watched her retreating form as the girl left the room. Shooting a look over at the rotund butler Ishizaki, he heard the man let out a sigh once as he looked at her discarded training equipment that he couldn't clean up in Karin's departure. He couldn't pick those things up. Maybe the gloves one at a time, but not the vest.

"Karin-ojousama is still extremely rattled from her ordeal with that horrid creature Seth," Ishizaki said to Naruto, "I know that it is highly unprofessional of me to ask this of you as her bodyguard, but as of now you are the person that is closest to her. I would ask that you stand by her and allow her to heal."

"You didn't have to ask me to do something like that," Naruto said, heading on his way now that his visit was concluded, "I've been doing it anyway. You should have known that already. Whenever I'm around, Shibazaki's been hovering around us like an f'n hawk."

There was admittedly a good reason Shibazaki's increased vigilance that Ishizaki couldn't question the validity of, and Ishizaki went red-faced at the thought in embarrassment. It was quite clear in the reasoning why by now, as the two of them had been around for long enough to obviously know how Karin felt about Naruto.

Speaking of which…

"By the way, Karin-ojousama wished for me to inform you that she would be in her private bath after she concluded her exercises," Ishizaki said, sputtering at having to report such a thing to Naruto, "…She said that you could choose to process that information however you wished."

Naruto simply stared at him for several seconds before fishing a coin out of his pocket and setting it in the position to flip, "Heads or tails. Whichever one you pick, if it comes up I'm going to go be nosy-, I mean go put in some bodyguard hours."

"I think I should also inform you that Shibazaki has snipers posted with their guns trained on each of her windows, and a heavy guard team he's personally overseeing posted right outside of the door to her quarters and patrolling the adjacent halls… with directions to shoot you on sight."

"…I'm gonna take that as you saying 'tails never fails'."

XxX

(A Few Days Later – Tamagawa Minami High School)

"This year, the year-end school trip will be to Brazil!"

The homeroom teacher said this with no lapse of happiness at being gifted with such an amazing trip to go on, even if it was school-sponsored. It also had the effect of waking the entire class up thoroughly. It took a matter of seconds for all of the students present to begin chattering excitedly at being taken to a place so far away. Normally they only went to mountain resorts up north or to Okinawa.

Karin didn't seem to care one way or another. It seemed like a decent way to end the school year before summer. When it came to Naruto, Sakura, and Kei however, they all simply had the same reaction to the news, responding with a flat, "What?"

Ibuki was simply beaming at the news however, as if everything was coming together for some reason.

"Brazil?" Sakura said quietly to herself, mulling around the idea in her head. Not that she had any problems whatsoever with going to a place like that on a school-sponsored pre-summer break vacation, but it was weird, "Our school has the budget to fund a trip for all of us to Brazil?"

Naruto's eyes slowly turned Karin's way only to see her giving him a dry look in return, "And why exactly would you think of me first as the sponsor behind this school's upgrade in terminus on its excursion?" She asked in regards to the unspoken question.

"Really?" Kei asked incredulously, "Maybe it's because the money it would cost someone like you to do something like this would be the equivalent of dropping a twenty on a restaurant tab for regular people."

"As true as this may be, I am not the person responsible," Karin insisted with a bit of a pout. She wished she would have thought of it though, because it would have been an outrageous way to get her ego boosted, "I was honestly planning to skip the retreat to whatever pedestrian, domestic destination the school had planned before this turn of events."

"I was too," Naruto admitted with a big beaming look that drew an uncharacteristically warm smile in return from Karin, "I skip this thing every year actually. I used these school trips as extra time to train and work jobs."

"-Because Naruto is responsible," Sakura said, outright teasing him with a cheeky grin. Everyone knew that conventional responsibility wasn't Naruto's biggest personality trait, "Who needs vacations when you've got bills to pay?"

"Damn straight," He replied, high-fiving Sakura, their fingers intertwining in an almost intimate manner afterwards with his fingertips gently rubbing the back of her hand.

"Well don't skip it this year," Ibuki said, a little too quickly and stubbornly for it to be an offhand remark. She picked up on this due to how her friends reacted in suspicion and smiled brightly to cover up her hurried statement, "I mean… after all, it's Brazil right? Yay!"

This did nothing to get the accusatory eyes off of her from Naruto, Sakura, Karin, and Kei, who had a pretty stern look for a schoolgirl that didn't know how to throw a half-decent punch.

"What did you do?" Sakura asked before anyone else could. By now it was clear that she had something to do with what was going on, but how Ibuki could end up getting things changed to an extreme degree such as that was beyond their comprehension.

"No~thing." Ibuki sang, grinning and rocking side to side in her chair, eyes not meeting anyone else's, "Listen, I wouldn't throw too many questions around unless you all _want_ to go to Kyoto for a week-long trip."

Kyoto? Was that where they were going to go before whatever happened actually happened to change where they were to go? To hell with that. They could go there literally anytime they wanted. That was a daytrip for the lot of them.

One would think that they would be tired of traveling after a while. After all, they did it quite often and they'd recently gone to Las Vegas of all places. But the fact was that they had never gone anywhere just to relax. It was always to do something that ran the risk of ending their lives, and even when they went to nice places they were never in any kind of condition to enjoy themselves after business was over.

So with that in mind… Brazil, fuck yeah.

"How do you even pack for a place like that? I guess Blanka or Dan would know." Naruto commented out of the blue before deciding on something right then. Vacation or not, "…I'm still bringing scrolls with weapons though. I'm not losing my stuff at customs."

No one had anything to say against that.

XxX

(Australia – Darwin, Northern Territory)

"You have to be absolutely certain about this Ken," Ryu said, speaking on his cell phone while checking in with his best friend and catching up on what he'd missed while being unreachable in the Australian outback. He had been informed on quite a few disturbing developments since he'd undergone his private training after his loss in the tournament, "Are you sure you're not mistaken on any part of what you've told me?"

"_I'm telling you everything they told me after they stopped by my place to rest before heading home,"_ Ken said over the line, _"I even checked in with sensei afterwards when I heard he was still alive and in Aohura City of all places. Man, you've been missing out. Anyway, I spoke to him, and her little episodes don't sound so much different from yours."_

Ryu was severely conflicted. He didn't know about Gouken returning, and that brought him great joy to imagine the man that raised him still being alive and well after Akuma presumably killed him, but he was also terrified at the thought of Sakura having a few brushes with the Satsui no Hadou.

Their fighting style was cursed. Anyone that grew to be skilled at it found themselves overtaken with a strong will for something. For him it was simple. In the endeavor to gain power and prove his strength as the best, his Satsui no Hadou trigger manifested itself in an obsession with obtaining the power to garner victory over the strongest enemies imaginable.

But Sakura never really seemed to be fixated on being the absolute strongest like himself or Akuma, so Ryu had no idea what her trigger would have been.

It didn't matter however. It was still something dangerous. So now he had two reasons to head on back to Japan; to see his teacher once again after he'd seemingly come back from the dead, and to try and determine if there was anything he could do to help Sakura.

Not that he necessarily had a handle on his own problems, but she was younger, so the danger for her was greater wasn't it? Younger people were more susceptible to their emotions getting the better of them, and with something as unstable as the Satsui no Hadou that was just too treacherous to ignore.

XxX

(Outside of Las Vegas – Mojave Desert)

"No sir, Seth left very little here to salvage," The suited Crimson Viper said for the umpteenth time on her phone as she watched government recovery crews pick through what was left of the obliterated S.I.N. base. She walked past a row of twenty-five other preserved, pristine Seth bodies, "The copies of Number 15 are useless to us completely."

All of them were defunct and were basically extremely well-defined mannequins. They lacked the most important thing to make them function; the Tanden Engine meant to rest within the abdomen. Without it, Seth simply did not function. There was nothing else in existence that could power these genetically engineered puppets.

For her entire tenure in S.I.N., Viper had been undercover in order to procure secrets of the organization. The U.S. had been tired of paying the exorbitant prices for S.I.N.'s technology, and she had been sent in to steal the information on anything prominent.

She saw the most potential in the Battle Suit project, and she actually wound up with the intel on that, but lost the BLECE Project data.

They had also lost the chance to obtain what could have been perhaps the biggest energy boon of the 21st century in the Tanden Engine. There had only been one, and there had been no data on it whatsoever to learn from. The only way to study it would have been to get it from Seth, which was an impossibility for her.

But someone clearly had the acumen to get the job done. She had been in the base when it had been attacked and found it prudent to make her exit before it was destroyed. She felt that she had made a good choice in that regard after all was said and done.

"I probably wouldn't have survived had I remained behind to see Uzumaki battle Seth. It's hard to believe that a human being could reach this much power, but I think that was what people like Seth and M. Bison had been trying to find or reach somehow all along."

The only thing left to study were the few BLECE afflicted bodies that they had been able to excavate from the caved-in base, and there wasn't anything to learn from them that hadn't already been known beforehand.

Well, there was one thing to learn from all of this, even if it had nothing to do with weapons production.

"I don't know," Crimson Viper said before a short pause to listen. A frown crossed her face and she removed her sunglasses to rub at her eyes, "…How dangerous would I say he is? It depends," She paused again for another query from her superior, "'Depends on what' you ask? On whether or not you plan on leaving him be."

The thing to learn was something very specific. Something that had been learned in the past from other certain people over the course of modern history. Only a handful of people held this distinction, and you could count them on two hands and have fingers left over.

"If you're asking for my opinion on the matter…" She said, eyes staring down at Seth's warped corpse, the Tanden Engine they wished to recover above all else conspicuously absent. What it must have taken to rip out "…I would suggest that the CIA leave him alone… sir."

The lesson was; do not antagonize Uzumaki Naruto. Avoid him altogether if you can help it, because it was not worth the interest that you would develop in him. Even if he didn't know what you were doing until it was too late, he would still bring whatever it was down around your head regardless.

XxX

(A Few Days Later – Liberdade District of Sao Paulo, Brazil)

As his sandaled feet hit the pavement, Naruto looked at his surroundings while being led along. Wearing an orange shirt and brown cargo pants, his attire was extremely relaxed. That was because he'd packed expecting a damn vacation.

Any suspicions on what hand Ibuki had in the school trip to Brazil were renewed full-force upon the first full day of their seven day stay. Before anyone else had really even woken up in order to explore what the town had to offer tourists, Ibuki had dragged Naruto out and about. He had been expecting just some normal walkabout when he saw her pretty standard clothes of snug blue jeans and a tan shirt with red lettering of her name across the chest. Then again, that changed when she took him around.

Where to? Why to the ethnic Japanese district of the city of course.

What the hell? Seriously, if that was what Naruto wanted he really would have skipped all of the traveling nonsense and stayed back in Aohura City. Needless to say, pretty and pleasurable kunoichi company or not, Naruto was not a happy camper.

Finally deciding to dig his heels in, Naruto did just that on a crowded sidewalk, channeling chakra to his feet to make it nigh impossible for Ibuki to drag him any further by the hand. Her tanuki Don was still pushing him at his legs from behind doing absolutely nothing to move him, "Okay, just what's going on here?"

Ibuki tugged on Naruto's arm only to find him stuck fast. He wasn't going anywhere that he didn't want to go and she wouldn't be the one to move him. Not physically at least. As strong as she was, he was notably stronger. Relying on an old fallback that she hadn't had to pull out in a while, she batted her eyes at him.

In response, Naruto simply stuck a pair of sunglasses on her that he'd bought at the hotel that morning when they'd left. Pouting, Ibuki lowered them slightly on her face and allowed Don to set himself up on her shoulder again, "Okay, you know how you told me that you would help me if I just asked you? Well I need your help."

The two of them took a seat on the edge of a concrete planter by the road and Naruto waited to hear just what all of this was for. To his credit he was patient as Ibuki picked up Don and held him in her arms, an expression on her face as if there were butterflies in her stomach.

Eventually though, she gave him a gorgeous smile that still managed to be so despite clearly being fraught with nerves.

"This is it Naruto," Ibuki told him, "My graduation exam. My last test is here, and then I can do whatever I want, wherever I want," A nervous laugh sprouted from her involuntarily at that however, "Ehehehehe… if I pass of course."

So she was finally going through with it? Good for her. But that still didn't explain enough for Naruto's tastes, "So how'd you reroute the school trip to Brazil? I didn't think you guys had that much money at the Glade of Ninjas."

"We do. Trust me, we do," The kunoichi assured him, "It wasn't that hard. All we had to do was kick the cash the school's way. The principal jumped at it."

"I hate that guy," Naruto said, and the feeling was mutual, though they didn't have many run-ins lately, "…You know he probably kept what didn't go to the trip for himself."

"Probably," Ibuki mumbled, setting her head onto Naruto's shoulder and maintaining her hold on her pet for comfort, "I'm scared to death, you know? Like, this is it. After I graduate I can… I don't know what I can do."

Naruto sighed and pulled her closer to him for physical reassurance, "You can do anything you want. You said that you always wanted to finish your training so you could be free to do your own thing. Well after your test you can. I'm glad you finally accepted it, because I know you can do it."

"Really?"

"Of course. I thought you could do it a while ago. But why are we in Brazil for it? What do you have to do?"

"I have to find a certain person and fight them," Ibuki said gravely, "That's all. I have to fight them and that's my last test. A man named Oro. He used to be an ultra-strong warrior from Japan, and that was way back at the start of the 1900s. He moved to Brazil for some reason and disappeared. He's one of the big legends of martial arts."

Recent martial arts lore stated that Oro despite all of his skill, which was incomparable, had a tough time making a go of it with only fighting skill to his credit; something of a cautionary tale to those that figured they would make a living off of their muscles simply because they had a fair amount of talent.

Tiring of it all he eventually chose to leave it all behind and head off into the more mountainous areas of Brazil, keeping to himself and living off of the land as he practiced his art.

It was said that the particular mountain he lived on was devoid of any strife, completely at peace due to the mere presence of his ki. Animals didn't even hunt and kill on that mountain, from the most brutal constrictor snakes, to the most venomous spiders, to the most savage jungle cats.

"He's got to be older than dirt though, right?" At that comment, Naruto thought about some other old people he knew and frowned painfully. Most of the old people he'd know that were perceived as powerful fighters were all so strong it was scary. Sasuke's boss Gen, Gouken, the Sandaime Hokage… yeah, "Nevermind, it's probably gonna be rough."

Ibuki let out a pitiful moan, "I know. I mean, I've got to be able to find the guy first! No one can find the guy! He's a hermit! That's why I came here. He's ethnic Japanese, so I figured-."

"-You'd start trying to pick up on some rumors here," Naruto finished in her stead with a sageful nod, "Okay, look. I'm gonna help. That's what clones are for I guess. They'll ask around. In the meantime, we're going to go do vacation stuff with everybody else, and you're gonna stop worrying about this so much. I know how good you are. You'll be fine and you're as ready as you can be. I'll be right there with you the whole time."

God, that damned smile of his. It made no sense that he had no idea just how he affected her. It wasn't fair. She could tease him and play with him all she wanted, and he could still rock her to her core just like that.

There had been something about him, from the day that they'd met and how he'd taken to her assistance without a reason to do so when he could have kicked her out and left her to her fate. The kind of man he was, the way he treated her and so many others… it screamed for her to put her trust in him, because he would never let her down. He would never let anyone down if he could help it, and the lengths that he would go to for any of them had become evident after the entire S.I.N. incident.

Just looking at him, Ibuki couldn't think of anything other than how Naruto was the reason she found fulfillment in being a ninja.

Since it was what she had always been she had grown tired of her life, until quite some time back he showed her that there could be more to it than just training and fighting. Meeting him in her past bid to run away from her lifestyle way back when had in hindsight been the best thing she'd ever done.

She wondered how he'd react if she ever told him that he was the main reason she wanted that freedom he'd been talking about. There was probably a halfway decent chance that he somehow knew that already.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Aohura City, Japan)

It was a shame, but since Cammy wasn't a student due to having absolutely no interest in attending any sort of high school she wasn't allowed to come along on the trip to Brazil.

That meant that when the winner of the First World Warrior Tournament came knocking on the door of the new apartment she shared with Naruto, she was present to answer.

If she was surprised at seeing the stoic white-clad fighter on her new doorstep, Cammy didn't show it. Hardly even blinking her bright blue eyes in acknowledgment of his presence she barely had her door open wide enough for her face to be seen, "Naruto isn't here," She informed Ryu, who had somehow enlisted the services of the very uneager to be there Dan to show him where Naruto's home was, "He's on a school function and he won't be back for a week."

"I was looking for Sakura actually," Ryu said, a serious look etched on his face, as was his way, "She isn't at her home, so I thought of coming here."

Dan rolled his eyes and chimed in from behind, "You idiot. Sakura is in Uzumaki's class. She's gone on the same trip. Is that what you made me take you all the way out here for?" Seriously, he had an interview for 'Fighting Spirit' magazine on the growth of his dojo business to prepare for. He had better things to do than ferry Master Gouken's favorite student around town all day.

Ryu's brow furrowed in vexation. This wasn't good. From the sound of things from Gouken, he had been working with Sakura to try and embrace the path of the Surge of Power, but he had been unable to convince her to detach herself from her desires to properly walk down the path to the Power of Nothingness.

If she heard it from him however, that it was for the best that she abandoned her attachments, perhaps she would listen. Sakura had always heeded his directions before. She notably looked up to him and admitted to fighting in order to be recognized by him. If Ryu told her how to proceed, she would heed his words wouldn't she?

Ryu was working to lose the things that he attached himself to in his training even now, as his trip to Australia by his lonesome was a measure meant to clear his mind in a harsh environment and force him to focus on only what was necessary. He still had trouble with discarding his desire to fight the strongest and be known as the best, but everything else physical he had managed to do away with attaching himself to, not that there had been much to begin with.

It was the only way to deal with the Satsui no Hadou, and if that power wasn't dealt with it would eat away at your body and mind until you became Akuma.

The man had so much power it was horrendous, if you could even call him a man any longer. Ryu could never let anyone else ever warp themselves to that depth and draw upon the sort of power that came with that darkness.

Spending the time that she did around Naruto probably made her believe that she could control it, because Naruto routinely tried to control his own overwhelming power inside of him, but this was not like that. Unlike with Naruto's, there wasn't another consciousness that was the source of the Satsui no Hadou. It was your own most primal, base desires coming forth.

Not much of a talker, Ryu remained silent and in thought for long enough to even make Cammy uncomfortable, "…Well if that was the only thing that you wanted, have a nice day." She abruptly closed the door with little fanfare once their business seemed to conclude.

"How much influence does Naruto have over her?" Ryu wondered aloud as he aimlessly wandered away from the doorstep.

Dan smirked and pushed himself off of the railing that he'd been leaning on to head back down to his car with Ryu, "More than Master Gouken."

"She believes Naruto's words to be wiser than Master Gouken's?" That didn't make sense at all. Yes, she had known Naruto for longer, but why would she be influenced by anyone her age over someone with the years of life under their belt and actual experience in the department of the dark intent of their ancestor fighting style?

"It ain't about him being wiser or not," Dan said, shaking his head at a man who simply didn't get it, "It's about-. Ugh, you know what? If it's this hard for you to figure out what Uzumaki's got that makes him easier for a kid like her to listen to than you then it's not worth talking about."

This only confused Ryu more.

If you asked Dan about Naruto's fighting ability he would say that he was a bum. A no-good, cheap-shotting, dojo-trashing, b.s. artist. He would say that Naruto only beat him one time and one time only back when he'd had a 104 degree fever, AND the gout, AND after he had been doing tiring demonstrations all day.

Clearly they weren't necessarily friends. They shared mutual friends and acquaintances, such as Sakura and Blanka, and that was as far as their interaction went, because Dan refused to ever fight Naruto again and Naruto just didn't care due to routinely having bigger fish to fry.

However, when it came to preference of philosophy, Dan liked Naruto's infinitely more. What was in front of Naruto was more important than any concept like being the undisputed best fighter in the world. That was something that Dan could subscribe to, even though his thing was fame and money compared to Naruto's philosophy of fighting for his friends and loved ones. As far as Dan was concerned, at least Naruto's motivation was real compared to Ryu's.

What did that get you? When you were _that _motivated for such an abstract goal and you looked back on your life if you even lived long enough to reflect, and you dredged up memories of what you did in your glory days, could you say it was worth it? How would you determine that?

In the end, Dan could say that if he became an old man he could look back and say that his life was pretty fine, 'Sometimes it's actually pretty bitchin'.' No more delinquent loans and bills for him.

He avenged his father by 'defeating' Sagat, and he was making loads of money off of his dojos. You could see it in Naruto that simply being around people he loved was nirvana. Dan had little doubt that Naruto would have very few regrets if he lived long enough to grow old.

There was a bit of tension set between Dan and Ryu as they both reentered his car, only for Dan's cell phone to go off before he could start the ignition. From the number on the caller ID he was getting a call from an international line, "Yeah?" He answered only to quickly roll his eyes. Speak of the devil, "Wait, you want to talk to Jimmy? Why?" A short pause, "Alright. Fine. I'll call back from the dojo in an hour."

"Who was that?" Ryu asked, barely ever using his own cell phone for anything personal.

"Uzumaki. He wants a firsthand account of what you'll run into in the forests in Brazil."

That was an oddly specific request, "Why?"

Dan just shrugged his shoulders in confusion and started his car, "Beats me. Who cares? I'm more concerned with how much money it just cost me to take a call from Sao Paulo and what he's doing awake at 1 in the morning over there on a school trip."

XxX

(Some Time Later – Sao Paulo, Brazil)

Morning had come and the plan for later that day was to do some more sightseeing. The students were given the freedom to do their own thing as the only requirements the students had were that they couldn't leave before breakfast was served where roll would be taken, and they had to be back in by 9 pm or else they would be barred to the hotel for the remainder of the trip. Other than that, they could do whatever they wanted.

Jetlag kicked most of the students' tails on the day of their arrival and the subsequent day that followed as well. Into the second day of their stay, most of them were up and intent on making up for lost time. Being used to travelling all over and the shifting of time zones, Sakura was one of the few who weren't affected very much, therefore she had actually gotten to go around and get some things done on the first day.

Early on day two, Sakura sat for breakfast with Kei at an umbrella-shaded table in sight of one of the hotel pools. For the sake of her vacation she wore a short pink blouse and a flower-patterned white sarong, a pair of sunglasses sitting on her forehead in place of her usual headband.

Naruto, Ibuki, and Karin were all still taking their time to sleep. Naruto had always been slow to rise. Once he was up he was hard to put back to rest again, but getting him to move in mornings had always been difficult. Ibuki was used to getting up before the crack of dawn anyway and was taking advantage of the week's length of time where she simply didn't have to. Karin was normally a workhorse of an early-riser, but she'd been away at the moment to procure local transportation around the greater Sao Paulo area suitable to her needs.

One could only imagine what such a thing could wind up entailing before all was said and done.

Either way, they were waiting for the stragglers to wake up and for Karin to return from where she'd gone off to. Being without servants for the first time in a while to do these sorts of things for her, Sakura figured it could be kind of funny to see how Karin interacted with others to get what she needed in person and had wished that she'd waited to go until after everyone else had eaten.

As she sat and tried to skim through a help pamphlet on basic Portuguese phrases and tried to commit them to memory just in case, she looked up and noticed that she and Kei had the attention of a good number of the male population of the second year class.

A frown crossed her face upon noting this and finding the majority of them look down or away, just as long as they didn't run the risk of making eye contact with her, "Kei-chan, is there something wrong with what I'm wearing or something today?"

Kei raised an eyebrow and looked Sakura over, finding nothing wrong with her friend. Did she really not know why she was getting looks today? For someone basically at the top of the class grade-wise, Sakura could certainly miss some things when they required a little digging, "No, it's pretty much because now is the only time that any boys think they can sneak looks at you without getting Naruto on their case."

"What? That's kind of silly," Sakura professed, tersely eying her pensive male schoolmates ogling her from a distance. Was that really what they thought of Naruto? If so they were wrong, "Naruto wouldn't yell at anyone for asking me out. He definitely wouldn't threaten anyone."

Naruto only begrudged people in regards to Sakura when they tried to hurt her or flagrantly disrespected her, and barely even then because she could handle herself. He was loyal, but not to an overbearingly maniacal, possessive degree.

Sakura idly noted that her dark side could take notes.

"**Don't give me that."** Sakura said to herself inside, a playfully dangerous tone to her own thoughts,** "You know he's ours just as much as I do. Why do you think I say **_**we**_** when I speak to you about yourself? I want what you want, and you want what I want. I am you. If you stopped fighting it you'd feel much better."**

She almost found herself listening, until she remembered what sorts of things happened when she started listening to that part of herself.

As Sakura shook off her own piercing thoughts, Kei simply shrugged in return to Sakura's query that she'd actually voiced aloud before, "They don't know that," She said before taking a long sip of her drink and running some of her long brown hair back behind her ear, "Have you ever wondered why you've never had a boyfriend?"

Other than the fact that since puberty Sakura had never been interested in any other menfolk than just the two that Kei knew of, of course.

"Because I'm a good martial artist?" That had always been Sakura's bit of fear when it came to her fighting acumen, that it afflicted her femininity from the point of view of others. The recent 'Sunburned' Sakura episodes where she'd been markedly more aggressive and violent did nothing to prevent this line of thinking on her part.

"No, actually that turns some guys on," Honestly, Kei didn't know why Sakura had so much trouble with accepting the fact that many other people found her cute. She was a sweet person, very intelligent, and people knew that she was fully capable of being fun. The fact that she fought did very little to discourage that opinion, "It's because you spend the majority of your time around the alpha dog."

In other words; it was because of how she'd always been close to Naruto.

Kei would know this even when Sakura didn't, because she'd actually had some boys ask her out. When curiosity got the better of her and she asked about Sakura, it was revealed that for most regular students, Naruto put the fear of God in them, even though he'd never beaten up anyone that hadn't swung at him first.

Even if they knew he wouldn't hurt them. Even if history showed that the only time he'd ever gotten into fights at school with the student body had been back around the start of the first-year when delinquents from middle schools around Aohura City wanted to establish their pecking order and didn't know just how much of a bad idea it was.

That was the stigma that came with being the strongest when people were used to might making right and strength meaning abuse. Whether or not Naruto would harm a fly didn't matter. It was thought better to err on the side of caution and refrain from trying to take their chances with the lady friend that he'd marched through the front gates with every day since the first bell of freshman year.

Sakura was the only one that had received this specification straight-up.

Ibuki was approachable and had more than her share of suitors at first when she'd arrived in school because she'd been new, but she'd turned them all down herself. Karin simply put out that aura of being better than the rest of them and so far out of their league that you'd only be wasting air and time trying to get with her, thus rebuking any admirers before they could even begin working up the nerve to try her.

Kei's eyes cut to the entrance of the hotel where a groggy Naruto exited and quickly took a seat at their table, "Ruff," She barked, smirking at Sakura as she did so and eliciting a glare from the perky young fighter.

"I don't know what that means, but I'm sure it means something," Naruto droned in regards to the inside reference before yawning audibly, "What's at the breakfast spread?"

"Not ramen," Sakura said, answering the only question that she knew Naruto cared about. She grinned upon hearing him whine, "Why are you so tired?"

"It's 11 in the morning here which means it's 11 at night in Japan right now," Naruto said cryptically.

"And?"

"If I want to talk to anyone in the daytime in Japan I have to do it at night here, and Blanka doesn't wake up before noon," Naruto sighed, leaning back in his chair, "...Had to call Cam too and make sure everything was okay with her. Batsu's out of town on his school trip too, so I asked E. Honda if she could go spend a few days with him. He's got a sumo tournament to get ready for next week, but he said she could stay. That's where I told her to go until we come back so she isn't all alone."

Oh, well wasn't that thoughtful and responsible. Everything was explainable except for the Blanka thing. Sakura's curiosity was piqued, "You needed to talk to Jimmy-chan? Is something wrong?"

Naruto opened his mouth to elaborate on just what his phone calls the previous night had consisted of until he heard the specific sound of an aircraft coming closer, far closer than he expected something like that to get to the back side of a high-class hotel, "Shh. Does anyone else hear that?"

XxX

"Uhhnnn," Ibuki moaned, tightly holding a pillow over her head as a droning, beating sound filled her ears to a deafening level, "Someone stop that noise…"

Karin was her roommate, much to the latter's chagrin of having anyone as a roommate, period. After the morning that she'd had though, Ibuki wasn't a huge fan of it either. She had recently discovered the joy that was sleeping in. She'd never been allowed to do it before and after a few days of experiencing it she felt that she needed to pass her final ninja exam just for the freedom of possibly sleeping in alone. However from her standards of quiet, Karin was noisy in the mornings when she got herself ready.

Really, she wasn't. Despite never having had a roommate in any situation before, Karin was very courteous and quiet by nature due to her upbringing. It simply wasn't up to Ibuki's extreme standards of what quiet meant due to the nature of her own upbringing, and therefore she might as well have been an elephant fumbling around a bubble wrap factory when she had been putting her shoes on earlier.

After that ordeal had ended and Karin had left, she had more glorious time to sleep during daytime hours and did just that until that damnably constant loud airy beating noise first began and started growing louder and louder. Now it was absolutely deafening.

Hurling her pillow across the room against the wall, Ibuki sat up completely unamused, her long dark hair out of her usual high topknot ponytail. Blowing wild strands of hair out of her face as she got up and walked to the window she pulled open the curtains and promptly let out a scream at staring down the face of a large commercial helicopter hovering in the air in front of her room. Her temper was sufficiently lost at that moment.

Karin sat in control of the vehicle with Naruto in the front along with her, Sakura and Kei in the back. It was the latter's first time in a helicopter and it was clear that the common schoolgirl wasn't used to the novelty of the situation yet.

"_Hey Rin-Rin does this thing work?"_ Naruto's voice blared out over the loudspeaker of the aircraft, answering his own question, _"Oop, nevermind. Anyway, rise and shine Ibuki, let's go! I found the mountain you're looking for, so let's go mark it!"_

Ibuki threw her window open and stepped out onto the balcony, holding the shirt of her pajamas closed lest it be blown off from the helicopter blades, "How!?" She shouted, yelling to try and get past the sound of the blades as well, "Nobody we asked in Liberdade knew where it was and we dug deep for that one!"

"_Blanka and Google Maps."_

Oh. Okay. Sure, because people did that sort of thing.

From behind the control stick of the helicopter, Karin took the loudspeaker radio from Naruto and spoke with a smirk adorning her proud visage, _"Your day of sloth has come to an end my dear friend. If you would be so kind as to ready yourself and meet us on the lawn of the hotel. It is the only suitable place I have found to land. Within the next thirty minutes if you do not mind."_

"_You could just hover over something long enough for her to jump in like you did for us at the pool,"_ Naruto offered.

"_Kei-chan wasn't a fan of that one,"_ Sakura pointed out in hindsight, _"So, is the front lawn okay Ibuki-chan?"_

Ibuki sighed and nodded before going inside to get prepared for the day, a small smile pulling at her lips despite her attempt to keep a frown front and center. She didn't know if they knew anything about her test aside from Naruto, but even if they didn't, they were still assisting her in her final exam regardless; heading out into the wilder portion of the country without need for convincing.

'Yeah, these guys are worth it,' Ibuki thought to herself as she gathered up her clothes and her fighting gear to bring with her, 'I may not let one of the others get Naruto without a fight, but even with fighting the others for him I still can't imagine having them elsewhere.'

It didn't matter how legendary, powerful, well hidden, or anything that this Oro person was. She'd find him and in the end she'd pass her exam by any means necessary, if only for the sake of staying with everyone. That was what Naruto would do, and he wouldn't let a little thing like trepidation stop him from getting a job he saw fit to see through done.

Well neither would Ibuki.

XxX

(Elsewhere - Isolated Mountainside in Brazil)

Solid red eyes opened in the extremely low light of the cave as the stationary figure they belonged to groaned and sighed, "That damned energy that's been flaring all over the place is coming this way," A withered, elderly voice said to the various small animals situated around his lair, "Damned young upstarts."

He stood up and puttered around his dwelling, checking to see if he had to go foraging again sometime soon. Perhaps a trip to town was called for. It had been quite a while since he'd come down from his isolated mountain.

That would have to wait however. Judging from how he could feel the extremely powerful energy source coming his way, joined by three other considerably strong ones, he would be entertaining company soon. He hadn't had anyone come around since that strange green colored boy that acted like an animal wandered around his mountain. That had been years ago though.

Indeed, it had been a while since anyone had come his way looking for something. Oro hoped greatly that what these folks would wind up coming to his neck of the woods for would be important… or at least entertaining.

How he hated being bored.

* * *

><p><span>Character Profile<span>

Name: Oro  
><span>Nationality:<span> Brazil (Japanese ancestry)  
><span>Gender:<span> Male  
><span>Age:<span> N/A  
><span>HeightWeight: 5'2/123 lbs.  
><span>Bloodtype:<span> N/A  
><span>Likes:<span> Powerful fighters, turtles, sleeping, training, women.  
><span>Dislikes:<span> Weaklings, being bored, evil.  
><span>Hobbies:<span> His telepathy, going to towns to visit movie theaters, guiding people through the jungle when he needs money.  
><span>Rivals:<span> Gouken (friendly), Akuma.  
><span>Fighting Style:<span> Senjutsu  
><span>Current Techniques:<span> Niou Riki (Twin King's Strength), Nichirin Shou (Sun Palm), Oni Yanna (Demon Dragonfly), Jinchuu Watari (Human Pillar Ferry), Hitobashira Nobori, Tenguishi (Tengu Stone).  
><span>Hyper Techniques:<span> Kishin Riki (Fierce God Power), Kishin Tsui (Fierce God Hammer), Yagyou Dama (Night Traveling Soul), Yagyou Odama (Night Traveling Great Soul), Tengu Midareishi (Tengu Disorder Stone).  
><span>Background:<span> Oro is an extremely ancient fighter of Japanese descent with a powerful combat philosophy known as Senjutsu. Formerly living as a martial arts instructor in Japan, he moved to Brazil in the early 1900s for a fresh start and a new platform to teach his style. Life in Brazil did not work out for him however, mostly due to the failure he found in trying to find anyone suitable to pass down what knowledge he had in Senjutsu at the time. Disappearing into the mountains for a multitude of decades he trained himself reclusively, rarely coming down from his domain and keeping himself company with his array of pets.

Eventually mastering everything there is to know of Senjutsu, Oro's strength grew to the extent that his ki signature apparently became one with the environment he surrounded himself with at all times, making him difficult for anyone to locate. His strength in combat is so great that when he does fight, he always keeps one arm bound in order to handicap himself, give other fighters a chance to show their strength, and to keep from accidentally killing his adversaries in battle.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright, a short reprieve chapter from all of the rampant destruction and whatnot, alluding to future troubles, and with a vital character introduction to boot. <strong>

**So anyway, three months until my doomnable doom of first student loan payments are due, and I am terrified. 30k in debt for the next ten years. That's been my nightmare since high school. And was it even worth it yet? Hell no. And thus my minimum wage existence continues.**

**4 years of college, 1 year of actually working on a TV program before college, and I keep getting belted with the 'Oh, we're just looking for someone with more experience' excuse after getting to 3 interviews. And how exactly do you expect anyone to get 'experience' if they're not working you jackasses? Give me a legit excuse you spineless wimps so I can actually fix whatever deficiency I have.**

**And if that is the only reason, seriously what do they think? Do they think I spent 4 years learning everything I could aboue what the hell to do on the job only to get out and be helpless when you stick a camera or a video editing system in front of me? Fuck them, I practice editing constantly. What was the point of getting the degree other than a means to fuck my nonexistent credit? A really expensive piece of paper to wipe my ass with?**

**Kids, if you're going to go to college and your family isn't loaded, make sure that you actually know what you're going for and that you're really good at sports. I mean **_**really good**_**, otherwise you have to pay through the ass later. And I don't mean good at sports as in you can just get on the team, I mean good enough that you stay on the team, because if they can replace you they'll drop your scholarship. This all of course matters if you actually care about getting your 4-year degree. **

…**Unless you play a sport with a pro league comparable to the NFL or NBA. If you're that good to where experts tell you that you are, go get your money in the draft, but once again be sure you're really that good before you try to enter that or free agency. Otherwise you might wind up out of luck. Ask me how I know.**

**So far, it's turning out to be the worst mistake of my life.**

**Anyway, I'm done, I'm broker than ever, and I hope you enjoyed. Kenchi out.**


	52. True Strength

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I can add amateur mechanic to my list of talents. It took six months, a lot of cursing, and anger, but I did it! I am ALL POWERFUL! There is nothing I can't accomplish if I find myself angry enough to attempt it in earnest, and you know what that means?

It's time to take over the world.

**Chapter 52: True Strength**

* * *

><p>Dan was annoyed. It was alright letting Blanka stay with him. He'd been the one to make the offer to the green-skinned man to begin with because Blanka was a friend. It put him out slightly when Gouken started staying with him because the man had cast him out of his tutelage early on after learning why he wanted to learn martial arts, but he'd lost the right to complain in a fight with him so again there was nothing he could do about that.<p>

Having Ryu stay there until Sakura came back was just pushing all of his wrong buttons.

Mostly because his students weren't listening to him and were more concerned with getting Ryu's autograph and asking him to tell them stories. It was screwing up his classes! Granted, he already had their money, but it was _his_ dojo!

Just look at him, sitting all cool by the front window of the studio while people gawked from outside. He looked like a damn mannequin. Meditating, that was what he claimed to be doing. Sure. He could go meditate in the closet and cause less of a disruption.

For some reason he was on edge, maybe because while Ryu was stressing himself out over how he could talk Sakura down from trying to learn both the Satsui no Hadou and its lighter contemporary. Only Gouken's master had ever been able to do so, and in the end Akuma still killed him.

Maybe it was because Gouken himself seemed to be mentally preparing himself for something. He did nothing but meditate, drink water, and face the west on the rare occasions when he ventured outside. It was as if he was waiting for something, and he hadn't spoken in two days.

It was pretty creepy.

"What the hell is going on around here?" Dan mused grumpily as Blanka listened and happily choked down a fruit smoothie straight from the blender, "All of this doom and gloom crap. What's the problem? Life is good right now ain't it?" Blanka lowered the blender and fervently nodded with a mouthful of smoothie to agree with his oldest friend.

All of them had enough money to live comfortably, they were all simply living on and doing their own things, and if a problem arose it quickly found itself solved… with extreme amounts of physical violence. The kids that most of the anarchy seemed to surround had even gone off on a school-sanctioned vacation to Brazil.

Dan honestly figured that he himself should have done something like go on vacation. Hanging out with Ryu and Gouken was a complete buzzkill. They both took themselves far too seriously.

From his place of meditation, Gouken cracked an eye slightly to look at Dan momentarily. He had been able to hear everything that he'd said, and he knew of Dan's growing ire with the somewhat gloomy atmosphere forming around his dojo.

It was understandable, but at the moment it was more than likely for the best that he didn't know exactly why everyone was all pent up.

If he were lucky, he wouldn't have to find out why.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Brazil – Isolated Mountainside)

"Onward Naruto-san, noblest of bodyguards!"

"Yeah, I'm a _bodyguard_! I'm not a goddamn horse!"

"Of course not! One would not take a horse up this sort of terrain. You would take a donkey or a mule instead. What is Portuguese for 'donkey' I wonder?"

"If you start calling me a donkey I'm totally dropping you. Jeez, I know I told you to take it easy for a while, but this is a little too easy."

The helicopter had been forced to make a landing somewhere lower down on the intended mountain due to a complete lack of serviceable terrain for such an aircraft to safely land. For Naruto and Ibuki it was nothing, but for the other girls they simply weren't used to traversing that sort of terrain, especially plain old civilian Kei.

"Have I ever said…" Kei asked with a deep breath as she tried to keep pace behind Sakura as best as she could. The upward walking was draining her extensively, "…How much I hate hiking? I'm a city girl."

"We're going as slow as we can for you," Naruto said, leading the way and moving forward with a happy Karin riding piggyback, legs wrapped tight around his torso and her chin set comfortably on top of his head, "We should be running up this thing actually."

Sakura laughed nervously at the thought of doing so. Sure, she was in good shape, but her long-range speed was to be accounted for, as in she lacked in that regard, "Please don't," She wouldn't get tired and she wouldn't necessarily lose them because she could sense them, but Naruto and Ibuki would have left her in the dust, and then there was Kei to take note of as well. She definitely couldn't keep up or find them, "Why didn't you stay with the helicopter by the way Kei-chan?"

"In case a wild animal attacks or something," The regular schoolgirl answered, keeping a tight hold on Sakura's hand as she allowed herself to be semi-dragged upward through the jungle-clad mountain by her powerful friend, "I'd feel safer out here with all of you than down at the helicopter by myself."

All of this was apparently par for the course when you had superhuman classmates. Even if she wasn't used to it, she had to learn to cope quickly or find herself in over her head.

Meanwhile, Ibuki was still having fits about fighting one of the biggest legends in martial arts, living or dead. She couldn't try to sneak up on him, even if it was possible for her to do so or not. It had to be a straight-up challenge, a legitimate fight.

Basically, it was everything that she'd been trained to avoid doing if at all given the opportunity to keep away from. She wasn't given any wiggle room to skirt the rules either. It had to be her and her alone, and the only thing her friends could be allowed there for were as witnesses. They were moral support at best.

As she thought about all of this to herself she looked forward at the head of the group's progression to Naruto. He wasn't the conventional ninja, as he had absolutely no problem with fighting anyone or anything head-on. He'd do anything as long as it was for one of them.

She had to think that way as well, because as much as this was for her graduation, for her freedom to live the way she liked, it was for them too. For Naruto, for Sakura, Karin, Cammy, even Batsu and even the adults like Chun-Li and E. Honda. Everyone she'd grown close to ever since meeting them and befriending them. She wanted to be around all of them, one of them much more than the others though. The one-off in the bathhouse made her want more of Naruto than she figured it would have.

'Grr, don't think about that right now! You're about to get into a fight!' Ibuki thought to herself, pressing her thighs tighter together as she kept walking. Luckily her facemask was up to hide the red glow staining her face, 'Mou… and you'll probably be too sore afterwards to ask him for a victory romp or something.'

That, and if she had TWO runs at Naruto before any other girl had even one she figured that Karin or Dark Sakura would be liable to take dire vengeance. Cammy wouldn't care because she didn't care about most things, but the other two would.

Okay, that was enough of that! It wasn't the kind of thing you were supposed to think about when you knew you were about to get into a fight!

She had to get her mind on things that she _did _have to think about when she knew she was about to fight, "So ah, Naruto. What did you think about when you were heading off to fight Bison, or Sagat, or… you know, anyone really strong."

If there was anyone that had the big fight mindset down pat it had to be him. There wasn't anyone else that she could have possibly asked, neither at the moment nor at any other time. The sheer scope of the battles that Naruto had fought with the fate of something all-important on the line…

…In hindsight, thinking about it was simply staggering.

Taking a moment to contemplate his reply, the youngster found himself short of supply in the answer department, "I dunno," Naruto said with a shrug before looking up to the forested sky in thought, "I guess I never thought about that sort of thing before. Huh. Go figure."

That had not been the answer that the girls had been looking for or expecting. This was the man that had been seconds away from being the undisputed champion of the World Warrior Tournament. The man that had smashed two figures that had been just short of plunging the world into fear and chaos.

"Are you telling me you've fought some of the biggest freaks and powerhouses that the world's ever seen and there wasn't anything going through your head when you did it?" Kei asked in return. She couldn't wrap her head around that kind of mindset, 'How differently do they all have to be wired to operate like that?'

"Hey, I was thinking about the fight!" Naruto barked in offense before pursing his lips sourly after the fact, "Just not much else. What was there to think about? I had to fight 'em, so I did."

Karin drilled her finger down on the top of Naruto's spiky head, eye twitching irritably at the almost careless way he'd spoken of dealing with some of the worst villains around, "But they were supposed to be some of the strongest people that ever lived," She reasoned, "You cannot honestly expect us to believe that you simply plodded forward and engaged them simply because you felt you had to."

"So what? If I didn't fight 'em, who else would have?" It wasn't even a matter of Naruto doing it because he thought he was the only one that could do so and walk away in one piece afterwards, "Besides, I promised myself I wouldn't ever run from a fight after it starts. So even if I thought any of those guys could have crushed me, backing down wasn't ever a choice. It doesn't matter how strong someone is, whether they can beat me down or not, or if it's dumb to fight."

Sakura shook her head with a smile while Kei gave a sour look, "That's just the way he's always been Kei-chan. It's like he's got molten lava in his veins or something," But as much as it was a part of him, she just hoped he'd learned something when it came to enemies like Akuma.

Bad things happened when you stood up to _everyone_. Some people were bad guys with lots of power. Other people were simply forces of nature. You didn't stand up to forces of nature. When you tried to, only bad things happened.

'If Naruto ever went down the way he did against Akuma again, I don't think I could take it,' Sakura thought to herself with a despondent frown.

She didn't want to think about that though. This was supposed to be a vacation. Training, fighting for their lives, none of that was supposed to happen here. It was their time to relax and reflect.

Yep, relax. Because when Sakura thought of relaxation, the first thing that sprang to mind was stomping across a Brazilian mountainside.

Eventually, Naruto drew them all to a stop, dropping to a single knee, Karin still on his back. What was wrong? Sakura couldn't sense anything that she hadn't felt in the first place after they'd began traversing the mountain.

"What's the matter?" Sakura eventually asked, her nose wrinkling in confusion as she found herself unable to feel anything off. Her ability to sense energy was the strongest out of her group of friends, and she couldn't distinguish anything from the rest of the environment, "I can't sense anything."

…Wait, that was the problem.

Realization slowly dawned on Sakura's face as she met Naruto's gaze and got a stiff nod of confirmation as to her hunch. They couldn't sense anything distinguishable from the rest of the area, even the animals that they knew were there, that they could hear as clear as day only a matter of feet away.

That should not have been the case. Everything had ki, or chakra, therefore sensing was usually a matter of either picking out the biggest signature within your range or the ones most familiar to you due to experience with them.

Sakura grabbed at her own throat as if she were choking upon realizing what was happening, "…There's something here with ki so powerful that it overshadows everything."

An old weathered voice cut in at that point, having wandered through the jungle from his expedient cave to intercept the people he felt intruding on his peaceful domain.

Wearing an ancient burgundy gi held closed with rope, a gold-colored old man with solid red eyes and thin wisps of black hair walked forward. His gi only had its left side intact across the upper body, and it was wrapped tightly, keeping his left arm concealed from sight entirely, to the point that it seemed to be vacant from his person altogether.

This was the first thing of note for one of the visiting party.

"Oh man, that old guy's missing his whole arm!" Naruto shouted, pointing at Oro in shock, "How can you live in these mountains with no arm old man? This place is rough!"

The old man just stared at Naruto flatly before turning his attention to what he perceived as the more appealing members of the party to gawk at. Since Naruto had shouted in Japanese, and the rest of them looked the part, he spoke to them in their native tongue, "Ahem, beautiful young ladies, allow me to introduce myself as the hermit of this mountain. Feel free to refer to me as Oro. Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of hosting you on my mountain this fine day?"

Naruto's eye twitched involuntarily. Something about this seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't put his finger on just what it was.

Ibuki's eyes went wide at hearing that this was Oro, 'This is the guy I'm supposed to fight?' He did look strong, but she couldn't feel a definite ki force from him, 'It's hard to sense how powerful he is…' "Master Oro, I've come all the way from my village to challenge you to a one-on-one contest. Do you accept?"

Oro looked her over extensively before sighing, "…I suppose it would have been too much of a stretch to hope that you'd come all this way to ask me out on a date," Ibuki was partly mortified and partly disgusted at the thought, sputtering aimlessly as her eyes flickered back to Naruto and off of him unconsciously. Oro noticed this and sighed, shaking his head before moving on to Sakura just as quickly, "Hmm, you have a very strong ki little girl. You wouldn't happen to be the blond kid's girlfriend as well would you?"

"Err, no," Sakura replied uncomfortably, her feet shifting aimlessly, "Naruto doesn't really have a girlfriend… right now."

Really, and did that happen to be why she and the ninja girl were so sheepish when it came to the topic, and why the blonde girl on the boy's back couldn't seem to press herself against him closely enough for her tastes?

Oro might have lived in the mountains alone for decades, but it was child's play for him to sense human intentions. From what he felt, the only one not intertwined intimately with the young male present was the common-looking schoolgirl with no significant ki presence.

Narrowing his eyes on Naruto, it didn't take much scrutiny for him to find the depths of power hidden inside of the misplaced shinobi. It was honestly surprising.

People Naruto's age… they didn't get that powerful. Some 'masters' that had three times Naruto's life experience never got close to how strong Oro felt the boy to be.

As a matter of fact, sparing Kei, all of these children were exceptionally strong. How strong? Well that was what fights were meant for, to find out such a thing.

Color Oro intrigued.

Smacking his lips idly, Oro shrugged and walked up close to Ibuki, getting the kunoichi to slink back away from him to buy herself some more personal space. Once she moved away he put on a nearly toothless grin, "Well who am I to turn down such a good chance to test the mettle of such a pretty young thing? If you're sure you can entertain me, and you won't get hurt too badly, I'd be glad to take you on."

A shuddering breath left Ibuki as she realized that her challenge had been accepted, "Right. Everyone stay back, this is my fight," She turned to Naruto and sent him a dazzling smile, if a little nervous, "Would you mind being my official witness Naruto?"

There was no way that he would ever turn her down, especially for something so important. It would grate on him that he couldn't jump in if things got bad, but he had the utmost faith in her. Besides, he figured it was about time he got a little taste of the medicine he put others through whenever they had to watch him fight.

Oro simply yawned and stood back as Ibuki seemed to take up a deadly serious fighting stance. As she pulled her facemask up over her nose and mouth her eyes were determined, brow furrowed in anticipation.

"One match, no rules, no time limit," Naruto said, trying to sound as official as he could. If anyone was expecting impartiality out of him they were out of their mind, but that didn't mean he couldn't ignore Ibuki's request to him, "The fight ends when one of you quits or I say it's over, alright?"

The golden-skinned old man merely chuckled and sat down on the ground, legs folded underneath him comfortably with his back turned to his opponent, "Attack whenever you feel comfortable dear."

What?

Ibuki looked over at Naruto, and if a facemask hadn't been covering her gorgeous features she would have had quite the stunned expression on her face. She was no stranger to opponents refusing to take her seriously. She was no stranger to being underestimated. None of them were. However, an adversary had never had the gall to turn their back on her before.

Indignation filling her, Ibuki dashed to Oro's side that contained his bound left arm with her speed technique and dropped a spinning ax kick onto her target. Her attack was blocked with a casual movement of Oro's right arm across his body, catching her heel in his palm before he breezily pushed her away.

The force of his rebuke was enough to send her flying into a tree. With a backflip, Ibuki planted her feet on the tree hard enough to crack the bark, her soles stinging like crazy, 'T-That was just a block! All he did was block me and he sent me this far away?'

Okay, fine.

Dropping down onto the ground, Ibuki immediately rushed at Oro's back again, this time choosing to flip in a swift spiral pattern over Oro's head in her effort to land a falling kick right on top of Oro's head. Once again, he caught her leg and shoved her away, causing her to perform a safety roll on the ground to keep from being sent head-over-heels.

This was a problem. Ibuki knew that she wasn't the absolute strongest. She could take Naruto on evenly until he started turning up the heat and drawing upon his inhuman source of energy, and she knew that some of the bigger freaks of the world that they'd gone up against would have torn her apart.

She could barely feel any sort of energy other than the stagnant energy of the mountain, so why was she so outclassed? He hadn't even moved his feet. He hadn't even stood up yet.

Ibuki wasn't the only one who didn't understand what was happening. Sakura and Karin were just as confused as she was.

"I find it hard to believe that this man has the capabilities to so easily handle Ibuki-san," Karin said, a frown on her face as she tried to pick out some facet of Oro that Ibuki could use to her advantage, "…His movements are too few in number for me to find an opening in his style."

"What style?" Sakura asked in return, "He hasn't done anything yet. He's just-," She stopped herself and squinted in Oro's direction when she noticed something off about his posture, "…Is he asleep?"

Having caught the dregs of the conversation from where she'd been situated, Ibuki felt a swelling of anger in her breast, "Grr…" She was well aware that she was at the back of the line in direct fighting prowess amongst her closest female friends, but to have it rubbed in her face on this day of all days...

Calm. She had to be calm. Fighting in a rage was a horrible idea with the style that she used. She relied on speed and accuracy. Getting too emotional would only get her hurt. Biting her lip hard enough to draw blood, Ibuki shivered and shook to draw herself into a state of tranquility, and it was then that she had her idea.

Jumping in at Oro one more time, Ibuki correctly anticipated that he would block her and used the force of his move that sent her away to backflip through and begin her aerial weaponized onslaught, "Kasumi Suzaku (Mist Vermillion Bird)!"

Oro's eyes snapped open, glowing blue as he lifted an open palm and stopped Ibuki's dozens of sharp weapons cold in midair, "That's quite dangerous."

Ibuki was nowhere in sight however until she appeared in a Shunshin and grabbed ahold of his extended arm "That's the point," She replied before slamming her other ki-charged fist right into Oro's exposed body, prepared to release her combat energy right through him, "Raida (Lightning Strike)!"

Sure, it was a lesser attack compared to the one she used as a diversion to get close in the first place, but Ibuki's main concern had been to land a blow to begin with and she'd done just that.

However, like a defibrillator, Ibuki's Raida took a split-second to kick in, which was far too much time for her to remain still against a man as dangerous as the one she'd faced.

"Niou Riki (Twin King's Strength)!" Oro grabbed Ibuki by the wrist and quickly slammed her three times on the ground like a ragdoll mercilessly, "You don't have the speed with that technique to use it on someone like me."

Ibuki only coughed haggardly on the ground in return. Oro had whipped her around like a ribbon, as if she had weighed next to nothing.

She had never felt the force of those that were truly strong. Bison, Akuma, Seth, she'd missed the boat on directly dealing with them all. While most would consider such a thing a blessing, she didn't have experience in taking on opponents that were disgustingly powerful.

Until now at least.

Telekinesis. Oro had telekinesis. Pure, tempered telekinesis.

Karin let out a completely humorless laugh, her face frozen in an expression of disbelief, "I… didn't even know ki manipulation existed on a level like this," She said aloud, mostly to herself, "…To have such control over his energies that he can influence the movement of other objects without touching them."

This was starting to look like a nightmare.

On the sidelines, Naruto gnashed his teeth in bitter tolerance. Watching someone he cared about take a beating wasn't something he had ever become accustomed to, nor did he ever wish to. But this wasn't something he could interfere with.

There was something wrong. People as strong as Oro, normally it was impossible for them to keep their power under wraps. Even for him, it was harder to lower his presence enough to actually use stealth and surprise any longer in open combat.

This old man, it seemed like trying to reach down to the bottom of a well with your bare hands to retrieve water when it came to sensing his energy. They all knew it was there and knew it was most certainly more than enough to worry about, but they couldn't grasp it. Why?

Still, there was nothing he could do but believe in Ibuki. There had to be some way she could win. If there was, she would find it. She was smart enough to engineer a path to victory as long as she could just stay in it.

…He hoped.

'Come on, get up,' Naruto thought, fingers twitching rapidly. Seeing her wince and rise back up to her feet put a spark of relief into his heart, 'There you go. 'Atta girl.'

Putting her feet beneath her, Ibuki shook off the cobwebs and stood off against Oro again, "Okay, I think I'm awake now," She said, trying to play off getting slammed around weightlessly.

"You have to have something better than that," Oro goaded, "If you were dispatched to face me, the people who did it had to think you had something worthwhile that would give you a chance. Stop fighting scared girlie. Even if your enemy is superior, you must fight them as if you have every chance to win."

The last thing she needed was a lecture.

"I've seen how you attack," Oro said, "Now let's see how you defend. Nichirin Shou (Sun Palm)!" Quicker than anyone had ever seen another person form a ki attack, Oro shot forward a flashing golden orb of energy at Ibuki, as fast as a gunshot.

It took every ounce of force Ibuki's muscles could generate, every bit of training her reflexes had ever been given, just to avoid the shot that punched through a tree trunk in its wake.

That was impossible! There hadn't been any telegraphing of his movement whatsoever. It was the fastest release they'd ever seen. Even Guile's Sonic Boom, which had the quickest release of any other ki attack any of them had ever seen before, still had Guile drawing his arms open before swinging them inward to form the blast.

"Good reflexes," Oro mused after watching Ibuki avoid his attack, completely ignoring her wide eyes of amazement, "You see how well you can do when you don't think about how much better than you I am? Isn't that so much better?"

"Ibuki! Stop being scared and hammer this guy already!"

For some reason, hearing Naruto have such undivided belief in her brought her courage up. He was strong, she knew he was. He had beaten opponents she could never deal with, at least as she was, and even then she couldn't hear any empty encouragement in her voice. What had she done to elicit that kind of confidence in her?

He was so strong compared to her. Why did he think she had a chance?

"Whether I'm stronger than you or not, it doesn't matter! You're a better ninja than me!" He shouted at her once again, fire in his eyes, "You… you deserve to graduate now more than I did when I graduated, so don't trip up now!"

He… thought she was a better ninja than he was? _He_ thought _she_ was the better ninja? That simply did not compute.

Even Sakura and Karin were stunned beyond comprehension. This was the man who repeatedly referred to himself as the Best Ninja in the World whenever he had the opening to do so. For him to admit that anyone was better than him at anything, especially in this manner, it was unheard of. The sky had to be falling.

Ibuki's eyes never left Naruto's, and it was there that she found her strength.

Weapons were useless, but she had one last move that she hadn't tried yet. If Raida by itself wasn't fast enough to land cleanly, so be it.

Oro nodded appreciatively to the shift in demeanor that he could feel in Ibuki's aura and smirked at her, prepared for her attack, "Show me."

No misdirection. No attempts to reach his weak spot before trying to make her move. None of that. It was only him, her, and the only thing that she figured she had in her arsenal that would bring down someone strong enough to stop one of her strongest attacks was her fastest one.

Grounding one foot into the grass to settle her stance, Ibuki immediately sped to her side and darted up into the air by jumping off of the trunks of trees until she found herself almost one-hundred feet in the air.

'She can't think that I'm really going to allow her to complete her attack so easily?' Even if he hadn't been curious enough to try and see just what Ibuki had to offer in the technique department, Oro wasn't going to give her anything, 'Taking to the air against me of all people, isn't the best idea.'

Hanging high in the air for several seconds, Ibuki took a deep breath and shut her eyes, holding on to the ram seal until she felt all of the ki she could safely build inside of her body deposit itself at her feet. Speed could translate into force, and she was going to generate all that she could for one move.

After the Second World Warrior Tournament, Ibuki went to Naruto to garner repayment for helping him get into shape for competition. This came in the form of him helping her develop a new technique that played to her strengths.

"_Well ah… back when I was a kid, my sensei said that gathering chakra to your feet was the hardest place to do it. I'm not sure how it'd work for attacks or anything like that though. _

"_But all I ever see you do when you generate power from your feet is stick to walls and stuff."_

"_No I don't! I-… huh, I guess I do don't I? I guess that's why I didn't ever see many ninjas use any jutsu that came from their legs. They sure came from everywhere else though."_

"_Yeah, but you're kind of good at coming up with moves, you know, without having an actual trainer and everything, and I need a new finisher. So how's about it handsome? Do you want to help little old me come up with something special?"_

They worked and worked. The mountain forests miles outside of Aohura City played host to their training and experimentation until she finally had a breakthrough.

It was a simple motion, and it was all performed so swiftly. She reached the apex of her jump from where she'd started on the ground within two seconds. One flip marked her descent back to earth, overturning with her legs straight and drawn to her chest, body was bent forward perfectly.

Oro had prepared to rise up and take her out himself, completely obliterating her attack to show how thoroughly outclassed she was, but after observing her body posture and feeling the building of her energies he decided that he was going to stay right on the ground.

That… wasn't the kind of attack that you rose to meet in mid-air. Not if you wanted to keep all of your body parts.

Especially when, without warning, Ibuki bolted to the ground like a flash of lightning, merely from uncoiling her bent body into a straight position.

Gritting his teeth, Oro lifted his exposed arm to defend himself as best as he could. His confidence that he could endure the worst of these young whippersnappers had put him in a position where he wouldn't have been able to avoid Ibuki even if he'd had the mindset to do so.

"Tentojishuuki (Heaven and Earth Divider)!"

Ibuki's heels stomped into Oro and upon contact unleashed enough blue ki to split the ground underneath them in a straight line behind her target, forty yards running. Sakura and Karin had to move out of the way, with the former making sure that she dragged Kei along with her.

Naruto didn't turn away from the dust and flying debris, nor did he close his eyes. He observed Ibuki's fastest technique in its entirety, having had a hand in the basis of its conception; the movements needed to garner the finishing speed of the strike.

'She really finished it,' Naruto thought to himself, a grin pulling at his lips as he waited for the smoke to clear, '…That was so fast. I don't think I could blink any faster than she fell.'

One graceful move in the sky to allow her to build the needed ki, substituting for the lag she normally displayed when using other techniques with an impact ki release concept similar to Raida. Afterwards, anything beneath her when she unwound herself would find itself annihilated.

Only Oro didn't.

As the aftermath of the attack came into sight, it was clear that Ibuki's finishing double kick had landed. Oro however, managed to block her, lifting his arm over his head and taking the entirety of the damage on his forearm.

His forearm. Not even reinforced and braced with his other. It only took him one arm to keep her blow from landing home, "This is over. I don't want to have to hurt you, but I'm afraid I've always had a little bit of trouble when it comes to holding back. If I hit you, you might not ever get up."

No one there doubted him. Behind him, a long gash sat in the ground, caused by the impact of Ibuki's move. That should have been Oro as well.

This man couldn't have been human. There was just no way he was mortal.

"I…" Ibuki said to herself, still balancing herself on Oro's forearm, her bare, bandage-wrapped feet resting on the appendage, "No. Still, after all of that, you didn't even fall?"

Oro's red eyes glared up at her from behind the guard of his elevated arm, but to her surprise he began to laugh. Not in a mocking manner, but in a legitimate, heartfelt expelling of mirth and entertainment, "You are quite something young lady. I _almost_ thought about using my other arm to protect myself after I realized that I reacted too late to dodge."

So that was it. Her fastest technique. The move she'd spent so much time working on. It hadn't been enough to get him to take her even seriously enough to use both arms to fight her.

"You fought extremely well after you stopped worrying about the difference in our abilities," Oro said supportively, smiling warmly at the teenage kunoichi, "I'm quite certain that even you didn't know you had so much power in you."

Dropping off of Oro's arm, Ibuki landed and fell to her knees on the ground. Even with Oro's attempt at encouraging her, she felt broken. She'd done her absolute best to fight him, but nothing she threw at him seemed to register as a real threat at all.

"I failed my final ninja exam then," Ibuki said, her voice wavering with every word she said. All of that time, and when her chance to prove she could go it on her own finally came, she couldn't garner the victory, "Sanjou-sensei and Master Enjo were right. I guess it was too soon."

"Like hell!" Naruto said as he stomped over to where she'd fallen down, "You did great! You finished a technique that nobody even showed you how to do and actually used it! None of your masters even taught you or oversaw your training for months! You did that all on your own!"

He walked right up and picked her up off of the ground, planting her back on her feet before finding himself engulfed in a tight hug, arms wrapped around his neck and pulling her into him. He returned it as easily as he would have from anyone else he cared for so extensively, but it took a moment for him to feel the tears on his shoulder.

The poor thing had just had her heart broken. He couldn't hear her sob, but he could feel the vibrations of Ibuki muttering that she was sorry into his chest, and that just made him feel so much worse, "You don't have anything to be sorry for."

She should have known that, and hearing it shouldn't have made her cry that much harder as a result. Even Sakura felt her own eyes well up at the sheer despondency emanating from her friend.

Ibuki definitely didn't expect to hear the subject of her test actually defend her however.

"Bah, if anyone dispatched you with the intent to have you actually defeat me, you should return to them and beat them to within an inch of their lives," Oro said before snorting, "Girl, if _anyone_ tells you that you shouldn't be a ninja, that you aren't ready, tell them that I'll gladly host a challenge from any of them to show them just how well they would do against me given the same circumstances."

She managed to locate him, she fought against him, and she surprised him with her power and ability. As far as he was concerned she'd performed splendidly.

As a prize, he'd show them just what their friend had been going up against.

Oro's eyes flashed from red to blue for a split second before returning to normal, and with that return, everyone present felt a crushing pressure descend upon them. Kei felt as if her lungs had stopped and began clutching at her throat as if she were being strangled. Everyone else had become relatively accustomed to the sheer weight that ki had behind it when the presence was strong enough, but she wasn't.

Sakura gasped raspily as a stark realization set over her once Oro stopped holding back his ki.

The atmosphere of the mountain, the feeling that they'd all felt while making their way up the side of it, it had been from him all along. Him and only him.

Seeing the looks of realization on their faces, Oro let out a low chuckle, "…You should be around when I actually unbind my other arm. Animals won't even live here when it's free," With that being said, he reined his power back in before Kei wound up really getting hurt from his showing out, "There was nothing more that you could have done against me on your own."

Ibuki almost felt like crying again, although for a different reason, "…Are you saying-?"

"I'm saying that simply going as far as you did and displaying the strength that you have, it was more than enough to pass you," Oro said, "If ninjas from Japan are anything like they were when I was last there, most of them could never even hope to make me contemplate using my other arm. Most of them make me think in hindsight that perhaps I would have had a greater challenge if I bound both of my arms."

"Wow," Naruto said, deadpanning a stare the old man's way over Ibuki's shoulder, "And people say I've got an ego problem."

"It's not ego if it's already been proven boy," Oro replied with a missing toothed grin, "Trust me, I don't brag about things that I haven't actually accomplished already in some fashion."

What Oro was or wasn't in regards to his strength wasn't the point. What was important was the girl who had gone limp in Naruto's arms and had fallen asleep after the adrenaline dump of her test and all of the preparation and worries that went along with it.

While it was rather untimely of her to rest out in the wilderness, she had certainly earned the right to do so.

XxX

(Mountain Outskirts of Aohura City, Japan)

This was where the power of the Satsui no Hadou had been percolating around, but it wasn't Ryu's that Akuma had been sensing.

No, Ryu's was different. But still, this power also had the potential to give him a truly glorious and violent battle.

Ryu had been a disappointment, always fighting against the part of himself that would give him more strength than he could ever imagine. For a man who wanted to be the strongest, he was willing to forsake the side of himself that would give him all that he had dreamed of.

The fool. The coward.

No, he was a lost cause. But this new power… whomever it belonged to was young enough to still be shaped and molded. Perfect.

All it would take was a little seasoning. He would find the person that had discovered the newest strain of the Satsui no Hadou, and he would raise them to his liking. Yes, they would be given all they needed to make him feel the true thrill of a fight to the death.

Until then he would meditate.

The fly would come to the lair of the spider eventually.

It also helped that the lair of the spider just so happened to be where the fly called home to begin with.

XxX

(Later that Night – Sao Paulo, Brazil)

"Sakura-chan wants to stay with Kei tonight to make sure she still isn't as rattled as she was when we left the mountain," Naruto explained as he escorted Karin away from the room that she shared with Ibuki. The kunoichi needed her rest, and she seemed testy when it came to sleeping around the normally bustling Karin, so the heiress decided to take a walk after Naruto had dropped Ibuki off, "If you really want to go for a walk to kill time Rin-Rin, just let me change into some real clothes first."

"I would not qualify what you choose to walk around in as 'real clothes' Naruto-san, but if it makes you more comfortable, certainly," Karin replied smoothly without missing a beat. Naruto shot her a half-hearted glare but knew that if Karin had her way, she would have had Naruto dressed up in a respectable, proper suit every chance that she got, "You do not need to feel obligated to attend to me further."

"Why would you even say something like that?" Naruto asked, feeling a bit put out. She was so hot and cold at times that it was hard to hold a gauge on her at any given time.

"I am well aware that accompanying me is not your primary concern at the moment," Karin declared with a frown, "After all, Ibuki-san has accomplished her goal. When we return to Japan, she will be a full-fledged ninja, in control of her own destiny. I am quite certain that she is who you would rather tend to at the moment."

"…First of all, she's probably dead asleep. Second of all, you've really got to learn what to shut up about, because you don't know what you're talking about sometimes."

Karin simply exhaled sharply and remained silent, which set Naruto off all the more, "Do not pity me, because I will not allow it Naruto-san," She figured in her head that Naruto simply felt some semblance of guilt or responsibility for what occurred during their encounters with S.I.N., "I had long since been accustomed to being alone before I met any of you. I am not so weak that I need to be surrounded to deal with my problems."

As they reached the door to Naruto's room and opened the door to enter, Karin's negative, despondent attitude and self-deprecating statement was simply too much to tolerate. He wanted his tough, top-of-the-food-chain rich girl back. Naruto let out a low growl and pulled her into the dimensions of his room for some minute semblance of privacy as he decided to let her have it.

"No one's gonna let you be alone again, especially me. So get it through your thick head, alright?" Naruto stated stubbornly, debating on whether or not he should have poked her sharply in the head for emphasis, "Things aren't ever going back to the way they were before we met. I don't care how rich or more important than us you're supposed to be. You're ours, you got that?"

Not even waiting to hear her answer, Naruto strode past her into the darkness of his room and after finding his civvie clothes lain out on his bed began changing. It wasn't like she could see him in the near pitch black.

Karin didn't say anything, simply looking right at his silhouette with her mouth barely open, and not because he was switching clothes. Eventually she realized she was staring though, and turned her gaze to the corner to save some face as she mumbled out a response, "I understand."

"Good," Naruto said with a nod before figuring he might have been a tad harsh in making his point. Still though, you couldn't be gentle with Karin if you wanted to make your point stick, "Well, I guess I'll take you for a walk around the hotel Rin-Rin."

"Of course Naruto-san."

The two golden-haired fighters kept their gaze on one another for longer than either of them would have figured the other would have tolerated. Neither of them said a word, but Naruto was certain that he'd gotten his message across loud and clear. Stubborn as she was, Karin was very smart and comprehended things easily enough.

Walking forward to exit his room and escort Karin back to the one she shared with Ibuki he found his way blocked by Karin's arm posted on the doorframe.

She didn't seem to be very keen on moving despite what she'd said. Her stance left no indication that she had any plans on leaving whatsoever.

"Actually, no," Karin said, a resolute look in her eyes as she looked up at Naruto's face, her expression completely serious as she bossily motioned for him to turn around with her finger, "On second thought, you are not going anywhere. Turn around and go back inside. Now."

Something about this seemed to set off… warning signals in Naruto's head. Good ones, if those existed.

Still though, he was not a fan of being told what to do in the slightest… and he had just gone through the effort of putting on a clean set of clothes. Just saying.

"Are you asking me, or telling me?" Naruto asked somewhat challengingly.

"It does not matter-," Karin told him in a voice little higher than a whisper, a touch of an amorous lift in the tone of her domineering demand, "-Because you will do it regardless," This was emphasized by Karin standing on her toes, the tip of her nose pressed against Naruto's, "By all means, move me aside if you feel so inclined. Either that, or let me in."

Naruto swore he could hear her heartbeat in the dead silence of the rest of the hotel. It was like its own language, beating faster than Naruto was used to hearing from her, and it spoke volumes, more than words ever could. Despite her bravado, she was afraid that he would reject her.

"…You're the boss-lady," Naruto muttered in return, "_My_ boss-lady."

He promptly found himself ensnared in a searing kiss. Apparently that little trigger statement was the straw that broke the camel's back in regard to Karin's insecurities when it came to her intimacy issues.

With her foot, Karin kicked the door shut and moved the two of them back to the bed, tripping Naruto over the side of it to send them both onto the mattress in a heap. It simply didn't matter to her though. Where they were didn't matter. Her uncertainties on the homefront didn't matter. What happened in Sao Paulo wouldn't stay in Sao Paulo, but for one night she could ignore all of that.

For one night, instead of scrutinizing her every move with her analytical, business-like approach to everything, she could think using her heart instead. Oh how she had been longing to allow her heart to have control for once.

And he was receptive! He wasn't turning her away or telling her not to! If he had, she probably just would have socked him or given him a titty-twister of death for allowing her to get so worked up and then throwing cold water on her. It was quite the contrary in fact.

Karin froze up and let out a very uncharacteristic squeak when she felt Naruto's hands grab confidently on her panty-clad backside underneath her skirt. She had been caught up in what _she_ wanted to do.

Frowning at her reaction and her sudden stop, Naruto addressed the girl concernedly, "I-Is that too much?"

It took a moment for her to recover, blinking down at her beau in the dark. She testily kicked off her shoes, simultaneously bouncing herself on his pelvis a few times before grabbing a handful of his hair and draping herself back down over his chest, "It probably will not be enough this time."

"Wha-hmph…"

Naruto was promptly shut up. Not that he minded the way that it was done.

"Why are you the one who received their own room?" Karin asked conversationally in between stealing Naruto's breath away with another harsh kiss.

"Rooms. Paired. By. A-B-C order," Naruto said in between light kisses from his domineering partner, "Uzumaki's the last name on the class role, and we've got an uneven number of boys," He concluded hurriedly before Karin kissed him again.

Lemon Start

"How convenient," Karin mused, sitting up and moving her hands to the bottom of Naruto's shirt to roll it up and pull it off. Her slender fingers ran over the solid lean muscles on her chosen's torso, "So would I be correct in the assumption that we will have no interruptions this evening?" She mewled as she felt Naruto return the favor, lifting her red top up to help her remove it.

Naruto wished there was a moon out so that he could see her in the dark. See the white light reflect off of her bared fair skin. See her bedroom eyes set only on him, knowing that she wanted more than just a few chantry touches and the meeting of their mouths and tongues. He wanted to see his devil-lady at her wickedest.

He knew what she had in her, both the good and the bad, and right then and there he wanted to see the bad.

Both hands tugging at the waist of her skirt, Naruto fitfully wanted the crimson-colored cloth off of her and somewhere else in the room. Without warning, he rolled them both over and swiftly pulled Karin's skirt down her legs before finding himself the victim of a sudden blow to the body that knocked him to the hotel room floor.

That was a little too bad, and not in the good way.

Sitting up from where he'd fallen from the bed, Karin's skirt still in his hand, Naruto simply stared at the place where he knew the girl was seated on it, knowing she was looking right back at him, "…Did you just-?"

Karin didn't let him finish, her face an atomic red due to her involuntary actions as she worthlessly tried to conceal her bared body with the covers, "Ahem. My apologies. I am still quite unaccustomed to… intimate activities such as these."

Naruto blew upward to push his bangs up from his forehead, mildly irritated at literally being kicked out of bed, but quickly shook it off and recovered, "Well, we'll work on that," Without much loss of enthusiasm he removed his sandals and pants before standing back up.

Reaching out, the two of them connected hands in the dark as Karin sat up on her knees to meet Naruto up close, "I know that this one is inexperienced, but please take good care of her," She said, requesting this of him in the third person, deciding in her heart to finally put her cards on the table, "She has the utmost trust in you, and she loves you very much."

Instead of a heated, passionate kiss, Karin expressed her feelings with nothing more than a simple peck on the lips. It was all she needed to get her point across.

That word. That damned word. That word that he had _never_ heard directed at him, so candidly, as if she were fully putting herself out there by saying it.

Naruto and Sakura routinely claimed that they loved one another, but that was different. It had been a friendly, platonic sort of love that over time seemed to be stretching into something more intimate, and as such it had never been strange or uncomfortable to verbally admit that one loved the other. Their relationship had always been open; easily understood and accepted by both, even as it grew and continued to grow.

It was not the same for Karin, who was accustomed to a stuffier, less honest and direct approach to everything. Love or other emotions normally had very little bearing in the world she'd grown up in, and it was still strange and scary for her to deal with them directly. The fact that she was choosing to do so really did mean that she had the utmost trust in Naruto.

She was entrusting him with something that she would not, could not, entrust to her family, to her retainers. It was only to him, it could only be to him. He had done this to her to begin with, and he was the only one she could show the breadth of this side of herself to.

God, he wished he could see her better in the dark.

Moving forward, Naruto gently set Karin down on her back, noting the frazzled nerves through the girl's touch. It took self-control not to go ahead and work ahead of what he'd already experienced with other girls, because spooking Karin with something she was unprepared for wasn't on his list of things to do.

Hand resting gently on the side of her stomach, Naruto leaned over her and kissed slowly up her neck. Hearing her breath hitch in her throat, his hand slowly moved down to the waistband of her panties. He had to take his time in removing them from her person. The thin cloth was the last vestige of Karin's seclusion, and she knew this clearly from the way she kept her thighs pressed together.

The fight was gone from her, her inexperience winning out over her normally bossy personality. You couldn't dictate terms in regards to something you had no knowledge of.

'He's kissing me right on the pulse of my neck,' Karin thought to herself, mewling over the attention, legs shifting uncomfortably at the heat she felt between them. Hands running through his hair, she felt him go lower and lavish affection onto the rest of her.

Kissing his way down her body, Naruto stopped and sucked on each of the nipples of the stimulated heiress, rubbing around both with his thumbs as he cupped her lovely breasts. Her physique was fine. A lot of hard work went into crafting a body as fine as hers, free of any overt, unsightly muscle tone.

Karin physically trained harder than the other girls due to her lack of ability to outwardly manipulate her ki, and her body reflected this. Her curves were ample and firm, and the fact that she was still completing the process of growing into her adult body made Naruto wonder what she would look like in three years? Five years even.

Would he get to see the marvel that was her body in three or five years? He certainly hoped so.

"Mmm," Karin writhed fitfully, pushing Naruto's hands and head, further down her body, biting her lip as she felt him kiss and lick around her navel, "Lower, lower, lower Naruto-san. Lower," He was _so_ _close_ to where she wanted him, needed him. But once they went there, going back wouldn't be an option any longer.

She wanted to go so much further, but she was afraid.

What if this? What if that? What if? What if? What if?

No, there would be no more of that. None of it mattered.

Karin fitfully moved Naruto off of her. She grabbed the wrist of Naruto's hand set around her panties and forced him to push them down her thighs until she could work them off the rest of the way herself.

"Now I believe that you are quite overdressed for what I want from you," She said, voice gaining a bit of confidence as she stroked the line of his jaw with her index finger, "How unfortunate that you continue to 'confine' yourself, given our circumstance I mean."

Naruto made a soft noise of agreement and moments later Karin felt the warm, hard appendage against her upper leg, begging for her to wrap her small hand around it. Upon hearing Naruto softly grunt, a smirk came to her lips. So it was that simple to gain control over someone so powerful?

Slowly working her hand up and down, Karin leaned up and whispered saucily into his ear, "Did I not tell you before?" She cooed softly, victoriously, "I. Own. You."

"N-Nobody owns me."

"Oh, but I do," Karin insisted, shifting beneath her lover as she continued to work her hand up and down his shaft, "I have you in quite dire straits darling, and I _will_ force you to admit the truth to me," There was his pretty little devil. She wasn't gone for very long before resurfacing, "Say it. Say, 'You own me Mistress Karin,' and you will find me to be quite gracious."

The evil little-! And just when did she think it prudent to try her hand at turning the tables? She'd wrecked his entire gameplan, and she probably enjoyed knowing that more than she might have enjoyed the foreplay.

Fighting back the urge to hiss at her once she slowed her machinations to emphasize her point, Naruto gently removed himself from her grasp and grabbed onto her ankles, moving to her lower half and placing them up on his shoulders. Kissing the bottoms of her feet and poking the head of his cock between her thighs, feeling her warm wetness as he did, Naruto tried to coax her legs open of her own consent. He wouldn't force such a step upon her.

"Your toes are so pretty Rin-Rin," Naruto said, sucking on each little digit as he rubbed himself softly against her lower lips, feeling the girl's defenses weaken, "There isn't a part of you that isn't pretty though. I've seen all of you to know."

'So sweet,' Karin smiled softly as she gently parted her legs and bared herself to him. If she was serious about loving him, she would have to show all of herself to him. She had already done so emotionally. To do so with her most private of places seemed like a source of pride in comparison, "Make love to me."

A clear demand, but there was no bite to her tone, because she knew there was no need for it.

Reaching underneath herself, Karin guided Naruto to her entrance and allowed him access. The momentary pain that came with it was taken with a modicum of triumph. For someone who made her feel as happy as he had, she would endure the discomfort for as long as it lasted.

Naruto had gone too fast. He'd felt her barrier, he'd felt it break. He knew it all from the expression on her face, but she had been the one to pull him into her. She had been insistent, and she hadn't let him go, "Karin?"

"I am fine," Karin assured him, kissing him greedily to distract herself from the slowly diminishing pain. It had hurt like hell, but even if she was willing to show her vulnerable side to Naruto, she would never allow herself to be seen as physically weak, "Compared to other ordeals, this discomfort is nothing at all."

She was tougher than that, he knew. She squirmed and readjusted herself for a few minutes, truly testing Naruto's will to endure as it was torture to keep from thrusting in and out of her.

Without his mind's consent, his body did eventually begin to move, keeping it slow, just so that he could relieve some pent-up tension at being buried inside the depths of such a lovely young woman. Karin whimpered, but they quickly turned into soft moans.

Arching her back, she found herself pinned down by her shoulder as he pumped in and out of her; otherwise she would have writhed out of position. Such inexperience would be worked out of her over time, but for now she would let the comparably more experienced blond guide her through her first time.

"You should cherish this moment," Karin insisted before letting out a sharp cry, wrapping her legs around his waist and responding to the rhythm he'd set, "Ah! The next time, I _will_ be the dominant partner."

Still so haughty, and it was still so hot.

The steadier his pace became, the more Karin gained confidence of her own, reciprocating with her own motions, rocking into his thrusts. The more she did, the more Naruto felt as if he were about to lose it, 'Shit! So not good!' He couldn't let himself go now. He hadn't done his due diligence in making her climax first.

To Karin's confusion, she quickly found herself upright, sitting on top of Naruto, straddling him after he'd changed their positions, "Ara? Naruto-san?"

"Sorry, I was just getting a little too excited," Naruto responded to her confusion with a sheepish grin.

Oh-ho. Really now? Well that was interesting.

She smiled down at him and stroked his hands where they were locked on her hips, "Well, since you need a break, I guess I will just have to keep myself entertained."

Wide-eyed, Naruto watched Karin slide her hands up from her hips, trailing the tips of her fingers against the faint outlines of her ribs before fluttering along the soft creases beneath her breasts. Her nipples tightened as her fingers pinched and tugged.

Yes, she might have been inexperienced, but when you were bad you were bad, and Karin had always been a little bit wicked. And here he'd been trying to be gentle with her.

Naruto knew he was breathing through his mouth at the sight of her stimulating herself, but it didn't matter to him. His hips twitched upward almost involuntarily and Karin's eyes rounded as she bounced a little, her mouth open in a tiny gasp. The sight made the ninja smirk.

"You're getting kind of cocky Rin-Rin," Naruto said as he set his hands around her hips and assisted his lover in getting off. Seeing her eyes lose focus in the dark, even for a moment, made his confidence swell.

"And you seem to have been born as such," Karin said, continuing to bounce up and down, facilitating her own pleasure at her own pace, "We will have to teach you humility. Yes, lots and lots of, mmm… humility."

"Karin…"

"Yes koishii?"

"You're gorgeous."

"I know."

Karin bit back a loud moan and shuddered as she felt something within her release, a surge of pleasure forcing her to see starbursts in the dark of the room. Both teenagers came to a stop, the exhausted girl on top slumping forward, only being held up by the man underneath her.

She felt satisfied. Naruto did as well, but when she reached for the bedside lamp and turned it on to look at him there was clear apprehension in his eyes, "W-What is the matter Naruto-san?"

Lemon End

"I'm sorry," Naruto said, averting his eyes away from hers, "I should have said something before I-. I mean, I was still inside of you when I…" He fell silent when Karin shushed him and placed a finger to his lips.

"Apologizing is a show of weakness," Karin said with drowsy eyes as she slowly climbed off of Naruto's cock and nestled in beside him, "My beloved is anything but weak, and he should not apologize for the results of our love-making."

Naruto couldn't take his eyes off of her as he draped the covers of the bed over the two of them to give them some comfort in the night. As he did, he could imagine seeing Karin in a similar fashion between her own sheets with him, or his own. She let out a soft yawn and received a slight peck on the forehead, drawing a wide smile out of her.

Her smile lessened somewhat, in a touch of concern as she clearly had something on her mind. Turning her sharp brown eyes up to Naruto, vulnerability in them quite clear, she felt the need to ask, "Do you… do you think you can love me the way you love Sakura-san?"

Naruto's first instinct was to suck air through his teeth, but he was able to avoid doing so. What a serious question, and it had merit. She had been nothing but candid with him for months after revealing how she felt about him. The least he could do in return was be a man and answer her to the best of his ability.

"I can't love you the way I love Sakura-chan," Naruto said, and immediately he could feel her emotions drop as she turned her eyes away from his. No, he was not going to make her cry after what she had given to him, "…I can't love you like that, the same way I can't love Cam like that, or Ibuki, because it's not fair and because you're all not the same. You're way too special to treat like someone else."

Tears that had been welling up behind her eyes suddenly faded away, "I just want you to feel the way about me that I do about you?"

"And I'm pretty sure that's nothing like the way I feel about Sakura-chan, or how she feels about me. I'd bet anything on that," Naruto assured her warmly, "I've been around you girls a lot, and you're all so different, you can't love in the same way the others do and you can't be loved like others are."

Where was this coming from? Naruto didn't know. Truthfully though, he had been thinking about how he felt about all of his girls – His girls? Yeah, his girls. – for quite some time. All of them really were so extraordinary. As they all grew into adult women they would be amazing people in the world.

Their feelings, their strengths, their flaws, everything about them. All of it was different, all of it was special. In his mind's eye they all shone like marquee stars in the sky. He had deep feelings for all four of them.

"We fuss, we fight, we disagree. We butt heads over… almost everything really," Naruto said, smiling at her wide, teary brown eyes as he ran the back of his hand softly over her cheek, "You're an evil noble-," She then bit him on the shoulder at being called 'evil', "- And I'm a low-class ninja punk. We're kind of supposed to be at each other's throats, and not in a way that leaves hickeys either."

Karin felt awful, remembering how she used to embrace that mindset until she started to realize how much he and the others that she now found life impossible to live without meant to her. She had treated him like an asset because he had been hired help.

She was not an easy girl to love, this she knew about herself.

Then again, when had anything Naruto had taken part in ever set itself up to be easy?

With the kicking and screaming, scratching and biting, through the inevitable glares and snarky attitudes of them both. It would be done.

"You're my boss-lady Karin, and I'll love you the way you deserve to be loved."

It was then that Karin decided that she would not let Naruto go. Not without any sort of grandiose fight. She would take him any way she could. Just as long as he would keep looking upon her the way the he was at that exact moment.

He was right; she was his. She had been for quite some time.

"It seems I have a new avenue to challenge you in," Karin stated with a tired, yet brazen smirk as she rested her head on the inside of Naruto's bicep, "As always, I intend to prove myself your better, but I am afraid that such a thing will have to come with... much experience," She concluded with a throaty chuckle.

Naruto rolled his eyes and held Karin in his arms as she got comfortable and set to sleep.

XxX

(Later in the Week)

The school vacation came and went, for better or for worse, and the Aohura City students had long since boarded the airplane that would send them home.

It had been quite the experience for the youngsters, for multiple reasons, some more important than others. Like all things though, it couldn't last forever, and the homestead awaited. Last exams for the year, and the pending summer vacation awaited them. The normal fare to be certain.

Well… not so normal.

There would be one extra passenger on the flights back to Japan, unbeknownst to them.

"Hm," Oro said, standing on the roof of a soon-to-depart liner, smiling to himself as it set itself up on the runway to take off, he simply prepared himself for the force of the ascension and had his next move in mind, his eyes on the horizon, "It's been quite a long time since I've been to Japan."

What could he say? Those kids intrigued him.

Young fighters that strong didn't come around very often. He knew this full well.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright, so things are about to get really serious again very soon. It's time to get into the (maybe) last few arcs of the story, and I hope that the fruits of my labor entertain you; the masses. It'll entertain me, that much will be for certain.<strong>

**I would have released this one a few days earlier, but I kept getting sidetracked by life. I'm a step away from getting my foot in the door and writing for one of the TV news stations in my town. It's so damn cool to think about, and the interview and all that has been what I've been most preoccupied with over the last week.**

**So yeah… life.**

**Anyway, enter Oro.**

**Next chapter, enter all sorts of chaos. Trust me.**

**Kenchi out.**


	53. Of Sound Mind

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. If PS Vita had Street Fighter available on it, I'd have bought one and I wouldn't even have flinched. As it stands I'm not buying an f'n Nintendo 3DS even though it has that game and even though I want to check out Pokémon, because Street Fighter on the 3DS can only disappoint me.

**Chapter 53: Of Sound Mind**

* * *

><p>Karin seemed to be floating on air ever since their class had returned from the trip to Brazil two weeks ago. Everything she did or said seemed to be uncharacteristically sugary, enough to unnerve those that had long since labeled her frigid, or at worst; bitchy.<p>

It was incredibly annoying for those that spent a lot of time around her. And it was exam season. It was a bad time to be put off by other things going on around you.

Who would have ever thought it though? A pleasant Karin was rather annoying. That was ironic. Talk about a monkey's paw. She was finally nice, but it was so out of character and against what was expected that it was hardly tolerable.

"Err…" Ibuki started, blinking as she found herself inside of Karin's town limousine for perhaps the first time that she could ever recall, "Not that I'm complaining about the cushy ride, but you seem unusually nice lately."

"Oh? How so?" Karin responded with a dazzlingly amiable smile.

"Well for starters you never offer any of us a ride anywhere after school. Ever," Ibuki pointed out, "Even Naruto when he has a job that you want him to do. You make him go to your place on his own by a deadline later instead of just bringing him while he's near you."

And that was to say nothing about the rest of them whenever they had to head that way. It was troublesome getting out there to Karin's mansion grounds if you didn't have a car! And then you had to wait outside of the gate and get cleared by security. It was just a big hassle.

…Not that it wasn't completely worth it in order to hang out and have free reign in the abode of the richest girl in all of Asia.

Karin's light brown eyes affixed themselves on the kunoichi firmly as she crossed her arms underneath her chest, "Well I certainly have no excuse to treat you all as any less than trusted friends any longer, do I? After how hard all of you fought for me, how could I look at myself in the mirror if I did not extend my deepest gratitude to you all? Naruto-san was not the only person present that night."

About Naruto…

Ever since the class trip to Brazil had ended, Karin had been more openly affectionate to Naruto in public. Whereas beforehand she merely spoke to Naruto with a respect that she didn't even reserve to the rest of her friends, she was more prone to gentle touches and reverent looks his way. She even referred to Naruto out loud as her 'beloved'.

Not in front of him for some reason, but whenever there was a need to reference him out of his earshot she had no problems declaring him as such.

"-Though my beloved did engage that horrid creature Seth in order to reach me," Karin looked out of her tinted windows with a wistful sigh, "I can think of no better modern day comparison to the valor of knighthood from centuries past. Perhaps in a past life he and I..." She trailed off with a blush on her face, "My family has been noble for centuries. Perhaps a reincarnation cycle-."

CRASH!

Any point she was going to try to make was silenced by the sound of an appliance in the back of the vehicle being destroyed, "Did… did you just break my refrigerator?" Karin asked, seeing Sakura seated next to where the limousine's mini-fridge rested, now with a brand new fist-shaped hole driven straight through it.

"I don't think so," Sakura replied, sitting with her hands in her lap, one knuckle conspicuously coated with debris from a refrigerator casing, "Why would I do that?"

Because she had an extremely powerful suppressed dark side that seemed to be making its appearance in bits and spurts more and more often these days. Because one of the triggers to said dark side was a teeny-little possessive streak over Uzumaki Naruto. Because as of that day, Sakura had been the only one of the Aohura City battle babes that had yet to have her chastity compromised by her bestest friend in the world and eventually no matter how much of a saint you were, _everyone's_ patience ran out.

…Take your pick really.

Ibuki rolled her eyes, less afraid of Dark Sakura than she used to be but still wary, "Sakura-chan, you're too tense and all of this repressing just isn't healthy. Just jump Naruto's bones already and get it over with. He won't say no."

"She will do no such thing!" Karin protested spiritedly while Sakura seemed to want to be almost anywhere else at the moment, "Sakura-san has more honor than to do such a thing with another woman's claim."

"You didn't 'claim' him," Ibuki deadpanned, using air-quotes for the word 'claim', "You did what I did, and technically what Cammy did even if she didn't or doesn't know it. You backed him into a corner and got him to bang you. What was he going to do, turn you down?"

"Yes/Of course not."

Both answers came from Sakura and Karin respectively, only prompting the two old rivals to glare heatedly at one another. Apparently they were just close to reverting back to the days when they were at each other's throats. Ibuki figured that she needed to start carrying around a squirt bottle or something.

Ibuki just sighed and leaned back comfortably in her seat, "Yeah, no. First of all, Naruto is as red-blooded hetero as they come. He thinks we're all hot. If you'd been paying better attention you'd catch him getting looks at all of our butts in school. "

"I knew it," Sakura muttered.

"He doesn't even go out of his way to do it really," Ibuki shrugged, knowing for a fact that she herself had propagated several incidents where Naruto managed to get a peek just so she could gauge his reactions, "Between the uniform skirts, gym class, oh and then there's Cammy. But either way, he's around at least one of us almost all of the time. Do you really think he's not looking? We look. I do and I _know_ you both do."

Theoretically the good girl, Sakura looked away, blushing in embarrassment. Karin didn't, instead only raising an eyebrow as if to ask, 'So what?' Admittedly, Ibuki was with her on that front.

"That's not even the big point," Ibuki continued before this could devolve into another argument and potentially hair-pulling. That would have been hilarious, but not with her in the car with them, "The real thing is that he'd have never said no to any of us. He'd never hurt any of us if he could. Karin, if Naruto hadn't let you in that night in Brazil, it would have broken you."

Karin scoffed and looked away, "What kind of person do you see me as? No mere trifle such as that would break me."

Yes, it would have. She knew it. She'd never put herself out there for anyone so far before. If she had done all of that, and he had sent her away instead of accepting her advances the way that he had done, she probably never would have gotten over it. At least not for an extended period of time, as in years.

As tough as she was on the outside, she was alternately vulnerable on the inside, at least as far as Naruto went. He was the only one who seemed to be able to get past her defenses, either to heal or hurt her.

Having spoken her peace and figuring that she'd made her point for the most part, Ibuki realized something that had been forgotten in her haste to actually ride in a real-life limousine for the very first time, and the subsequent girl talk episode that followed.

"…Come to think of it, where _is_ Naruto anyway?"

XxX

(With Naruto – Highway Outside of Aohura City)

"This isn't exactly the best mission to take on short notice Naruto!" Cammy insisted, hanging out of the passenger's side window of a semi-truck while Naruto stood on its roof, looking out behind them, "You're still dressed in your uniform!"

"It's a delivery from Aohura City to Tamano! We can knock this out and get back home by dinnertime!" Naruto yelled over the wind while crouching and holding kunai in his hand, the other planted firmly on the roof for stability, "Plus the check is _fat_!"

Gunfire erupted from a man leaning out of the passenger's side window of the car pursuing their truck. Naruto went belly-down flat on the roof of the trailer to avoid being hit with a lucky shot while Cammy nimbly slipped her body back inside to do the same.

"What are we moving anyway?" Cammy asked, yelling out of the window loud enough to be heard by Naruto.

"Rule number three of transporting: Never open the package!" Naruto said, grinning as he pulled out a Jason Statham line.

They didn't know? That wasn't any good, "What if it's a component to some kind of super weapon?" Because… you know. It would have been just their luck.

"Well then I guess we'll just wind up having to blow it up later or something," Naruto answered, leaning over the side of the trailer top to throw down a series of makibishi spikes that burst the tires of one of the pursuing cars, sending it into the water-filled safety barrels by a highway exit.

Cammy sat back down in her seat despite the driver's tumultuous driving and puffed her cheeks out indignantly. For a powerful warrior, her master was such a rube sometimes. Wait, her master? She didn't even block the thought this time like she had so many times in the past, 'He'd be rather cross with me if he ever heard me say that.'

And Cammy didn't see why. It was only a measure of how much she respected him. For some reason she felt the urge to label the one that she saw as ultimately superior to her as 'master'. It was why the thought only came to mind when she thought of Naruto. Not Gouken, not Ryu, not Sagat even when she fought him during the tournament.

…Even though they were arguably stronger, it didn't matter because she didn't respect them nearly as much.

The pop of semi-automatic gunfire caused the hapless security driver of the truck to wince with every shot. Cammy's eyes warily eyed the steering wheel jerking in his grasp every time. If this kept up she'd have to kick him out of the front seat and take over driving before he crashed the damn transport.

Apparently their client put all of their money into paying Naruto and a commercial driver instead of an actual team of trained professionals complete with a competent driver used to navigating his way through tense situations. She and Naruto cost less by a significant enough margin for their services to be requested, along with some poor, hapless truck driver who apparently didn't know what he was getting himself into.

"S-Should we pull over?" The driver asked Cammy. He couldn't understand how she was cool as ice. Between his driving and their being shot at by pursuing cars he figured a tiny girl like that would have been at least as scared as he was.

"Not if you want a bullet put into your head," The twin-braided blonde said before grabbing for the open window, "They started shooting the moment they saw us. I'd tell you to pull over so we could just fight them if I thought that you wouldn't be in danger."

The sound of another crash came from behind, followed by a whoop of victory from Naruto, "Edge can bite it! I'm the throwing knife champ! Bow down!"

Cammy felt a tugging desire to do more than sit down and wait, choosing to swing herself outside after bidding farewell to the driver, "I'll be right back," Ignoring his cries of warning and fear that she'd hurt herself, she went right ahead and made her way to the top of the truck while guns were still being fired, "Three left. Okay."

Analyzing the situation to the best of her ability, Cammy calculated how fast the truck was going, the speed of the pursuing cars, the ability to shoot that their enemies possessed, and exactly how Naruto would react to what she was about to do.

Without even blinking, she sprinted down the length of the trailer, getting a good running start as she ghosted past Naruto and leapt into the air, her left behind Psycho Power being channeled to her painted legs in purple spurts, "Cannon Strike!"

Dropping herself down from the sky like an anchor, Cammy completely crushed the front of first car she'd targeted. The looks on the faces of those driving were priceless once their car flipped front over end. By then Cammy had moved on to the next car in a single motion, spinning on the toes of her boots as if she were ice-skating across the road.

"Axle Spin Knuckle!"

The sight of a little European-looking teenage girl smashing through the front side end of a car with nothing more than one super-charged spinning backfist was something that would be ingrained in the minds of motorists who bore witness to it from that day forward.

Pieces that flew off of the car that Cammy had effectively torn apart caused the last remaining one to slide to a stop. Stopping on a dime at that speed caused it to roll over upside down. She didn't even have to touch it, only tilting her head in confused interest at the catastrophic crash.

Well, that solved that problem.

Looking back over her shoulder at the departing truck, Cammy gave a little smile and held up a peace sign to Naruto. She'd catch up at the rendezvous point and they could find a way home, as they had not worked that out prior to leaving town.

Still on the truck and able to see everything Cammy had done in under ten seconds, Naruto yelled out in appreciation, "Alright! Go Cam!" He didn't know if she could hear him or not, but he would have been remiss had he refrained from saying such, "…Best roommate ever."

XxX

"Goddamn!" Naruto exclaimed after throwing open the doors to the truck trailer. Of all the things to transport, a car seemed a little too pedestrian for what he normally found himself doing, "They were shooting bullets at this!?"

This car however… was a Jaguar. An old-school Jaguar.

That was on par with a Karin-level car, and that was not a class of transportation to be taken lightly.

Cammy however, stood with one hand on her hip as she looked at the pristine, white classic vehicle, "Our payment is probably a quarter of what this car actually costs," Which was still probably pretty hefty.

"You're right," Naruto said, daring to walk closer to the vehicle, "We should get to drive it up the jetty onto the ship. That's good, right?" Cammy didn't answer, only for Naruto to locate a set of keys under the dash that he held up for her to see, "You can drive~," The bait was dangled as he walked back over to her.

Ah, finally. There was a slight shine in those blue eyes. Shifting about in place bashfully as Naruto and the keys got closer, Cammy spoke up in a mumble, "…Well if you really think there's no harm in it."

Even if it was only a few hundred feet onto a cargo ship, who didn't want to drive a Jaguar at least once? It was a damn Jaguar!

"I would prefer it if you refrained from touching my father's car. After you have come all this way to return my prized possession I would hate to find purpose to resent you."

The smooth remark came in cultured English that both Naruto and Cammy understood. Turning around as if they had been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, both blonds saw who they presumed to be their client.

He was a tall, well-built dark-skinned man with tidy black short hair styled into a part and a dandy handlebar mustache. He wore a white dress shirt barely able to contain just how muscular he was, and a pair of green suspenders that connected to a fancy pair of green suit pants and polished black shoes.

He also wore a pair of blue boxing gloves. Weird.

The man moved past the two of them to touch at the car as if he could hardly believe he had it there in front of him. If it hadn't been so dark inside of the container Naruto could have sworn he'd seen a tear come from the man's eye. Cammy tugged at his sleeve to get Naruto's attention, but he just shook his head.

This was more than just a badass car to that man.

Well, since it _was_ his car, Naruto threw the keys his way, only for the man to easily catch them out of the air. Again, weird that he could grab anything wearing those gloves, but also cool, "Your efforts are very much appreciated Uzumaki Naruto."

"You know who I am?" Naruto asked before remembering himself and swelling up, "I mean, of course you know who I am. Right."

"I know of your companion as well," The man stated, looking over to Cammy who stood almost at attention as if anticipating her next order, either that or an attack. Oh how cute. She was like a little guardian for Naruto. She didn't know what to make of him, because client or not she didn't know him, "Ah, of course. My apologies. With the excitement of getting my father's Jaguar back I forgot to formally introduce myself. How rude of me."

Perhaps introductions would soften the little soldier's stance?

With a sweeping bow, the large black man lowered his head and spoke aloud, "You may refer to me as Dudley. I would like to personally thank you two for returning my property to me after I managed to procure it from those it had been lost to."

"Well who took it in the first place?"

"…It would perhaps be best if you didn't concern yourself with that." Dudley said, turning away dramatically, the sunset enhancing the drama of the situation. It simply made sure that this could not be glossed over or ignored altogether.

"…"

Ominous indeed, but when someone presented you with a statement like that you just didn't walk away from it. Not when you were Naruto. He had to know. No one said anything to try and get past it, therefore the question simply hung in the air. It was causing him physical discomfort that was visible in his shifting stance to not say anything about it.

However there were two of them present, and following the old adage of curiosity killing the cat, Naruto was effectively kept from asking anymore questions on the matter by Cammy dragging him by the arm out of the container. Seriously, if they got even the slightest inkling of what Dudley had been referring to, they would have been neck-deep in it within three days.

It always seemed to happen that way. She was a smart girl to try and dodge it, even if it was temporary.

There were enough problems coming their way as it was already, even if they didn't know it.

Dudley merely watched his hired help depart and shrugged at the odd exit before returning his attention to his late father's beloved car, most specifically the default license plate that only had the insignia of a two segmented pyramid with the all-seeing eye on it, "Well this just will not do. It must be swapped out post-haste."

Yep, that can of worms had effectively been prevented from being opened.

XxX

(That Evening – Aohura City)

Ryu did not agree with what Sakura was trying to do at all. Control over both the Satsui no Hadou and the Chikara no Hadou. That was impossible.

Even as he sat and watched her peacefully meditate in the junkyard that she and Naruto used for heavy training, he couldn't understand how she figured to do this. Were she to lose control he would have to step in to stop her. It was his responsibility. It was he who had given her the building blocks to learn. When he'd trained that one time with that fourteen year-old girl who'd traveled from Japan to seek him out for it, he never thought she'd take what he taught her in one meeting and do what she'd done with it.

But when he met her again years later she was completely different. A confident, skilled fighter that someone like Naruto, who he could clearly see had talent and experience, deemed capable of walking along with him… right into the Shadaloo mess in Thailand. Even there she had shown what she was made of.

That episode prompted him to give her more, and he gave her notes on mastering the Shinkuu Hadoken, something he'd expected would have taken her years. It took her less than one.

He didn't want to throw around the term prodigy, but there was something about her abilities that he couldn't skirt past. He'd never expected nearly this much out of her, and yet she'd shattered his absolute lack of foresight as to her growth. Then there was the Satsui no Hadou trouble. She'd already had three separate episodes in less than a year.

From his place resting on the roof of an old car, because he could literally sleep anywhere, Ryu looked over at the calm expression of focus on Sakura's face. Normally she would have been asking him something about techniques, and he'd expected her to ask him about the Satsui no Hadou, but she hadn't brought a single query to his attention since he'd come back around.

"Why do you want to master the Satsui no Hadou?"

He finally asked after hours of sitting and watching her. Sakura calmly cracked open one of her brown eyes and looked up to where her idol had spoken from before gifting him with a smile, "It's complicated, and it's personal, and it's kind of embarrassing. Sorry."

Ryu let out a sigh and sat up on the rooftop. He wasn't as patient as Master Gouken, but he was still a patient man, and if anything Sakura deserved the chance to speak her side of things. He was also better equipped to try and grill a teenage girl than Gouken was, but not by much unfortunately.

"Perhaps you could try," Ryu ventured to ask, "I may not be able to understand, but that doesn't mean I can't make an attempt to."

"Well," Sakura said, frowning as she thought about how much she could tolerate to divulge, "…I guess I can say something about it. I know the real reason I did so much to try and be a good fighter after I met Naruto. I'd always liked fighting, and I knew a little bit about it when we met, but for some reason I just wanted to find a way to walk with him."

Things were much bigger than that inside of her heart now, but that had been the gist of it at the beginning.

"I heard about all sorts of adventures that he'd gone on before, and I didn't know that it'd been in a completely different world, but it made me feel like I could do it too," It had been the reason that she'd gone on her first search for Ryu on her own instead of bringing Naruto, something that he still bemoaned her for to this day. She apologized and made excuses for it, but she felt like bringing Naruto would have been cheating, "And now things are getting so much bigger. If I can't keep up, I'm afraid he'll leave me behind."

If she treated her power like a curse it would only hold her back. The person it mattered to her the most that they accepted it had already experienced her darker side, had known what she was capable of, and declared nothing but support. He didn't see her as anything scary.

"_It doesn't matter if it's you or if it's Sunburned Sakura-chan. You're both the same and I love you."_

"This isn't the kind of power you can harness without losing yourself to it," Ryu expressed, "I… would never want that to happen to you. You're so young and talented. The amount of potential you have to do anything you want, it's incredible."

Sakura blushed bashfully at the praise. She'd wanted to hear it from him for years and finally had. It felt good, if not a little empty. Strange, she always felt that hearing something like that from Ryu would validate her efforts in trying to improve as a fighter.

When did she stop caring about that so much?

She didn't have time to ponder such a thing as Ryu continued trying to make his point, "Every time I fight, in the back of my mind I worry about something breaking. Losing control. I don't know how I could possibly ever prove myself as the strongest if every time I fight an enemy that could defeat me I lose myself. Once I find a way, I _will_ become the best."

There it was. The little something that had come to bother her whenever her thoughts drifted to Ryu as a role model.

Sakura frowned in thought, something finally coming to light for her, "…And then what?"

"What do you mean?" Ryu didn't understand.

"After you become the best, and after you become the total master of your style, what then?" Sakura asked, earnestly interested, "Isn't there anything else you want to do?"

Something else? No. There wasn't anything else. The only thing that mattered was being the best. It was the only reason he existed to fight for. Everything Gouken had ever done for him, it was all with the express purpose of ensuring that he became the best possible example of their style's might.

Ken had a family, and other responsibilities. It was him, and only him. The full continuation of their art rested solely on his shoulders, and he could not, would not fail.

"There's all sorts of things I want to do," Sakura expressed, holding her hands to her heart and closing her eyes in thought, "I've got university to look forward to. Ibuki-chan says she's going too, and that'll be amazing! And then all of my friends. They've got goals of their own. I want to help them," Just thinking about all of the things she wanted to do put a smile on her face, "I want to teach martial arts to kids one day, and show them the best sides of it. And… I want to have a family someday… I think."

It was still way too soon to think about anything like that. Still, she didn't hold any hatred for the idea.

And if somehow along the way someone saw her as the absolute best for some measure of time, well that would have been pretty damn sweet as well.

By the time Ryu had processed all of this along with his own thoughts, the sun had set, and he was there alone. Sakura had bid him farewell to no response quite some time ago, and he hadn't noticed at all.

He didn't understand. How could someone who didn't have their fighting prowess as their top priority be influenced by the Satsui no Hadou? It was the rawest, darkest desire for achieving success at all costs that there was. It didn't make any sense.

Either Sakura was lying, or there was something about that twisted power that he just didn't get.

XxX

(Downtown Aohura City)

Aohura City, it was so peaceful at night.

Sure, in the daytime you could find any gaggle of violent, overly aggressive teenagers stomping down the street with maybe one or two ki-users potentially mixed into the bunch, but there was a tranquility to the town that was lacking when one headed toward the more metropolitan areas of the country to the west.

It was quite the place. Chaos in the day to build up one's body, and tranquility of its comfortable nights to strengthen one's mind. It was a fine balance.

When he thought about it that way, it was no wonder so many special children called this place home.

There was something foul in the air however. It was as if there was something around the modest town that found the quiet and calm of the night to be disgusting. Gen didn't have to even try very hard to seek such a malicious presence out, he was so used to being able to hone in on the darkest intent of mankind, but why do that when eventually it would come to him of its own volition?

…Whether he wanted it to or not.

Standing atop a business building downtown, Gen stood on the ledge overlooking the streets below. There was no need to keep the bastard close to Genhanten and make his search for whatever he was looking for too easy. It wasn't as if he actually wanted him to succeed in whatever destructive notion he wanted.

Speaking of the devil, it didn't take long for Gen to feel himself bathed in the angry, spiteful presence of the man/beast incarnate, "A fine evening, wouldn't you say Akuma-san."

Akuma didn't even bother coming into the light. The dark was where one such as he felt more comfortable. Besides, he didn't feel like gracing that ancient, broken-down old fool Gen with getting sight of him anyway, "Tell me where that simmering power is. I can feel it even now, being held back, but I can't pinpoint where without being close enough. Now be quick about it and do not lie to me old man."

Gen sneered maliciously, and turned around to face the dark destroyer of men, "Know that the only reason I tell you this…" Gen said with a wily grin on his face, "…Is because what you're going to do is spark something that has long been needed in this world in my opinion."

"And what would that be decrepit one?"

"Progress," The white-haired man explained simply, "For better or worse, you're going to finally do something that no one has seen as necessary since the times of open conflict that warriors can only dream of. You're going to give the people that truly have the potential to excel a reason to beyond something as petty as money, or mere validation of one's strength."

When was the last time a truly great fighter came along? There was a reason why the big legends were all old. Gouken, Oro, Gen himself. Sagat had been the closest to breaking through, but he lost his true drive to be better than the best to go chasing the shadow of one man who defeated him on a fluke.

The days that created Gen, created Oro, created Gouken. Those days you had to find something beyond yourself and your petty self-reasonings to fight for. You had to have a task greater than just overcoming the next opponent that drove you.

So many of these children today, so many that he'd seen since he ascended. They were so talented. They had all of the tools. Some had hit their ceilings already, others had not. Some still had yet to earnestly come into their own. But they were missing that last great push to make them truly great.

This man turned monster, he would give it to them. He would change lives, and force them to make the decision that all of the most powerful throughout the history of the world had to make before they realized just what they were capable of.

…The decision of just how badly they wanted to improve in order to destroy an impossible challenge, _AND_ _WHY WERE THEY SO DRIVEN TO DO SO_?

"There is _nothing_ more important than the proof of one's own strength," The shadowed figure growled, a dark red outline radiating around his body, giving his solid red eyes a demonic glow, "It seems that you've grown even more senile since we've last met, and you've forgotten such a truth. It's a pitiful sight."

"Killing me now means just as much to you now as it did when you defeated me last," Gen waved off the demon's insults with a casual air, "You won't strike me down because I've not angered you, and you find my disease-ravaged body too frail to give you any real satisfaction in victory."

True. Killing Gen in battle would have only been speeding up the inevitable and giving him what he wanted, "So tell me where the newly awakened host of the Satsui no Hadou is!? I need to find him now!"

Tch. So sexist. Well hopefully this would blow his mind.

"Not him. Her."

XxX

(Elsewhere in Town – Saikyou-Ryuu Dojo)

Gouken returned from a day watching the young fighters of the town at practice. It was intriguing to say the least. With the way things were in Aohura City it was no wonder children like the ones he found himself gravitating around lately developed the way they did. They probably had a treacherous battle at least once a week until they outgrew the challenge, which was impressive in and of itself.

"They certainly grew up in an interesting way," Gouken mused to himself as he reentered his estranged student's place of business and let out a sigh, "I thought I felt your ki slinking all over this city, but I thought it was my old age playing tricks on me."

Saying this, he walked into the back room that Dan used as his sleeping quarters to find a golden-skinned old man enjoying some of the bounty of Dan's instant ramen. When Dan found out he was probably going to blame Uzumaki Naruto, pick a fight with him, and get destroyed.

Again.

"Oro, I thought you'd resigned yourself to that mountain of yours in Brazil last I'd heard of you," Gouken said, sternly crossing his muscular arms over his broad chest, "Something about being tired of the level of martial artist that the world considered skilled."

Oro finished slurping up the noodles in the broth-filled cup and turned around from where he was sitting on the floor, "Well let's just say I was bored. And I found something rather interesting that grabbed my attention."

"Oh really?"

"Yes, really," Oro declared, narrowing his solid red eyes at Gouken, "You're as much of a buzzkill as you ever were. I see that hasn't changed since we've last met."

"I hardly consider a sense of discipline and responsibility a 'buzzkill'."

"Of course you don't."

The two ancient old warriors stared at one another, an impasse of sorts reached. The tension was then quickly broken when Oro cackled madly and turned back around to watch the small TV that had been playing, "So this is Japanese television? Why do people watch these 'game shows'? Something I'll never know I guess," And yet he remained on the same channel.

Gouken rolled his eyes. The Senjutsu master truly was an oddity, "Where is Dan?"

"He was noisy about me coming in, so I sent him and his jungle ally on a little trip," Oro confessed without scruples. Such an admission put Gouken on alert. Dan might have been estranged from his teachings, but that didn't mean-, "He said he always wanted to go to Italy, and I had money that I wasn't going to use so I said go nuts! He probably wouldn't want to be around here for what's about to happen soon anyway!"

About that, "Why are you here now?"

"A very special set of children. I've been watching them for quite some time now. A few weeks," Oro admitted with a nigh-toothless grin, "They're so close to getting there. You can see it as clear as day on some of them. Their energies are just short of breaking through. Of becoming something regular humans can't comprehend."

Gouken harrumphed like a grumpy old man, quite out of character for his normally dignified manner, "That's what I fear. The girl, her emotions cloud her judgment. She's really willing to try and master the Satsui no Hadou and the Chikara no Hadou."

Really now? How ambitious. Oro was beginning to like these children even more, and not just because a good number of them were cute girls, "I knew the energies of that short-haired girl felt familiar. I should have known she had some kind of ties to your style. There's a very particular signature that you types possess."

"And what do you think of her?"

"Hmm. She still has some growing to do."

"I agree. She is a very talented young fighter though."

"Wha-? Oh, yes! Her martial arts. No, I didn't see her fight."

Gouken just gave Oro a dry stare, wondering just if being a hermit cut off from most human contact turned the old man into something of a pervert. That would have been just his luck; that his only remaining living 'friendly' rival was now a deviant.

"Honestly though," Oro said, getting completely serious for a change, "She wouldn't be the one I'd be concerned about going down a dark road."

Confused as to what he meant, Gouken raised an eyebrow to his contemporary, "I don't really understand. The boy she spends time with has a dark power of his own, but he seems to have it under control for the most part."

Who, Naruto? No. Oro actually liked him, "That's not who I meant."

XxX

(With Naruto – Elsewhere in Town)

"Aw, man Batsu, you're terrible at this," Naruto said, headset on and controller in his hands as he sat in front of his newly purchased TV with the absurd amount of money Dudley had paid him and Cammy to return his Jaguar. They caught a ride home and bought it before heading back to the apartment, "We're gonna lose another match at this rate."

"_I'm used to Call of Duty! You're the one who said we should give Battlefield a try!"_ Batsu irritably shouted at him over the headset,_ "There's an adjustment period! You can't reprogram eight years of-, oh fuck I was behind cover that time!"_

"And automatic gunfire sliced it up like sashimi. What's not to get?" Naruto asked, eyes on the screen as he maneuvered his game avatar through a war-torn city, "Cover doesn't last, keep moving when you can, and run and gun ain't that effective. Take your ranged Striker bullshit back to Infinity Ward. That seemed to be the only way you ever got kills."

"_Fuck you!"_ Cursing: the last resort of a limited vocabulary.

"Fuck _you_! Learn to aim down sight bitch!" See?

Cammy was in the shower, they had money in the bank, no lunatic was after Naruto or his loved ones that he knew of, and for the time being life was good. The universe seemed to be putting everything in his favor. Even Cammy's yellow-colored little cat saw fit enough to curl up on the couch next to Naruto's leg to be lazy.

Things hadn't been this pleasant and peaceful in a long time.

The door flew open with enough force to shake the wall and dislodge the wall-mount that held up his newly bought television set, causing it to fall and crash down onto the floor. Standing in the doorway, Ryu's eyes locked firmly on the man he'd come to see, "Uzumaki Naruto. I need to talk to you."

Naruto simply stared at where his TV had been and turned around to look over the back of his couch with a listless expression, "…That was a 330 thousand yen… 70-inch… plasma widescreen TV," He said, taking off his headset and throwing it aside with a click of his tongue before pasting a pleasant expression on his face, "So! How can I help you?"

If Cammy hadn't been in the shower she probably would have gotten spooked and tried to twist Ryu's neck off out of instinct the moment the door flew open. At the moment, Naruto honestly couldn't have said he would have done anything to stop her. Thank goodness for small miracles. Apparently Ryu didn't knock on many doors traveling the world and training every waking moment.

He didn't get a response from his question at first. He understood why Ryu was there though. He'd said why already.

"What's going on?" Naruto asked, glad that he'd gotten the warranty for that TV now. Chalk one up to Cammy and her practicality. She'd been on the damn ball lately like nobody's business, "You've been here for a while, but we haven't really talked since I came back from Brazil."

"I was thinking about things," Ryu said, "A lot of things. Can we talk, outside?"

Well didn't that sound like a dandy precursor to a nightfall showdown?

But this was Ryu. He was the markedly more reasonable and seemingly humble of the Gouken apprentices, much more so than Ken, so perhaps he really did just have some things to get off of his chest and talk man-to-man about? The guy deserved the benefit of the doubt anyway. He was Sakura's hero and he'd helped pull their asses out of the fire in Thailand. Naruto had never forgotten that.

Looking down the hall in the direction where he could still hear water running, he figured Cammy would be fine by herself for the time being. She usually was anyway. And it wasn't like they would be going very far. Naruto simply led Ryu to the roof of the complex, no farther.

Ryu looked around Naruto's new surroundings and commented amicably, "So I see you moved out of your old neighborhood," Farther away from Sakura. That would be a point that would come into play later.

Naruto nodded and pointed back in the direction his old place used to be, a mile or so away, "The only other apartment complex around got obliterated by S.I.N. This was the only one I could go to if I wanted to keep going to school with the others."

An uncomfortable silence reigned between the two for way longer than either thought was reasonable. Naruto didn't know what about this meeting was raising the hair on his neck right out of the gate, but he knew that he wouldn't have been feeling that way for no reason.

"I've been thinking long and hard about things," Ryu started to say before suddenly clamming up, having apparently not found the correct words that he'd been looking for to explain himself. Naruto was uncharacteristically patient, willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He could take his time, "I don't know how to ask this or to even broach this topic with you."

Naruto dangled his leg over the ledge of the roof, his other leg pulled up to his bare chest, "Well just be blunt. You usually are, so why stop now?"

Point taken. The best way to do this was probably the fast way, like pulling off a band-aid, "Naruto, I'll just say it then. The catalysts to Sakura's Satsui no Hadou are her strongest desires. It feeds on her wants, and manifests the darkest aspects of her character in response."

"I already knew that," Naruto said, blushing for a moment before fighting it down with a cough, "We kinda went through this a little while back," It hadn't even been a month since they had.

"Then you know what I have to talk to you about," Ryu said, his eyes turning stony and serious as he regarded his younger ally, "For Sakura's own good and for the good of the world, she has to give up her sense of attachment to anything tangible. I need your help in finding what these things are so that we may do something about this."

Naruto's eyes went wide, remembering one of the most important conversations he'd ever had with the girl over her dark impulses.

"_I'm passionate about you. Ever since we were little I was."_

It was him, and nothing else. Nothing tangible anyway, like Ryu alluded to. And whether he knew it or not, the man was asking him to sever his ties, ties that he'd spent years creating, ties that he didn't think he could sever if his own life depended on it.

"I can't," Naruto said, shaking his head, "I won't."

Just like that, Naruto could see the judgment in Ryu's eyes. It didn't matter if it made him weak. It didn't matter if it made him less of a fighter or something like that. He'd made his choice; that he'd stay with her and stand by her even if she did have a scary dark side. Dark Sakura had yet to attack a single person incapable of fighting her back or hurt anyone that didn't have it coming.

What Naruto didn't expect of all things, was to be slugged right in the face and knocked flat on his back, looking up at the night sky.

…Did Ryu just hit him?

"This isn't a game," Ryu said to Naruto, clearly finding it hard to keep his cool, "This isn't something you can just ignore and hope it will go away. It will get stronger if it's not dealt with in some way. I need to know what she loves so that I can try to convince her that it's better if she lets it go."

It was cold. Cold to the touch to think about. No more Sakura. He couldn't be close to her again, he couldn't see her look at him knowing that he was as important and precious to her as anything in the world. To think of that being ripped away, to think of the tears she would shed trying to do what Ryu asked of her. To think of the fact that when it finally did happen, her eyes would never look at him with the warmth of someone who had been through thick and thin with him, the warmth of a lover.

"No," Naruto grounded out. And that was that. There was no changing his mind, nothing Ryu could say to convince him. He would never let Sakura lose herself as long as his body drew breath. If something happened to put that 'plan' out the window… well he'd burn that bridge when they came to it. But otherwise, just- "No."

The older fighter didn't get it. This wasn't some childish sort of tantrum or refusal to acknowledge that something was bad or dangerous. This was a resolute declaration from a man that it simply didn't matter to him whether it was or not.

That was deeper than some sort of attachment of friendship. And Sakura's outright refusal to rid herself of her attachments to Gouken, to the extent that she declared that she would do the impossible, something that hadn't been done since Gouken's master Goutetsu, mastery over both the light and dark sides of their style, that was not something that a schoolgirl in over her head would say and swear she would do.

It hit Ryu like a ton of bricks hanging overhead that he should have seen all along. It made him feel silly that he hadn't. How out of touch was he?

"She loves you," Ryu realized with no small amount of shock evident. That explained it. She had attachments, or _an _attachment. A big one. Someone like Sakura, when she loved something, she loved it hard. It showed in her dedication to the martial arts, reaching a world-class level from that of a recreational practitioner in a matter of five years.

She loved the fight. She loved the rush of combat. She loved the complexity and the diverse nature of fighting. She loved it enough that she wanted to teach others to perhaps see things the way that she did. That was commitment and enthusiasm.

She loved Naruto more though.

Naruto didn't say anything, simply wiping at the new red bruise on his cheek. It wasn't his business how Sakura felt, or how he felt. It was between them.

Ryu stared down at his fist, regretting his rash course of action in hitting Naruto. But what had happened had already transpired. There was nothing he could do to take it back. All he could do was move forward with what he'd done.

"If I defeat you, you'll end things as they are. You can never allow anything past what you currently have," Ryu said firmly, "To detach oneself from a friend is far easier to detach oneself from a lover. If Sakura does not, I'm telling you now that the Satsui no Hadou will devour her whole."

The easiest way to decide things when there was a clash of ideologies was a fight. That was the way the world worked in martial arts. Unfortunately, this had little to do with martial arts in the mind of Uzumaki Naruto.

Naruto stood up straight out of his stance and gave Ryu a look that until then had only been sent Naruto's way by others for various reasons; the infamous 'are you stupid' look. For someone who didn't back down and didn't run away, this had nothing to do with adhering to that self-promise.

"No," Naruto said plainly. There was nothing more to put behind it, "No! You hear me? No! Fuck you!"

"It has to happen this way," Ryu said, shutting his eyes tightly, knowing that what he asked was difficult. He didn't realize how difficult it was for regular people though, let alone for someone like Naruto. Even if he _did_ understand, he still more than likely wouldn't have done it, "Her attachment to you is only going to make the Satsui no Hadou stronger. She'll become no better than Akuma!"

As good as his intentions were in context, as far as fighting words went, Ryu might as well have brought up Naruto's mother in a salacious, unsavory manner. It couldn't have possibly brought up a worse result.

He didn't realize what had happened at first, only knowing that Naruto had gotten in his face and had grabbed tightly at the front of his gi.

The moment he realized something was wrong was when he heard the whistle of the wind in his ears, felt the fact that his feet were no longer on solid ground, and became aware of the fact that the two of them had been flying through the air over four blocks' worth of residential homes.

Then he felt a fist sink itself into his jaw hard enough to send him flying through the air for two more blocks. Receipt delivered.

Ryu hurtled through the air before landing hard at the foot of a grassy hill in the neighborhood park. He rolled out along the grass until his momentum finally came to a stop and he pushed himself back up, 'That was a very good punch.'

Moments later, Naruto landed right in front of him, still barefoot and shirtless from having been coaxed out of his evening settle-down time to talk. There wasn't any more talking that he wanted to do. He wanted to hit something, and that something was dressed in a weathered white gi.

"I don't care if you're Sakura-chan's hero or not," Naruto growled, "I don't care if every fighter in the world bows down and sucks your balls just for beating Sagat _one time_! Don't you ever say anything like that again or I'll break your damn jaw!"

Well the answer did lie in the heart of battle after all. If Naruto wouldn't see reason, Ryu would force him to see it with the power of his fists.

This was something that didn't need to be said blatantly. Naruto felt that way as well.

"I guess we have nothing more to talk about then," Ryu said coolly, pulling a pair of red gloves from the inside of his gi tightly onto his hands. Naruto just nodded in return.

The winner was right, the loser was wrong. The strongest would be the one to write the rules on this night. The loser had no right to demand anything of the winner, nor could they stop them from enforcing their directive.

Using a Shunshin, Naruto vanished from the sight of what normal humans could see, but Ryu was able to follow Naruto's high-speed movements based on the sound of the grass underfoot and ducked a side-kick aimed at his head from his blind spot.

Gritting his teeth, Ryu rose with an uppercut that Naruto leaned back to evade. The two met eyes, acknowledging that this was no spar, no good-natured exhibition. Every punch would be thrown with a point to make, and it wouldn't end until the other lacked the strength to dispute the other.

Both exploded into a blur of fists and feet, each one blocking and avoiding each punch thrown the other's way. The sheer speed of their collective barrages caused the grass around them to wave as if a healthy wind were blowing.

Ryu found his opening, moving his head past a punch, grabbing it with one arm as he turned his body to throw Naruto over his shoulder. Naruto went flying but with a casual handspring he landed in a crouch and threw himself back at Ryu. He had no weapons. He had to do this with his bare hands and his chakra.

-Which suited him just fine.

Just before getting close enough to Ryu to reengage him in a rush of melee, Naruto crossed his index and middle fingers, stunning Ryu with his sudden audible, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" In a puff of smoke, two clones managed to get the drop on Ryu and nail him with simultaneous punches straight to the face.

His enemy knocked back, Naruto leapt into the air off of the backs of his clones who surrounded Ryu and prepared to follow up. In the airborne original's right hand, a devastating blue orb of spinning chakra formed, his eyes locked on the headband-clad roaming warrior.

Ryu saw both Naruto clones surround him and allowed them both close enough to destroy them in one move. Digging his feet into the dirt beneath the grass, he unleashed a devastating rising uppercut that turned his entire body into a ki-enhanced missile, the tip of his fist more dangerous than any weapon mortal man could wield in-hand.

"Shoryuuken (Rising Dragon Fist)!"

"Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!"

XxX

(Meanwhile – Sakura's House)

Sakura's ability to sense that she'd learned from Gouken was both a gift and a curse. A gift as it allowed her to locate things and gauge the potential strength of her enemies. A curse because it allowed her to at times sense things that she would rather have not.

A clash of energies that she knew very well happened to be occurring a matter of under two miles from her home. It was a fight she never would have wished to happen, not for real.

"Naruto," Sakura whispered to herself, almost jumping straight off of the couch and scaring the daylights out of her little brother, "…Ryu."

Her brother didn't even have time to ask her what was wrong, nor did her mother have any time to ask where she was going before Sakura's shoes were on and she was out the door. This was bad. They were using too much power for this to be something as simple as a friendly match.

She had to get there, to try and stop them. Naruto was angry, Ryu was angry, and neither of them would back down from their point if they believed that they were in the right. Even if they weren't pissed off, which they were, whatever fight they had would probably escalate until it became dangerous anyway.

Damn it! Why was their fight moving away at such a fast pace? Damn Naruto and his stupid mobile fighting style. Then again, training with her would have gotten him used to avoiding Ryu's attacks, and taking that man head-on in a fight was perhaps the worst thing he could do.

Every step she ran hit the ground with a focused fervor until she felt something move behind her so quickly that she almost felt paranoid at thinking something had. But there was something there. She turned her shoulder on a whim and nearly fell over in the street at the inhuman thing she saw.

A battered black gi, death-red eyes, brown prayer beads around his neck, tan, nearly dark skin, spiky red hair in a topknot ponytail.

She couldn't even bring herself to say his name. Her mouth made the motions, but no voice came out, 'A-Akuma.'

"It's you," Akuma said lowly, pointing one rope-wrapped hand at Sakura, "Standing here now, there's no mistake. That old fool was right," He never remembered seeing her before at all. He thought he'd seen all of the current practitioners of their discipline. He hadn't expected there to ever be a new one so soon, let alone a possessor of the Satsui no Hadou that was so young… or girly, "Do you know who I am?"

Sakura gulped down her fear to no effect of relieving it and nodded, "W-What do you want?"

"Bring it out."

…Excuse her?

"Girl, I know for a fact that Gouken hasn't gotten his traitorous, blasphemous claws into you yet. At least not entirely. The darkness in you, I want you to use it," Akuma demanded, "Stop whimpering and show me!"

Sakura felt her knees buckle simply from the sheer malice being sent her way, but remained upright. Naruto and Ryu's fight was forgotten. This man, who was able to decimate the two young men who went on to reach the final round of the World Warrior Tournament at the same time, who even Ryu feared. He wanted something from her.

That something would lead to a fight against him if she were up-to-date enough on the kind of person Akuma was.

"You hurt Master Gouken because you were angry. You hurt Naruto, just to get some sick challenge," Sakura challenged in a shaky voice, "And you think I'm going to give you what you want?"

"You will," Akuma said, sounding entirely sure of himself in his harsh tone of voice, "You have no choice in the matter. The fact that you would willingly deny yourself the chance to reach the limits of your ability is disgusting. If there's something keeping you from reaching my level, from taking the god-worthy step of challenging the Supreme Master of the Fist, you remove it from your path!" Akuma bellowed, the pebbles on the street shaking and the sidewalks cracking at the volume of his mere presence, "Or perhaps I should remove it for you?"

Her entire body shook. This was too much. It wasn't like Seth. It wasn't like Bison. It wasn't like anything she'd ever stood face-to-face with before in her entire life. This power would devour her in an instant. She wouldn't even have been a speed bump.

This wasn't some devious lunatic, or some maniac with delusions of grandeur. This being was completely willing to back up every word he said with his fists. All he wanted was to destroy, to crush those that he felt were powerful enough to interest him.

There wasn't a word in any vocabulary of any language that she could come with that would stop him. Words were worthless.

Her silence did nothing to soothe the savage monster in front of her. In fact it did the exact opposite. It only enraged him, **"If I wanted a sniveling coward afraid of the power that their enemies should fear instead, I would be after Ryu right now!"**

Sakura flinched and stepped back. She felt more like a mouse than a warrior. A mouse in front of a tiger. Anywhere in the world other than there, that was where she wanted to be.

His rage tapered off however, seeing her resolve close to breaking. If he wanted to break her, doing so with his fists would have been far more suitable to him than doing it with his words.

"Fine," Akuma relented with an annoyed snort, "Like I said before, if there's something in the way of you reaching my level, I'll simply remove the problem," His head turned up and away from Sakura as if he could smell the power of others drifting through the night air, "…Interesting. The boy had a breakthrough, even after taking the Shun Goku Satsu."

Oh no.

Turning around, Akuma spared one last disgusted glance at Sakura, "At least I can count on one of you whelps to be willing to try and provide me sport. He won't survive twice."

He meant that. The only time Akuma would move from his places of training was when he wanted to get into a fight. His fights ended with the deaths of others.

Before Akuma could speedily slip away with Ashura Senku and travel to insert himself into the fight between Ryu and Naruto, he was stopped by a massive crack that had come from straight behind him, trailed beneath his legs underneath, and continued on straight down the road.

As if being bothered by a gnat that continued to fly around his head, Akuma turned around, prepared to decimate the foolish little girl impeding him from finding a _real_ challenge. When he did though, he stopped cold with interest.

Sakura's body had stopped quivering. Her stance stiffened into something resembling defensive instead of a jello-legged excuse for a combat posture.

Her head lowered enough to hide her eyes underneath her bangs, she reached up to her forehead and removed her white headband, dropping it to the ground and stomping on it hard enough to crack a second, deeper fissure into the street, only compounding on the damage of the first.

"I think I've said this once before to someone else, but if I haven't I'll say it anyway," Sakura said darkly, holding up one hand in front of her body, slowly clenching her fingers into a fist as her skin color began to change and a dark red ki radiating off of her caused the very ground around her to quake, "If God himself ever reached down to try and take Naruto away from **us**-," Sakura disappeared from sight only to reappear in an instant right at Akuma's side, her fist **"-GOD'LL BE MISSING AN ARM!"**

She had never punched anything so hard in her entire life.

His body having crashed through three whole houses, rendering them to condemned hovels, Akuma sat in a trench dug ten feet deep into the street by his very body, watching blood pour from his shoulder like a faucet. His entire left arm felt like it was hardly hanging on by a thread. He'd easily blocked her blow, but it dislocated his shoulder and tore most of the tendons in the arm just from the impact.

And still, he grinned. A true grin, for the first time in decades, maybe even longer, "That hurt."

It actually hurt. She hit him hard enough to hurt him.

So much hate.

So much spirit.

No reservations about using all of her power, dark or not, to outright murder him. To be selfish and use her power to protect what she felt was hers.

She was perfect.

And he would have her. Her opinion on the matter meant nothing.

She was raw and inexperienced, true, but with some attention, some coaxing and guidance, she would be the one to give him the fight to the death he truly desired.

"Child," Akuma said, standing up out of the trench and walking back Sakura's way as he watched her stomp through the holes in the houses she'd punched him through, "Let me show you just what you'll be capable of by the time I'm through with you. Your pitiful imitation of Ansatsuken is an insult to the power you possess!"

This would be her first lesson under her new master, and it would be painful. That was fine though. Pain was just weakness leaving the body.

Sakura was pissed. Too pissed to be afraid. Too pissed to know that she was overmatched.

Instinctually using Ashura Senku to speedily move forward, she stepped into another crushing punch intended to splatter Akuma's innards all over the neighborhood. This time however, she missed and fell victim to three hard punches to the body that doubled her over his fist.

"That didn't break you in half," Akuma mused, interested that she was still able to stand up, "You have potential."

Sakura pushed herself off of his arm and backhanded Akuma across the face, only getting him to turn his head for all the trouble it was worth. Pushing herself away, she jumped right back at him and aimed both of her fists down at his collarbone in a double-sledgehammer strike, "Sakura Otoshi (Cherry Blossom Drop)!"

Akuma blocked her attack with both arms, even as the road crumbled beneath his feet. Snorting like a bull he prepared to push her away when he saw one of her arms free and drawn back with a bolt of ki in her hand, "A one-handed-?"

"Gadoken (Self-Taught Fist)!"

Dan's principle of a low-charged, one-handed Hadoken had finally found a productive use. It was no damn good for a ranged attack that went any farther than three feet, but it was a pretty nice how-do-you-do up close and personal.

Sakura landed right in front of Akuma and threw a high front kick as hard as she possibly could, landing it right under his chin. It was like a normal person kicking an anchor however, as he hardly budged. The smoke from the Hadoken cleared only to show tiny singe marks on his face, and the bottom of her shoe dug in under his chin.

"You're vicious," Akuma said with no small hint of appreciation, "An attack like that, either of them, would have decapitated any other weakling. Keep going… if you can," He demanded.

"**DIE!"** Sakura cried out spitefully lowering her leg and immediately going for her version of the Shoryuuken. Seeing her twice bastardized version of his purest version of the technique only angered him. He stopped her fist from ever even rising, instead spinning her around and shooting a knee into the small of her back to send her flying.

Sakura landed facedown on a curb-parked car and rolled off of its dented hood and broken windshield to stand back up, **"You think we're scared of you? We'll show you how scared we are!"**

Her hands were set to charge her most powerful Hadoken, the pink ki of the attack forming between her palms and fingers, but before she could even begin to do so in earnest, Akuma appeared in front of her in the air with a kick prepared, "I've seen enough girl!"

With one booming roundhouse kick he sent Sakura soaring into the air where he quickly followed, spinning dangerously with his air-tearing version of the Senpukyaku, locked in perfectly on her.

"You're still too green to match strength against me! **I'll show you just a taste of real power!"**

Sakura didn't even have time to recover before Akuma careened up to her with deadly speed and accuracy, his kick moving past her with such force that she felt as if she'd been cut in half. Everything she could see was in distorted black and white. Almost literal blinding pain.

"**Tenshou Kaireki Jin (Heaven Piercing Sea Crashing Blade)****!"**

Once again, he hadn't broken her in half.

She would do just fine.

XxX

(Meanwhile – With Naruto)

Something was wrong.

Ryu didn't understand.

This didn't make sense.

He wasn't this close the last time. He didn't hit this hard the last time. His reflexes weren't as crisp and as sure of themselves the last time. He didn't know those moves he attacked him with the last time. He wasn't so fast the last time. Not even close.

Slowly but surely Ryu was losing to Naruto, and he knew it.

Lightning quick jabs flew from Ryu's arms as he kept his other arm back for a secondary attack, but Naruto dodged it all, constantly backpedaling as fast as his feet would take him, no matter what the terrain demanded of him. Be it grass, concrete, water, asphalt, nothing slowed Naruto down.

Ryu's eyes went wide when he felt one of his jabs make contact. Without hesitation he brought forward his other hand in a wicked downward punch but felt the feeling of wood shatter as a log took Naruto's place for the second attack.

Confused, he felt his arms bound from behind, noting that a Naruto had grabbed him in order to hold him in place as the original stood right in front of him holding a hand-seal, mouth open with a blue glow forming in the back of his throat, 'No!'

"Chou Ikitaihou (Super Breath Cannon)!"

Ryu was able to break free and escape, leaving Naruto's clone to be decimated by the destructive blast of pure energy. With no fear, Ryu rushed forward, just out of the way of the blast radius and delivered a punch to Naruto's stomach that stopped the chakra flow and shut his mouth.

Standing up straight he dropped an elbow down on the bent Naruto's neck only for Naruto to cartwheel forward and kick his arm away before it could hit him. Growling in annoyance at being thwarted every time it seemed like he would get in a finishing blow, Ryu grabbed Naruto by his shoulders and rolled backwards, taking Naruto with him before kicking him away and sending him flying.

Naruto was flipped thrice before landing on his belly, but he didn't let that keep him down, getting up immediately with the momentum of the throw. With a bull-like snort through his nose, Naruto created more clones that rushed and surrounded Ryu.

One remained back with Naruto and transformed into a large shuriken. Ryu realized that Naruto was compromising his ability to dodge and prepared himself as the clones closed in. As he anticipated, the clones feinted a move on him only for Naruto to throw his shuriken at him. He could have shot it down, but it would have only left him open for a clone counter, so he simply dodged.

The moment it flew past him, it transformed back into Naruto and took a swinging kick at him from behind, nearly taking his head off had Ryu not grabbed his leg out of midair. The other clones pounced, but the captured Naruto was used as a weapon to destroy the others in one motion, "Damn! Really?"

Not allowing a moment to lapse, Ryu managed to reach Naruto's right side with a single speedy movement. Ryu placed his hands together and pushed them outward, expelling ki from his body with burning force, "Shakunetsu Hadoken (Scorching Heat Surge Fist)!"

Naruto managed to turn his shoulder, keeping him from taking the full force of the attack on his entire body. Instead his left shoulder felt the burn of the flaming Hadoken as he fell to the ground to avoid the rest of it.

Wiping off the parts of his left shoulder and upper chest that still had stray flames burning on them, Naruto looked up at Ryu looked upon him with a distinct lack of pity.

"I hate to be the one that has to do this, but you kids need to grow up one day," This attempt to defend the sanctity of material possessions, it was only going to end badly. Why was he fighting this so hard? Ryu thought Naruto had grown up, that he would understand why this had to happen, "You have to learn how to let go. You can't have everything you want!"

Let go?

"What about you?" Naruto asked, "You're attached to something, even if it's not a person. You want to win more than anything else! You want to be the strongest more than anything else! It's all that matters to you, and you won't let _that_ go! You won't put that aside! So what makes what you're attached to so much more goddamn grown up than hers!?"

At least Sakura could see Naruto, touch him, know he was there. She could have what she wanted and know that she did. How would Ryu ever even know he was the best? That he was some kind of true master? Tournaments, what everyone thought was the best marker of who the strongest happened to be, meant absolutely nothing. That had already been proven time and time again.

There was something for Sakura to apparently reach for. Something in sight. The moment Ryu reached a new peak, it would only give him a better view of the next mountaintop to climb to. Nothing more. It would never be enough, because there was no such thing as a definite end to such a path.

It was like Akuma's goal of finding someone powerful to fight. If he did find someone to give him such a fight, but he still won it anyway and lived on, what else? He would only keep getting stronger. That ambition could only move further and further away.

If someone asked Ryu to give up on what he wanted though or made any sort of comparison between his goal and Akuma's, Naruto would have bet his entire mission payment that Ryu would have responded in the exact same way he did; aggressively.

Ryu wanted to say that it was because he didn't covet any physical possessions. He traveled the world only with what he could carry on his back, and it was all expendable. What he was driven to achieve was beyond the materially obtainable. But Sakura loving Naruto wasn't a simply material situation. Loving someone was only partially a physical ideal.

"This ends now," Ryu said, clasping his hands together and drawing them back to build up his power.

"I agree," Naruto said, creating a wall of dozens of Kage Bunshin between the man and himself, "…What is this again?"

The moment a single Naruto clone even twitched to try and build chakra, Ryu released his own. His control over his ki was more finely tuned, making it easier for him to build it up, "Shinkuu Hadoken (Vacuum Wave Surge Fist)!"

A beam of pure ki three times Ryu's size flew from his outstretched arms and tore apart Naruto's ranks. Some savvier clones around the edges were able to survive, but those closer to the middle found themselves thoroughly obliterated in an instant.

The ones who survived the initial blast knew they only had a matter of two or three seconds before they too met their ends. They weren't going to dodge anything. Thus, resigned to their fates they sank their hands into the ground and used their chakra to swirl the asphalt underneath them, causing something of a controlled earthquake, "Rasenshinsen (Spiraling Tremor)!"

Ryu's balance was thoroughly compromised as the street fell apart around him. Windows cracked, foundations of buildings buckled, and he very nearly felt the full force of the real Naruto's Rasengan while he was off-guard.

Crashing through the brick wall of a nearby property limit, Naruto came so close to striking Ryu with the dangerous jutsu that the front of the man's gi was shredded.

He dodged by a hair, and Naruto flew past him, slamming the Rasengan into the ground. The moment it touched, he forced his control over it to go unstable, causing it to burst and send him back the way he'd come; Ryu's direction.

A full body check from Naruto sent Ryu into the remains of the wall Naruto had just obliterated to ambush him, where Naruto proceeded to pin him with his forearm to his throat and hit him with three heavy punches right across the face.

Sick of taking punches, Ryu snapped his arms upward and removed Naruto's forearm before delivering a nice little surprise to Naruto in the form of a close-range ki blast, "Hadoken (Surge Fist)!"

"Gaaaah!" Naruto cried out as he was thrown off of his adversary and knocked down on his back. The pieces of broken road and glass in his back hurt like hell and he'd probably had the mother of all road-rashes, but it was just a little pain.

Ryu winced at the punches that Naruto had delivered, having almost been beaten into an imprint on a wall before he'd gotten the energetic ninja off of him.

Naruto could create an earthquake. An honest to goodness earthquake with nothing more than his own energy. He didn't have to transform it in some way, or bond with the earth itself. It was the pure brute force of his power, being manipulated within the ground.

The kind of determination it had to take to even decide that you were even going to learn a move like that was staggering to think about.

'He's not going to give up on this,' Ryu understood with a grim acceptance, 'I really am going to have to beat him so badly that he can't challenge it.'

Before Naruto could get up, Ryu ran over, smoothly spinning around before delivering a spinning ax kick/stomp that put his foot through the road. His blond enemy rolled out of the way, gaining more cuts and scrapes for his troubles on his bare arms, chest, and back.

"Ren Hadoken (Chain Surge Fist)!"

To Naruto's surprise, rapid-fire Hadoken's flew back-to-back from Ryu's hands, causing him to hightail it out of there, "How long's he been working on that one!?" Naruto yelled rhetorically.

Dodging as many as he could on the street, Naruto jumped up onto the side of a building and sprinted on its wall until he reached its end, dodging blasts all the way. Ryu was done playing around if that hadn't already been painfully clear.

Taking a chance, Naruto leapt high into the air over Ryu's head, avoiding his shots until he could no longer aim at him. Whatever he originally endeavored to try from his elevated position backfired, as Ryu spun in place to the direction Naruto was flying towards and jumped into the air as high as he could go.

"Shoryuuken (Rising Dragon Fist)!" Naruto took the punch straight to the chest and felt as if his organs had been ping-ponged off of his rib cage. Blinking back the pain and fighting down the bodily reaction to push up blood, Naruto took a chance.

Going limp on the end of Ryu's fist, Naruto's descent began before Ryu's. Hitting the ground first, Naruto ignored every signal his body gave him to take a moment and lie down, that he didn't need to try and stand so quickly. Bouncing and putting his feet underneath him, Ryu was at his mercy, still finishing the spin motion that went with the Shoryuuken.

Jumping back into the air, Naruto pressed both of his knees down onto Ryu's shoulders around his neck from behind and grabbed onto the top of his head by his hair, "Eat the road! Chiruochiba Osu (Leaf Falling Press)!"

Naruto slammed Ryu face-first into the asphalt hard, dragging him across the ground until he could hold on no longer. He fell forward off of him in a heap and collapsed twenty feet away from where Ryu lay.

Breathing heavily on his side, Naruto looked over at Ryu who slowly pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. He could see the blood dripping off of the man's face even with his head lowered. He didn't seem ready to surrender at all though.

Sitting up, Naruto began to stand again in time with Ryu's attempt to rise.

Ryu had wasted so much ki in such a short amount of time with the Ren Hadoken, this short breather was just what he needed to recharge. He knew that Naruto didn't need any downtime either. The kid was a machine.

He wasn't the strongest though. And that was what he needed to be if he wanted to beat Ryu.

Once again at a standoff, the two wordlessly charged forward in a mutually understood attack.

A bulky figure forced its way between the two of them before they could clash again however, sending them both flying into the sides of adjacent buildings.

"WHAT ARE YOU TWO FOOLS DOING!?"

Pulling themselves out of the mess they'd been smashed into, Naruto and Ryu saw a livid Gouken standing where they had been about to meet for another smackdown. They both seemed ready to continue at the drop of a hat had the old man not been there.

"You're both putting out so much ki over so much distance I can't sense anything past the two of you! Look around!" Gouken demanded, ordering Naruto and Ryu to note what they'd done over the course of their fight. Indeed, they had ruined several city blocks and had traveled at least five miles from where they'd begun, "What is the meaning of this?"

Ryu didn't say anything, instead putting on a calm, cool, air, detaching himself from the situation despite the bit of a beating he'd just endured.

Naruto didn't say anything, still glaring at Ryu. Instead of acknowledging anything about the fight at all, he wiped the blood, dirt, gravel, and glass off of his arms and turned his back before jumping off to return home.

Such a bitter look.

That was the face of a man who would not be cooling down anytime soon. Gouken didn't know Naruto could actually hold a grudge like that against someone he didn't intend to kill.

Turning back to Ryu, Gouken decided to address the only person who was still there, "What happened?"

"He wouldn't accept what I had to say," Ryu said, dabbing at the bloody marks all over his face, "The Satsui no Hadou will devour Sakura, and he doesn't care enough to do what is needed to keep that from happening!"

He was trying to regain his cool, but he just couldn't! Aside from the entire mess with Sakura, Naruto had fought him differently than he had the last time they'd faced off in any particular manner. There was no tentative approach. He was entirely sure that he could have beaten Ryu.

As loathe to admit it as the proud former champion was, he possibly would have. Naruto was notoriously durable, and he hadn't even tapped into his extra power.

Thinking about that put a grit to Ryu's teeth, 'He was still holding back,'

They had done all of the damage that they had, and Naruto had still been holding back from letting loose with everything he had. Granted, Ryu had too, but he'd come close to giving everything he had. He wasn't so sure that Naruto had. He'd heard of what a full-power attack from the boy could do. He'd seen the aftermath.

This was nowhere near that.

"Be at ease," Gouken said in a stern voice, "You were right in your intentions, but your approach in the matter was shortsighted. Did you really think going about it in such a manner was intelligent?"

"I expected him to be more reasonable than that," Ryu admitted, "I can see how wrong I was now."

Gouken just gave Ryu a hard stare. His efforts of raising Ryu at his dojo alone, it was clearly making its unintended effects known now. He really didn't understand, "You more or less asked that boy to do the equivalent of asking Ken to help you get his wife to forget about him. There was no other reasonable way for him to react."

"I… don't understand," Ryu didn't get relationships with others past that of a master/student dynamic, or at best a friend dynamic. He knew he was still angry though.

He _wouldn't_ have lost that fight. There was no way he would have lost that fight.

"And that is my fault," Gouken said, "Now I'm going to find that boy and maybe do something to salvage this situation before he sees us as enemies." That truly would have been a shame if that wound up being the result of this, "If he doesn't already."

XxX

How engrossed in his fight had Naruto been? The destruction that covered a few blocks in a residential area not too far from his apartment hadn't been anything that he and Ryu had done.

It couldn't have been. They didn't even start cutting loose until they'd stopped nearer to the downtown area.

Finding Sakura lying on the ground motionless, Naruto tore chunks out of the road as he ran over to her downed form. He could see the vile bruises on her body underneath her shirt, even on her darkened skin, causing him to take great care once he pulled her into his arms.

She was breathing. That much was good. She was in fierce pain though, as just touching her caused her body to quiver something awful. Who could have done this to Sakura under normal circumstances, let alone if she'd actually been drawing upon the Satsui no Hadou in her.

Her eyes opened from her wince and suddenly the solid red orbs that came with her normal use of the powers didn't seem to glow with the usual fierce intensity that Naruto had been accustomed to seeing from them.

"Oh…" Dark Sakura said, smiling at him in relief despite her wounds. She couldn't have cared less about them, "You look like you just got beaten up."

Despite the situation that he still didn't understand, Naruto couldn't help but smile back at her, "Look who's talking. Who'd you let kick your ass like this?"

Being presented with that reminder, Sakura did her best to try and get back up, even with Naruto doing his best to keep her from moving around and hurting herself more, "No, no, if I don't… he'll kill you."

Naruto raised an eyebrow until realizing that they weren't alone. With as much stagnant dark power that lingered around the neighborhood after Sakura's latest donnybrook, it took him longer than it should have to realize that they had a spectator.

Standing, arms crossed on the top of a light post that had remained undamaged, Akuma looked down on Naruto, his gi waving in the night wind, "So it's you; the tether of her inhibitions that she refuses to let go of," Had he not been, Dark Sakura wouldn't have let something as simple as being held keep her from getting up to keep fighting.

'He did this?' Naruto thought in horror, thinking of what Akuma had done to him, and imagining that being done, or worse, to Sakura, "He did this…" Naruto growled, his canines sharpening and his eyes reddening in rage, all the while his dark side whispered its demanding request to him, **'Kill him!'**

"**Naruto!"** The Kyuubi snarled inside of his head, **"You're past this! Past using my power like some ravenous beast! THINK!"** It had been a long night, and there had been enough on Naruto's plate to set him off without this being one of them, **"If you slip up over something so foolish I **_**will**_** take your body from you!"**

That snapped Naruto out of his enraged state. Who knew that he'd get such a warning from the being inside of him? The thought of him actually showing some measure of concern over his state of mind put a smile on his face, 'Thanks Kyuubi. I almost went right at him.'

The grand fox snorted inside of his head, **"I've seen you overcome too much to have this get the better of you. It would be embarrassing to garner my freedom like this."**

Besides, bluster aside, this man was far too dangerous to play that game with. The Kyuubi had tried it before, taking control when Akuma forced Naruto's mind out of its normal state, and it hadn't ended very well for either of them.

Taking a deep breath, Naruto fought back his desire to tear Akuma apart and set his chakra back to normal. The red faded from his eyes and the blue returned, only with an icy-cold tint to them, "You're gonna leave her alone now."

"DO **NOT** GIVE ME ORDERS YOU POWERLESS WRETCH!" Akuma's voice boomed through the air.

The ground itself shook from the angry rebuttal, but Naruto didn't flinch or register than anything was amiss from the expression on his face, "Are you done? Why'd you come and tear up my town?"

Tearing up his town? Tch, this was nothing, "You know why I'm here," The demon of a man stated, gesturing to Sakura, "You're not fool enough to miss just how much of my power she has within her. I could never ignore obvious potential like this. All she needs is the proper direction."

Naruto looked down at Sakura in his arms who seemed to be looking at Akuma with as much hate as she could muster, which was actually an impressive amount given her current state of being, "You won't touch her again."

"If you really want to stop me that badly, do it with your own two hands," Akuma said with an almost amused expression on his harsh face, "You have until the next full moon. Either I'll be given a challenge great enough to satisfy me, or I'll make my own."

Akuma would get the battle he desired, and he would get it two times over. Naruto at his most determined would be a worthy challenge. One that he would crush. Even then however, he would still have Sakura to take and warp, and she would already be motivated to kill him after he'd killed Naruto.

He could have his cake and eat it too. There was no downside to this proposal. He would get the chance for two worthy battles, one in the near future, and one he could invest in for later. It was just smart dealing to get what he wanted.

"Reach your true potential so that I can take a measure of pride in destroying you," Akuma demanded, the air around him distorting into red and black colors, "Do it and kill me if you can, or the girl's future is mine."

Setting Dark Sakura down carefully on the ground, Naruto burned in rage, his chakra visibly flaring around him and quickly turning blood red as it engulfed him, "If you put a hand on her or anyone else I will rip! Your! Arms! Off!"

For emphasis, Naruto shot forward a chakra claw and tore the light post Akuma was on out of the ground before bending it in half in his grip. Unfortunately, Akuma had moved by the time he'd removed it from the ground.

Still, that was what Akuma wanted to hear. A true fighter could stare death in the face and lash out in anger against it. Even being crushed once by Akuma did nothing to stanch his courage, or his hatred.

"I look forward your pitiful attempt _boy_," He sneered at Naruto before vanishing in the Ashura Senku, like the specter of rage that he was.

Three weeks. That was all he'd have to wait before getting either the battle of a lifetime, or the apprentice to eclipse any future challenge he could ever possibly face.

…Maybe even both.

Naruto watched as he disappeared in the blink of an eye. He couldn't even sense him anymore. How someone so powerful could hide themselves in such an effective way, Naruto didn't know. He could take solace in the fact however, that Akuma would never do anything other than the straightforward way. When he said three weeks, he meant three weeks.

That being said, it was only three weeks.

Naruto looked over to Dark Sakura who had already returned to normal and passed out. Picking the sweet girl up into his arms, he decided to take her to the hospital just in case.

Ironic. She'd carried him off tons of times when he'd managed to overdo things in the past, like during training or some of the fights he'd had back when they were younger.

Well it looked like in less than a month Sakura would probably have to carry him home one last time.

Either that or it would never happen again for either of them.

As he left, he missed a deep void of ki that he wouldn't have been able to find even if he knew what to look for.

Gouken walked through the site of the battle that Sakura had waged futilely against Akuma, slowly and in thought.

Only one thing kept coming to mind as the old man wandered the darkened streets; that this was not good at all.

* * *

><p><span>Omake: Intervention<span>

"This is an intervention," Batsu declared out of the blue, setting his glass down on the table of the restaurant he and Naruto had been eating in. They'd gone to grab a bite to eat after training for the entire afternoon and most of the evening.

To Uchiha Sasuke's chagrin they had then chosen to close down Genhanten with how long they stayed there, eating and drinking. And now apparently there had been an ulterior motive for at least one of them as to why that place had been chosen.

"Here?" Sasuke asked, sitting in a chair not too far from Naruto and Batsu's table. He'd wiped down all the rest of the tables for the night and closed the kitchen after sending his staff home, "Do this somewhere else," 'Paying customers' his ass, he could kick them out of he wanted to.

Naruto ignored Sasuke and sipped casually at his drink, his eyes closed to slits, "Err… what? Intervention?"

"We're not leaving this place until we make you pick a girl," Batsu said, emphasizing this with five hard pokes to Naruto's chest, "It's what friends are for."

"I'm not your goddamn friend," Sasuke rebutted, "Get the hell out of my restaurant! We close in ten minutes. Take this to the dobe's apartment or something."

"Right, his apartment, where Cammy lives. One of the girls we're talking about," Batsu's tone clearly indicated how stupid he thought such an idea to be.

"I don't care. Leave."

Sasuke was not amused.

His suggestion however, was gleefully ignored.

"Okay, we're going to break this down into categories," Batsu reasoned, taking a swig of his drink before writing down all four girls' names on the back of their receipt, "There's got to be one of them that can win enough of these damn things to narrow down what's going on in his head."

Sasuke rolled his eyes but really couldn't think of a better idea aside from just ignoring the girls altogether. That was more his style though. Naruto would probably give himself gray hairs trying to ignore anyone he felt strongly about, "…Sounds reasonable enough I guess."

If he wasn't going to get them out without destroying his place of business, he could at least make this hurry along so he could get them out faster.

Naruto frowned, but nodded his consent. Batsu probably wasn't going to let up until he at least gave it a try, and how bad could things really get anyway?

He had clearly forgotten that while his friends were all good people to various degrees, they all had their own jerk-like tendencies. Ichimonji Batsu's just so happened to be a propensity for fucking with his head.

"Okay, who's the best lay? Sakura is out on this one by default since you haven't done her yet," Batsu said, eliciting a palm of the forehead from Sasuke. Why did he let these idiots close down his restaurant?

Naruto stared at his older friend openmouthed until he found the appropriate words to react with, "I can't believe you think I'd actually tell you that."

"It's to help you," Batsu said, and Naruto almost believed him. Then he remembered who he was talking to. This was for shits and giggles, nothing more, nothing less, "Now go on."

"Ibuki," Naruto grumbled, sinking down in his chair as if he'd turn into a puddle of some sort. Cammy deferred too much in the bedroom to win out, and while Karin was eager she was too unused to intimacy to beat out the kunoichi who was far more confident and loose with her lovemaking despite her original inexperience, "Yeah, definitely Ibuki, 'ttebayo."

"Nicest eyes," Sasuke said, pitying Naruto enough to throw him a softball. Batsu glared at him for breaking the more adult-oriented questioning, but apparently he didn't realize who he was trying to mad-dog with. In this world, Sasuke was probably the undisputed champion of the stare-off.

Sighing in relief, Naruto thought about all of the times he'd been close enough to admire the girls' eyes, "Mmm… Cam's are the prettiest, but there's just something about Sakura-chan's. I pick Sakura-chan."

"Best rack," Batsu asked demandingly, "Rank them from top to bottom," It was more of an order than a request. He was not letting his chain of questioning be hijacked. Sasuke could play good cop with his deeper questions all he wanted to, the name of the game for Batsu was finding out which one Naruto thought was the hottest.

In his simple mind, that would make things far easier in helping him pick one of them.

Blushing despite himself, Naruto swallowed his shame and quickly came to his conclusion, "Ibuki's are the best, then Karin's. Sakura-chan's and Cam's are a tie." There was no argument; Ibuki's were top of the class.

"Alright, Ibuki's up two so far," Batsu reported play-by-play style, marking down another score for the newly graduated kunoichi, "Not really a solid lead yet, but it could be a sign of things to come."

Damn it, this was a bad idea. A handful of questions in, and Naruto was already sweating what was to come next.

The best course of action if he was going to get through this without his face going red every five seconds would be to either hit Batsu with a chair and leave or turn his brain off and just answer the damn questions.

The first option might have been cathartic, but the fight that would follow would wreck the restaurant and draw Sasuke into it as well, and he might actually try to kill them for it. The second option was consequence free, and it was dude talk. None of this was going to leave Genhanten, even if it was embarrassing. Batsu kept his mouth shut on everything.

People had been calling him empty-headed for years, so it was time to actually back that up while answering questions.

"Next question. Best ass," Batsu asked with a smirk, getting Sasuke to raise an eyebrow at the bluntness of his query. It wasn't exactly how he would have worded it. Not that he would have worded it in any way at all.

"Sakura-chan," Naruto responded without missing a beat.

"Really?" Batsu replied in surprise, not just at his answer, but that Naruto had been as cool as a cucumber when he'd answered it, "I would have figured you'd have said Cammy."

"Nah," Naruto said, closing his eyes to see all of them in his mind's eye to gauge them accordingly, "You'd think so at first just because Cam wears that leotard all the time, but I've actually seen what Sakura-chan's got under that skirt. Plus we've had gym class together ever since middle school with those shorts the girls have to wear. Trust me, hers is the best."

Batsu stared at Naruto for a moment to try and gauge any deceit before nodding in acceptance, "Good answer. Alright, now we're getting somewhere. We might just fix you yet."

XxX

(45 Minutes Later)

They had run through most every question they could ask him, ranging in degrees of absurdity and practicality.

"Best potential mother," Sasuke asked, having finally gotten into the line of questioning shortly after it had begun.

It was oddly enough quite entertaining. After the novelty of seeing Naruto embarrassed faded away, it became legitimately intriguing. Some of Naruto's answers actually had some real thought behind them as well. Who'd have thunk it?

Naruto furrowed his brow in thought for several seconds before shrugging his shoulders and making his selection, "Cammy," Looking around he saw looks of confusion on Sasuke and Batsu's faces, "What? The way she loves on that alley cat of hers, if she's even half that devoted with any kid she has… I mean, have you ever seen her with that thing? She's totally into it, and it smells like gasoline half of the time!"

"Yeah, he has a thing for it," Batsu pointed out before raising an eyebrow, "Wait, your old apartment got destroyed. The cat's still alive?"

"Yeah."

A smile crossed the hooligan boy's face at the thought, "Goddamn it Jack Bauer, you really are the man."

Rolling his eyes, Sasuke gestured with his hand for the sheet Batsu had been marking up, "Scoreboard," Receiving the slip he asked for he quickly tallied up the scores for all of the girls, "…This didn't prove anything. They're all so close that it's meaningless, because some of the categories have to outweigh the others."

They had just wasted almost an hour of his time.

An hour after closing.

He should have been doing his late night training by now!

Those idiots!

Naruto and Batsu found themselves out on the street with no recollection as to how they'd gotten there. The last thing they remembered was making eye contact with Sasuke and then being outside of the restaurant a block away.

Oh well. Their wallets were still full so Sasuke must have given them the meal on the house. They figured that was nice of him.

When Sasuke would go over his books the next morning and discover a 21000 yen order monetarily unaccounted for, he would proceed to set the nearest flammable object ablaze.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright guys, that's the chapter.<strong>

**So I keep going, and the more I feel like I want to do a prequel story for this with Rival Schools. Again, I have no idea how much my audience knows about that damn game, it's a cult classic, but it would tie in with this story, and I keep thinking about it and getting excited.**

**Either way, I'm winding this down to the last arc I believe. Maybe ten or so more chapters and that'll be that for this story. It depends really. Whether you think you know what's gon' happen or not, I hope it's a doozy for you.**

**Seeing as how my only worthwhile moneymaking ability in life for the time being is entertaining others; be it with my fists, giving and receiving beatings, my news writing, or my… writing-writing, I hope you all enjoyed. **

**Kenchi out.**


	54. Because I Choose To

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. If I did own Street Fighter, I would have put out at least one side-scrolling beat em' up style game for it by now. If they did that and put it up for downloading on PSN or Xbox Live it would sell like hell. And I don't want to hear any crap about Final Fight. I want to be able to pick from any of the Street Fighter characters and go nuts on some commonfolk. If there was one thing I always dug about Tekken it was Tekken Force Mode.

* * *

><p><em>I can't even think about the way things were going before I met you all.<em>

_I didn't have any money, I didn't have any clue, I didn't have any chance. I didn't have a place in the world._

_I'd lost the one thing I could attach myself to, my place as a Konoha ninja and my goal to be acknowledged as Hokage. And I know in my heart that if I'd never met you I'd be dead right now. I would have done something stupid without knowing how things worked in this world and that would have been it._

_It all started with you, you know? You were there first. You were the first one that saw me._

_If it wasn't for you, there wouldn't have been anybody else. Nobody else would have ever looked my way. More people love me now than I could have ever imagined I'd have gotten, but it was because of you, because you loved me so hard, no matter how loud or dumb or cocky I was. They saw that, and they took a deeper look themselves I guess, and they found something of what you saw. _

_It kind of blows my mind though, heh. I can't imagine what you all found in me that makes me worth it… even though I am pretty awesome._

_I always wanted to go home because I had people that accepted me there, but you were the first one that ever gave me a pure chance, even out of them. You didn't already have some colored mindset on me I had to fight against to have you see me as a regular person. I didn't have to scratch and claw to get your attention. You acknowledged me for nothing, and you believed in me no matter what. _

_Not because you wanted something from me; you never asked me for a thing. Not because you had to, because I was someone you _had_ to believe in, because you needed someone, anyone, as a hero. Not because I had something powerful inside of me that you had to keep an eye on just in case I ever lost control. Not because you pitied me either, because if you did I don't think we ever would have even been friends._

_You're going to ask me why._

_You're going to cry, I already know you are, and I feel like such a bastard because I'm going to be the one that makes you cry, because I can't give you what you want. I can't be safe. Not if you're in that kind of danger._

_You're going to ask me why. _

'_Why are you going to fight him? You don't have to fight him over me. I don't want you to get hurt again, not like before.'_

_You're going to beg me to tell you why I'm going to fight that monster, and I won't be able to. It's not just because I love you. It's not because I think you need to be protected. Heh, Kami knows I know better than that. It's not because I'm afraid of your dark side or what Akuma could make it become. I told you before; that doesn't matter to me._

_But that's not going to stop the fact that you're still going to ask me why, and I won't be able to explain it. I'm not that good with words._

_I'm going to try right now, even though you're not awake to hear it, and even though it won't make any sense. I'm going to tell you why I'm going to fight a battle for you that I'm not sure I can win._

**Chapter 54: Because I Choose To**

* * *

><p>Sakura's eyes opened up after her face had taken enough of a beating from the glare of the sun for her tastes. Holding an arm over her tired orbs, she winced upon trying to roll onto her side. She swore, she'd heard the strangest muffled, garbled words in her sleep.<p>

She could only remember making out bits and pieces, not nearly enough to put together whatever the speaker had been saying. They helped her sleep like a baby though, even though she felt like a mess.

Wait…

Everything on her body being sore and her head ringing like a bell: check.

Weird sterile smell: check.

Weird robe that was _way_ too thin to be anything that she owned and would ever wear to bed: check.

And let's not forget the bed. Way more rigid and less roomier than her beloved, broken-in, and much more spacious mattress at home: check.

All of those things coupled together made it unanimously obvious where she was. The place that was the bane of her best friend's existence and the place that he made it a constant personal goal of his to never wind up in except in only the direst of circumstances.

The local hospital.

Sakura didn't share the yellow-headed young man's distaste for medical establishments, but she wasn't necessarily a fan of being a patient inside of them either. It usually meant that she'd screwed up and gotten hurt whenever she was. And she remembered just what she'd done to get herself so badly beaten up in the first place.

Her dark side with the hair-trigger temper when it came to he-who-she-adored picked a fight with the biggest baddest dog in the yard, that yard being the entire world, and paid a hefty physical price for it.

Dark Sakura cashed a check with her fists that her more docile side was paying off at the moment with her own pain and discomfort.

Turning her head to the side, a soft smile came to her face, seeing Naruto sitting in a chair right by her bed, elbow posted on the arm of it, chin posted on his fist as he slept. So he'd stuck around for her all night, and the doctors had let him stay.

Probably because he had been a patient of his own, if only for a little while. His face had a few bandages on it of his own. And where was his shirt? Sakura took a few seconds admiring quietly how hard Naruto had to work to get himself that defined before her brain finished turning on for the morning.

That was right. Last night he'd gotten into a fight with Ryu when Sakura had sensed him. Her attempt to find them and put a stop to a fight she felt was getting very serious wound up with her and Akuma tearing apart an entire neighborhood. So embarrassing…

Sakura reached out a hand and gently brushed it through Naruto's hair, blocking a giggle when she heard him softly snort in his sleep at the feeling of getting his spikes tousled, "You're so silly sometimes Naruto," She said quietly before her smile grew smaller, but no less heartfelt, "…I'm not afraid you know. Not of my Satsui no Hadou. If I still love you while I'm under it as much as I do right now, it can't be evil."

Just dark. Just intense. Misunderstood perhaps. But it wasn't pure evil power. Evil didn't love. Evil couldn't love.

No, the Satsui no Hadou wasn't necessarily evil. It was the motivation that spawned that power to manifest in people that determined if it was evil or not. It was simply the purest form of personal desire imaginable, and it drove one's body and mind to do anything it needed to in order to obtain that desire, whatever it may be.

Still asleep, Naruto leaned his head into her hand, and Sakura contented herself with lazily stroking Naruto's cheek closest to her. Honestly she could have spent the entire day in such a way. Only much closer to him, in his arms perhaps.

Yeah, that sounded good. And from experience, it was.

The door to the room flew open and through it, Ibuki rushed over to the bed, "Sakura-chan, are you alright!?" She cried out almost hysterically, jolting Naruto awake and causing him to slam the back of his head against the wall. Having recognized what Sakura had been doing before she entered, Ibuki just gave her a stern look in jest, "Moving in on my man are you?"

"He's yours like Bison is the envoy for world peace," Sakura said in rebuttal.

Ibuki smiled a worried smile and took Sakura's hands into hers, "Seriously, are you okay? I saw the place where it happened. Good God," Imagine rolling into town for school and seeing the neighborhood right by your high school where you knew your best friends lived torn to hell.

On the plus side, even though school had been canceled because of the incident they'd already taken their year-end exams so there was that.

"I'm fine," Sakura assured her, wincing as she tried and failed to sit up, "Well, not fine, but I'm as well off as I have any right to be. I could have ended up like Naruto did last year, or worse."

"No," Naruto said, suddenly attracting the full attention of the girls to him, "You wouldn't have ended up like that. Akuma wants you for… well, he just wants you."

Sakura set her hand on Naruto's arm, seeing how much he didn't want to even think about it, let alone say it to her, "Naruto, I know what he wants me for," Ibuki didn't though, so she explained it to her, "Akuma wants to turn me into someone like him, a fighter lost to the Satsui no Hadou, so he can fight a battle he can enjoy. He'll take me away, and train me just so I can try to kill him."

"That's sick!" Ibuki exclaimed, "Just… no!" Ibuki felt that Dark Sakura was scary enough as it was. For someone to _want_ to turn Sakura into something worse than that, it was horrible to think about, "Sakura-chan, we've got to take you somewhere. You can hide in my village if you want."

The Glade of Ninjas was a secure place. Naruto was the only outsider who knew where it was, and technically he wasn't even an outsider because he was a ninja as well.

Sakura frowned and shook her head, "It's okay, I wouldn't ask you to break any traditions for me," And that wouldn't work anyway. He found her because he could scope out the Satsui no Hadou in her… at least she thought so, "If I hide he'll just go after Naruto, and then anyone else he has to just to find me,"

"He won't have to look very far to find me," Naruto said, glaring out into space, "If that dried-up red tampon wants a piece of me he can come and get it. I'll beat his teeth flat if he thinks he's gonna put another hand on Sakura-chan."

As a matter of fact he was wasting time sitting there and talking. He needed a game plan, he needed to train, and he needed to start now. Everything he did for the World Warrior Tournament was nothing compared to what he knew he'd have to do to himself now.

Sakura opened her mouth and reached out to grab him to stop him, but Ibuki just stopped her and shook her head until Naruto had left the room, "I know Naruto usually listens to the things you say, but there's no way he's going to back off."

"But why?" Sakura knew that Naruto knew that taking on Akuma was a horrible idea. She didn't want _anyone_ to fight that monster, least of all him, "He'll just get hurt!"

Ibuki flicked Sakura right in the middle of the forehead, eliciting a yelp from her, "You know what's in Naruto's heart. You should be the first person to know why," Getting hurt or killed didn't matter to Naruto whatsoever. As far as deterrents went, it was the weakest one a person could use against him, "Even if we all tell him not to fight the freak that did this to you, he's still going to."

"I hate that about him," Sakura muttered, only to be met with a knowing smile and a shake of the head from her kunoichi friend.

"No you don't," Ibuki assured her with a pat on the thigh. She knew better. Sakura only sighed and set herself back on her hospital bed to stare grumpily up at the ceiling, "Come on. Let's get a doctor to check you out so we can get you home."

XxX

(Saikyou-Ryuu Dojo)

The sound of Dan's forehead palming was positively epic. He'd come home from a quick excursion to check on the interest of his dojos in other towns and he returned to _this_? After hearing the story he'd heard, for once he was actually 100% on Uzumaki's side in something. Hell had officially frozen over.

Honestly, he would have tried to slug Ryu himself if he thought the punch would have actually had a chance at landing.

"You're fucking remedial, you know that?" Dan said to Ryu who was wearing bandages covering the pretty rugged-looking injuries he'd gotten the previous night in his little spat with Naruto, "I don't blame the kid. If I were him and I thought I could have gotten away with it the way he can I would have put your head through a windshield."

"I think he might have tried that actually…" Ryu muttered, "But why doesn't he understand?"

Dan shook his head, "It's not that he doesn't understand, because he probably does. It's who you're talking about that makes it impossible to stomach. He's the kind of kid that'll reject whatever reality you're throwing at him if he thinks he's got what it takes to make things better."

In a way it was admirable. Never say die, and always keep your feet pushing forward to get to what you wanted or prove what you'd set out to prove. Really. It was a rugged way to live one's life. Unfortunately Ryu was the same way in a certain regard. Once he had his mind set on something it wasn't going to change.

It was like the unstoppable force of stubborn headbutting the immovable object right in the face. Which one would back down, and just how much pushing would it take to make it happen?

"You'd have been better off trying to tongue kiss a pit viper than take one of those girls from him," Dan insisted, "You think you're going to tell him to just cut bait and drop Sakura like a bad habit? Have you been paying attention to what that kid's willing to do for any single one of them?"

"I haven't been around much. Is it really that considerable?" Ryu said, wondering just what Dan was alluding to. From the jaw-dropped look on the purple gi-clad entrepreneur's face apparently he'd asked the wrong thing.

Dan didn't know where to start. Perhaps he'd start with Naruto deigning to take on Shadaloo out of revenge for Ibuki and smoothly transition into Naruto taking in amnesiac Cammy as a permanent roommate after she'd helped him prevent Bison from holding the world hostage with a satellite death laser?

Nah. Maybe he'd start smaller with explaining how Naruto started trying to become the best fighter in the world only because the Kanzuki girl wanted him to live up to the potential that she knew he had inside? That had certainly manifested itself in kind back during the damn tournament hadn't it?

Dan didn't even want to think about getting into the whole S.I.N. thing. Naruto literally ripped a creature's stomach out to get one of those girls back. He was glad that he'd never actually been present for any of these little episodes because they all sounded like horrible experiences.

"I don't know how much of this crap is exaggerated or not," Dan admitted, as he hadn't exactly tagged along on any of these damned suicide missions. He _had_ seen the tournament though until the worldwide feed had cut out, and that was enough for him to believe in, "But if it's all legit, Uzumaki would move a mountain for those girls."

"That's a little exaggeratory isn't it?" Ryu asked. The spirit of the fight was all someone should have needed to reach new heights of strength. It was what had broken him out of Bison's control in Thailand after all. The fight with Sagat made him wake up.

Dan shook his head, "No, you don't get it. The kid literally moved a mountain for one of those girls," He said, pulling out his phone, "Ken Masters tweeted a picture of himself standing by the mountain that Uzumaki had his fight under and in front of. There's pictures of that same mountain from a distance before they went to Las Vegas. Now there's big chunks of it missing and it isn't in the same place anymore."

And indeed, Dan showed Ryu the picture of the Spring Mountains from before and then Ken's picture from after. Out of the entire range, one peak in particular was horribly warped and off-kilter from the original shot.

He couldn't believe it. That level of power was reached by a person that didn't see fighting to be the best as the end-all reason for doing it. That flew in the face of everything Ryu had lived his life for.

…Could Ryu have done the same without tapping into _it_?

He'd used a mountain face as a target for practice with his most destructive techniques, but no matter how many times he fired his most powerful Hadoken he never fully demolished or _moved_ the mountain. Driving himself past what he felt his limits were in his bid to achieve true mastery hadn't netted him the same results as a seventeen year-old kid fighting for whatever it was he fought for.

Was it acceptance? Was it love? Those attachments would always keep a martial artist from fully dedicating themselves to the art itself. They were distractions that would take away from your development.

Without warning, Ryu just turned to leave the dojo altogether, much to Dan's confusion, "Oi, where are you going?"

"To train," Ryu said simply before leaving the building and walking the streets.

Dan just stared after him before shaking his head, "Is that the guy's answer to everything?" He said to himself. With the way Ryu was, no one would see hide nor hair of him for weeks due to him heading to some remote location for his isolated training. All in all it was probably for the best at the moment, "…At least he won't leave the country yet."

XxX

(Elsewhere in Aohura City – Naruto's Neighborhood)

Cammy was a smart girl. She knew full well that someone Naruto was wary of wasn't particularly someone she could hope to defeat. Still, that didn't make want to punch Akuma in the face any less than she did upon hearing seeing the disaster area that her quaint little neighborhood had become overnight.

She wasn't normally one to get angry, but she was quite attached to her little home now. She loved Aohura City, and seeing the view of all of the wrecked town blocks from the roof of the apartment building she shared with Naruto left her quite miffed. She couldn't even focus on training properly because of it.

Sakura was somewhat responsible as well, but Cammy couldn't hold her place in the destruction against her. It had been Sakura's dark side, but even if she hadn't turned it on and had fought Akuma she was certain that a comparable level of destruction would have come from a man like that anyway. He'd destroyed the arena in Tokyo after all.

"…Master didn't go to school today, and he left the hospital, so where is he?" Cammy complained to herself, idly musing that if Naruto heard her call him 'master' he would be rather cross with her. She couldn't help it though. The stronger he seemed to get and the more she seemed to recognize it, the stronger the call was for her to refer to him as such, "I have very little to do during the day,"

She needed a distraction at the moment to keep from dwelling on the situation at hand. Abel was out job hunting, so she couldn't go and visit her 'brother' to take her mind off of things.

Naruto called her from the hospital, but he hadn't called since early in the morning and she knew for damn certain that school was canceled. Aohura City usually didn't budge when freaky superpowered things happened within its limits, but those things hadn't outright wrecked several blocks of residential area right by the high school before.

As long as he wasn't out trolling for Ryu. She had an ill feeling about the thought of Naruto and Ryu having it out for real. The man couldn't accept losing to his own best friend who trained by his side for their entire lives, so how would he react in fighting Naruto and steadily finding himself on the short end of that stick?

She shook her head at the thought. There was no chance that Ryu could defeat Naruto now if things were deadly serious. He was just too strong. Naruto wasn't the same as he'd been even six months prior during the Second World Warrior Tournament. If Ryu was basing their respective abilities off of that, he'd be in for a rude awakening.

Speaking of one of the devils, Cammy caught sight of Naruto darting across the rooftops on the way to the apartment. And here he said he didn't traverse the neighborhood that way normally, "Welcome home ma-, Naruto."

Naruto heard her near slip of the tongue but didn't pay it any mind. She was cute and he was mentally occupied, so he'd let the master stuff slide that time around. Even so, he couldn't help but smile a bit when she seemed to be excited to see him, "Hey Cam."

He had to lean back out of the way when Cammy got up on her toes to check his face over. Finding that he'd mostly healed from what he told her had happened last night, she figured that she wouldn't have to try and bludgeon Ryu to a pulp the next time she saw him, "I'm happy that you're alright. But why do you seem so sad?"

Naruto frowned and reached out a hand to stroke Cammy's scarred cheek, "I'm not. I'm just thinking," He said, as Cammy shut her eyes and calmly leaned into his touch, "…Cam, the guy that took on Sakura-chan, I'm gonna fight him," Her blue eyes snapped open in alarm.

But, when he'd called her he'd told her that Akuma had been the one to hurt Sakura. Akuma, the person that had hurt Naruto worse than he'd ever been hurt in his life.

Naruto could see in Cammy's bright eyes that she was wary of such a course of action to say the least. He couldn't blame her. He wasn't all that excited about it either, but he had a month. He just had to figure out what exactly he could do within that timespan to ensure he had a better chance at victory than he had at the moment.

Cammy wanted to say something, but she already knew that words would be futile. She didn't possess the range of vocabulary or the range of emotion it would have taken to make a person like Naruto reconsider. She didn't even know enough to realize that she was scared at the thought of Naruto fighting Akuma again, but for some reason the need to hug Naruto was greater than anything else.

"I understand," Cammy said, sinking her face into Naruto's chest, "I'll help you," For some reason when she told him that, his arms wrapped around her tighter than they had been at first, "…Naruto?"

"I don't want you anywhere nearby when that fight starts," Naruto choked out to her, "I don't want anybody anywhere near him or me when it happens."

"You said that I was free, and that I could do anything I wanted," Cammy said, pulling back away from Naruto, "Well I want to help! I don't like seeing you or anyone else I care about getting hurt! Do you think that it's easy for me or anyone else to just watch you, even if we're aware that you're beyond us in strength?"

He didn't. The girls were empathetic in their own respective ways. It just never occurred to him that it hurt them to watch him fight and to see the things that he was willing to put his body through for whatever reason he fought for at any given time, even if it was for them. All he saw was that he won or lost, or that he saved or protected something.

"No one can match what you can do with raw power," Cammy continued to say, "…Maybe I was able to fight alongside you once, when I fought Bison with you, but I can't remember that time and it doesn't matter anyway," She'd long since considered her lost memory unimportant. If Naruto didn't care, if no one else cared, she didn't care, "I want to be with you, no matter what that means."

"Cammy…" Naruto said, feeling awful as he could see unshed tears gathering in her eyes. He'd never seen that happen to her before. She wasn't supposed to, "Please don't cry."

"I don't know how to cry," Cammy said, wiping at her eyes and examining the moisture on her finger, "I don't remember it ever happening before. Is this what that's supposed to feel like?"

"…Oh Cam," It was all Naruto could say as he pulled her back in. She simply melted into the hug, without hesitation. She deserved to be somewhere doing something safe, and she deserved the chance to have anything she wanted. People weren't supposed to be this pure, "You're so sweet. You're really too good to be stuck with me."

"Don't say silly things," Cammy said, resting against Naruto and letting him fully support her as he stroked the back of her hair, "I've been all over the world, done all sorts of things, and met all kinds of people because of you. I even met my brother. And I still wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

The thought of letting anyone else fight Akuma chilled Naruto to his core. Even all together, all of his friends, what would they be able to do? But in the same vein, what would he be able to do, especially by himself? A lot had changed from the first time they'd met, true enough, but he'd never even seen anything hurt Akuma, so how would he know if it was enough or if he was in reach of getting to what he needed?

"**You could finish the technique we were working on for one,"** Naruto heard the Kyuubi say inside of him, **"If you trust me enough to use the process that I told you about, it could be the greatest weapon you could have in a battle with that person."**

'If you're still up for the training, I'm still up for doing it,' Naruto thought, 'I just have one question,' He asked, his face stony and grave to reflect his thoughts on the current issue.

It seemed like the most important question Naruto would ever ask from the sound of things, **"What is it?"**

'Can I stop Sasuke's Kirin with this jutsu?' Dead silence reigned throughout Naruto's head for almost a full minute before a gigantic sigh sounded out.

"…**Seriously?"** His own life and the future of his best friend were at stake, and that was a factor in his enthusiasm in learning a technique that had the potential to negate Akuma's most powerful technique. The thought of such a thing really answered Naruto's stupid question in of itself.

'You have no idea how important hearing you say yes is right now,' Naruto added seriously.

The Kyuubi wanted to run its head into the walls… if the inside of the seal cell it was imprisoned had them, **"Theoretically… yes,"** It would have been literally catching a lightning bolt the size of a skyscraper out of the air, but if Naruto was swift enough to initiate the technique with perfect timing before it hit him... **"You could redirect it and shoot him in the ass with it if you were actually good enough."**

'That's seriously the best thing I've heard since I woke up,' Naruto grinned, honestly meaning that, which was just a reflection of how poorly his day had been going. A stray thought hit him out of left field however, 'But I thought you wanted this place to burn, or whatever.'

"**It's by far the lesser of two evils. I've said it before, I would rather remain here than return to our world where humans constantly hunted me for my power,"** Kyuubi explained, **"It's peaceful here… by comparison."**

'Yeah,' Naruto agreed, calmly rocking with his little Doll in his arms, '…It is.'

XxX

(Hours Later)

The last person Sakura had expected to pick her up at the hospital that day was Karin.

Yes, they were no longer worst enemies, yes they no longer fought with each other like cats and dogs, and yes they were both openly friends, but even so, having Karin come all the way out from her mansion grounds simply to ferry Sakura home to her quaint neighborhood didn't seem like something that she would do.

It wasn't until they actually reached Sakura's neighborhood that she realized why Karin had done this.

She wanted to see just what had happened there for herself. She wanted to look at what Akuma (and Sakura as well) could do with that horrible power. Seeing the aftermath on the news wasn't the same thing as being there in-person to look upon it oneself.

Karin's brown eyes peered out of the tinted windows of her limousine at the ruined buildings and streets that Shibazaki skillfully navigated them past. They hadn't gotten close to clearing the streets yet.

As she stared, she looked to be so deep in thought, so utterly preoccupied. Sakura didn't say a word, as if disturbing the tranquil thought of the wealthy girl was a capital offense.

'What could she be thinking about?' Sakura wondered to herself, fidgeting in the change of new clothes that Ibuki ran out to get for her shortly before she'd been cleared to leave the hospital. Eventually deciding to go for it, Sakura cleared her throat, barely registering Karin's attention, "Kanzuki-san?"

"Naruto-san is going to fight him isn't he?" Karin bluntly asked, eyes still looking out the window at everything they were passing by, "That monster of a man that hurt him so badly. He's going to take him on again. Am I wrong?"

Sakura opened her mouth, but didn't know how to answer. She knew how Karin felt about Naruto, so how in the world could she explain to her that the man she loved was going to fight the closest example of an invincible fighter that she'd ever stood against? Akuma hadn't even been trying against her, and she'd allowed her darker side to show without remorse.

"No," Sakura quietly said, "He is."

Karin let out an airy laugh that had absolutely no sense of humor behind it, "I cannot say that this surprises me, nor would I consider stopping him. I know better than to try, and it would be hypocritical of me to long for him to fight for me and expect him cower in the face of another battle."

"It wouldn't be cowering to not fight Akuma," Sakura reasoned, but she knew Karin was right. To expect Naruto to fight in one situation and then run away in another wasn't fair. It wasn't who he was, "…It doesn't have to be him."

Karin simply gave her a small smile that seemed to exude nothing but knowledge, no humor whatsoever, "Who else would be able to stand against such a person? Present company excluded of course?" She asked, fully aware Sakura had surpassed her quite some time ago. She had skill and ability, but that would only carry you so far against the raw power that their worst enemies had, "I do not have the benefit of an aggressive dark side with ki dense enough to strangle a tyrannosaurus."

Sakura blushed self-consciously but once again could not dispute the point, "So you're willing to let him, without even trying to stop him."

"He wants to fight, and I will give him anything his heart desires," Karin said, closing her eyes in a serene smile, "He probably does not even recall, but he has achieved the parameters of our original agreement. He has gone beyond them in fact. I never would have dreamed that he was as strong as he is."

"Agreement?"

"You do not remember either? That is surprising, considering you referred to it as a 'deal with the devil' at the time," Karin teased, "Two years ago, I told Naruto-san that should he become the most powerful fighter in Japan I would fund whatever endeavor he had been working so hard to achieve. He has long since achieved that goal."

Naruto was amongst the very best in the world. The top of the heap if one were to look at the opposition he had overcome in the past. There was only one level beyond what he was, and that was the level of the man he endeavored to fight in only a short time.

"I do not believe that he requires my money, even if he did desire it. Thus my amendment to our initial agreement," Karin said with a great sigh. Sakura had never heard her speak so candidly to her before, and it had her full attention, "He has no more use for the original compensation for achieving the potential that I knew he possessed. Therefore, I will give him anything within my power," No matter what that entailed.

In Karin's mind, she owed Naruto more than she could possibly repay him, even with the nigh-infinite resources she had at her disposal. It wasn't anything physically tangible that she wished to give him.

Well… not entirely anyway.

"It's just scary," Sakura admitted, wrapping her arms around herself, "I know we've dealt with these kinds of things before, but-."

"Never without someone older than us to tell us what to do?" Karin finished for her, nodding, "I understand."

Everyone had to grow up eventually, and even though their childhoods were odd, they had still been teenagers through most of their escapades and situations. There had always been someone older and wiser to coordinate for them.

Most youngsters came into their own as people and became comfortable in their own skin in the big, wide world by getting part-time jobs or paying off small bills such as their own cell phone charges. Most teenagers didn't have saving the world as their method of garnering a sense of responsibility. They were just lucky that way.

They'd never had the thought that something was too big for them to handle before, because there had never been any time to stop and think about just what it was they were getting into. Things needed to be done fast, and they were the ones in position to do them. It wasn't a matter of if they could or couldn't. They had been the only ones that could even try, so they had to.

Akuma had done them an injustice crueler than he'd probably thought of intentionally, because for once they had the time to sit and think about just what awaited them nearby down the road.

"Does it make me seem like a little kid to say that I wish the adults could handle this?" Sakura joked with a slight laugh. After it had come out of her mouth it had sounded so childish to say, "Akuma went after Ryu and Master Gouken first didn't he? He's their enemy. Do they even know what's happening?"

"I know nothing of this Gouken person's strength, but Ryu is not greater than Naruto-san. I believe you know this," The thought was almost laughable to Karin. And another thing was as well. Something that she had to touch on, as she needed to get this out in the open and over with, "…Sakura-san, I think I know the reasoning behind your past infatuation with Ryu."

"What?"

Karin didn't answer directly, instead choosing to do so with another question, "Would it be too forward of me to ask the whereabouts of your father?" She knew of course. Back in her obsessive 'win at all costs' days she'd done background checks on every fighter she figured she'd interact with, including Sakura.

She still did actually.

Frowning, Sakura didn't see why not. It wasn't some big secret. It just never came up. It wasn't important, "My parents divorced years ago when I was little. Tsukushi was still a toddler," Naruto never asked about it, but he knew simply by passing through despite the fact that it had happened years before they'd met, "It was awful when it happened, but I got over it, you know."

Maybe that was where the fighting came from? Getting interested in that took her mind off of her dad that she never saw. It let her forget about it all, and Naruto had a big part in making that happen. It seemed to come back to him in some way.

"Which explains Ryu," Karin said with a leering grin, "You were not in love with him. You were a fan of one of the best in the world, and when you first met him and he then took you on as something of a junior. When he gave you that much attention in one meeting and then left, you imprinted. It is a classic case of desiring the attention of your senpai, only more extreme in your case," Sakura's eyes went wide at the deduction, "A replacement for a strong male figure that departed before you truly needed him in your life."

Sakura just stared at her silently for several seconds, eliciting a shrug out of the heiress, "How do you figure that? Do you have your own stuff with your dad?"

If any girl knew something about having a few daddy issues and admitting it, it would likely be Karin.

"Well… yes, but also no. I believe that my own issues have nothing to do with the nature of your turmoil," Karin said with a red-faced cough, "…It benefits you to have knowledge of basic human psychology when your aim in life is business. It also makes stark realizations about yourself that much more evident."

"I…" Sakura tried to speak before eventually giving up on trying to say anything to the contrary altogether, "…Since when did we become this good of friends?" Really, they used to dislike each other with great intensity. It was strange.

"I would say that falling in love with the same idiot gave us a fairly good base to build from oddly enough."

Speaking of whom, Sakura hadn't seen Naruto since that morning and Karin hadn't heard from him since the trouble of the previous evening. Where was he?

XxX

(Industrial District – Training Junkyard)

The trials and tribulations of being taught a technique by another person that had already mastered it was absolutely nothing compared to the bitter work that came with creating something from scratch. Naruto had done this several times in the past, but most of the time when he had come up with something it was usually just a creative method of brute-forcing chakra.

What the Kyuubi was insisting that he learn was the antithesis of everything that he'd ever tried before. The amount of power he could put behind something didn't matter. The strength of his chakra meant nothing. It was pure technique, timing, and quickness.

There was no forcing his way through this.

"**You **_**have**_** to redirect it immediately,"** The Kyuubi instructed Naruto as he seemed to be practicing the perfect motion he'd need to do just that. It was almost like a kata, **"If I reverse your chakra flow without resetting it instantly after you take in the energy of your opponent, you'll explode."**

"Great," Naruto deadpanned, feeling completely weird at being coached through something by a gigantic fox, "What if you reset my chakra but I don't redirect it?"

"**Then you'll wish you'd exploded. But it doesn't matter,"** The hell it didn't! But Naruto listened regardless as it was clear that the Kyuubi wasn't finished, **"You have to save it anyway. It's only going to catch that man off-guard once,"** Akuma was a royal son of a bitch, but thinking that the man wasn't a genius of combat was the single dumbest mistake any breathing human being could ever make, **"You need to push him to his limit. Force him to fire his absolute best attack at you, and don't use this jutsu before he does. It's the only way to ensure you kill him with it."**

So it was an all-or-nothing sort of move. Well that was right up Naruto's alley, even if he wasn't excited about it.

"Can't I just kill him the old-fashioned way?" As in with a big, honking Rasengan right to the grill, or by beating the ever-loving daylights out of him until he stopped moving? That tended to solve the majority of Naruto's problems.

"**To be frank? I don't think you can go head-to-head with him in a real battle of attrition, even if you split control with your dark side for six-tails,"** Kyuubi said, batting its tails around in Naruto's mind while thinking, **"…You may be able to go up to eight using this method. Maybe. But you won't have the presence of mind in the slightest to fight with any sort of strategy, let alone remain aware enough to redirect any attack that comes your way."**

Eight tails. That was… a lot. But it was just one step away from all nine. What if…

"Hey, I know it's an uneven number so I'd be unbalanced with my dark side, but could I use all nine?"

"**Not without taking off the seal. And that's the honest truth. There is no other way that I'm privy to,"** The Kyuubi said, **"Your blasted people didn't exactly share to me the secrets of their reality-altering sealing technique before they imprisoned me within them."**

'Pssht. Point taken,' As time dragged on, Naruto felt a motion for the counterattack coming through smoother and smoother, bringing a smile to his face as he repeated the action for hours and hours. Every time he did he'd send Kyuubi a mental cue to switch the directional flow of his chakra.

Time slipped away from him. He normally hated doing something so monotonous in practice. He preferred when his training involved explosions and action. Today there was no room for that sort of short-minded thinking. He needed to focus. He needed to be able to do this when he had no energy left. When he could hardly stand. He wanted to catch himself sleepwalking and doing the technique.

In this instance, the juice would be well worth the squeeze.

So engrossed was Naruto, that he hardly noticed a feeling that he had only sensed in Brazil taking a place watching him atop the hood of one of the junkyard cars. Oro's red eyes watched with interest, as if he were viewing a show on TV.

This was the most interesting child he'd ever seen. Out of the group of students that had gone down to Brazil, he knew that Naruto was the strongest without even feeling his full power or seeing him fight, and he _had_ seen him fight against Ryu.

'He's self-taught…' Oro realized with great intigue, 'It's obvious from everything about him. From how he moves in battle, to the way he's trying to teach himself whatever he's doing now. This is how someone that already knows the process of building something from scratch would practice.'

Naruto had gotten as far as had gotten by himself, and he hadn't hit the unbreakable ceiling yet. It was very intriguing.

"What are you doing boy?" The sight of Naruto almost jumping out of his skin was enough to drive Oro to senile-sounding laughter, "I didn't scare you did I?"

"Where the fuck did you come from!?" Naruto shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Brazil," Oro replied in a smart-aleck manner, "But if you want to get technical, I came from here first, then moved to Brazil, then I came back here because you kids amused me."

The first instinct that Naruto had whenever he was put in a situation akin to being snuck up on was to save face by running his mouth. It was the easiest way to let himself know that his screw-up hadn't gotten him killed, the fact that he could still hear the stupid things he chose to say.

But this time he just didn't have it in him. He didn't feel like it. There were more important things to worry about than goofing around. He could try and have fun after pending doom was no longer looming over his and his best friend's heads.

"Old man, I've got work to do," Naruto said, turning his attention back to his training. If the old fart still wanted to talk, Naruto could tune him out. Eventually he'd have to use that move on someone shooting energy blasts with enough power to wipe half of a city off of the map, so having some weird hermit yap at him wasn't much of a distraction by comparison, "What do you want? And why'd you even follow us here?"

Oro didn't answer, instead he continued observing Naruto, even as the sun eventually set behind them. The dark didn't stop Naruto at all. He didn't need to see to work through the motions. Oro couldn't help the small wry smile that came to his face, 'So he can choose whether he wants to play stand-up comedian or executioner.'

Naruto's eyes moved over to Oro every so often. What did he want with him? If he thought he was just going to show up and steal his technique Sasuke-style… well that would have actually been pretty impressive to do; reverse-engineer a move that he hadn't even mastered yet. That sounded like what Sakura did with Ryu's techniques.

The golden-skinned martial artist's reason for watching Naruto was simple. He was fascinating. He knew Naruto was preparing for something big, and there was something about the young man that just screamed out that he was a special sort.

His strength could have been heard through the words he'd spoken to that ninja girl when she'd tried to fight against him on his mountain. The conviction and care he had for her when she seemed to doubt herself, it was stronger than tempered steel.

Plus, he'd already handed that stick in mud Gouken's golden boy a punch to the face for setting him off, which put the blond as alright in his book to begin with. More importantly than anything else though, he could tell from watching him and seeing how he interacted with those girls, and even his friends around town.

Naruto got it. He got that fighting just for the sake of getting into a fight and being the best wasn't enough. You would never be the most powerful if that was your mindset. Your reason for improving and surviving harrowing battles had to go beyond the concept of just doing it because, otherwise your abilities would plateau.

You needed something beyond the desire to win for the sake of winning to truly be a powerful fighter. To have a reason to excel past simply being great, that was what separated the greats from the absolute best.

'And to think…' Oro thought to himself as Naruto trained into the night. He definitely wasn't bored any longer, '…I gave up on any fighter ever becoming anything special after my generation ended.'

XxX

(Meanwhile – Elsewhere – Genhanten)

As loathe as Sasuke was to have a new 'employee' at his restaurant and in Gen's assassin-for-hire work, he had to admit that having Abel around had its benefits. For one thing, he didn't have to spend as much time taking missions and could focus on his training, for another thing. That went hand-in-hand perfectly with Gen seemingly never leaving the restaurant, so Sasuke didn't even have to stick around to manage its day-to-day operations.

He had all the time to himself that he wanted, and with other people being busy these days for various reasons, he didn't have to deal with the idiocy of his 'friends'.

All he had to deal with was one crusty, old contract-killer, who seemed to know whenever he was home, because there was no other discernible reason that Gen would be walking the upstairs halls at the same time as him.

"How was your training?" Gen asked his unwilling pupil curiously.

"Fine," Sasuke grumbled, wanting to punch a hole in that old sack of crap's face more than he wanted to converse civilly with him. He simply walked past him on the way to his room for the night. There was no way he was going to hang around long enough for Gen to pull any info out of him on-.

"And your date with that motorcycle girl?"

Damn his dusty old bones to the ninth circle of hell.

"It wasn't a date," Sasuke said, hands coolly shoved into his pockets as he moved forward. He wasn't going to turn around. Wasn't willing to give him the satisfaction of blowing up at him. To hell with Naruto being the most annoying, being around Gen literally made Sasuke openly contemplate murder.

"An outing with a young woman who clearly fancies you and who you obviously don't detest from the amount of time you spend with her as opposed to every other human being on Earth," Gen said in a manner of speaking reserved for children and idiots, "Yes boy, it was what you kids so commonly refer to as a date."

"Just do the world a favor and die already you miserable bastard!" Sasuke shouted at him before continuing on to his room, "Jump off of the highest skyscraper you can find, cut your wrists, and bite a cyanide tablet on the way down!"

Gen brought out the bloodlust in Sasuke like no one else. It was simply too easy, as the man who tormented him into improving as a thirteen year-old boy, to make Sasuke react violently to anything that he did.

"The skyscraper and the slitting wrists wouldn't kill me by the way," Gen quipped one last time, getting a visible recoil of anger and hatred out of Sasuke before he slammed his door shut. Giving a chuckle at rousing his protégé, Gen headed up to the roof, his hands tucked into his long sleeves, "Sorry to keep you waiting. It's becoming a bit of a habit for your types to try and confront me on rooftops."

He joked, but the serious expression of Gouken showed that he was in no mood for any of it. He had a bone to pick and he wanted to get to the bottom of it.

"You sent him to her. Why would you do such a thing?" Gouken bluntly asked his fellow elder martial artist. Beating around the bush would do no one any good. Sure, Gen belief in killing flew directly in the face of Gouken's martial arts philosophy, but they were still equals in regards to their status, "You know Akuma will do, both to that Naruto boy and to Sakura."

"Maybe it's because I enjoy chaos? Maybe it's because I haven't been amused in quite some time? Maybe it's because I'm just a miserable old man, bitter that his time is over," His expression then changed and killing intent permeated the area, "Or maybe it's because the boy has the heart to do what you should have done over a decade ago when you were still able; put that creature out of its misery before he destroys the world!" Gen said with a sharp glare in his eyes before softening back up with a smirk, "…Or maybe it's none of the above. Either way, my reasons are my own and what's done is done."

"You're playing a dangerous game with the lives of children."

"If you're putting it that way, most games are a substitute for war anyway. I'm simply cutting out any pretenses here."

"And if he dies and she becomes Akuma's?"

At Gouken's query, Gen merely shrugged his shoulders. That was the best he was going to get out of the shifty old assassin.

A fight in a city between the two of them would be too dangerous for the surrounding populace, and aside from that Gouken was too old to have such a temper, "By the time you realize what you've done, I can only hope you're in a position to assist me on the matter. When the moment comes, you'll do the right thing."

"I love those moments," Gen said, lifting a hand and waving goodbye at Gouken, "I like to wave as they pass by."

The message was clear, 'We are not the same, and those children mean nothing to me.'

What they represented meant infinitely more than who they actually were as far as Gen was concerned. Gouken had no ally here, that much was starkly evident, 'Then it will fall to me to try my hand at this matter on my own.'

Gen didn't budge as Gouken wordlessly left his domain. Scoffing as he felt the void presence of the powerful grandmaster moving farther away, "Feh…"

As a stubborn old man, Gen was incorrigible. When this reared its ugly head he would present Gouken no help on the matter of solving the issue. Whether he was right or wrong meant nothing to Gen. The die had already been cast, and he would see it out until the end, even if it meant the end of one life and the ruin of several others.

That was how he was; entirely inflexible. He would follow his own actions to the bitter end, no matter what. Pleading words of the weak were worthless in coercing him, as were the conviction-filled words of the strong.

He took a single step away when he realized through nearly unbridled anger that he and Gouken had not been alone, 'He was able to hide his presence from someone even as sensitive as Gouken? And with that sort of killing intent as well?'

Impressive, but he didn't let Sasuke know that. The boy wouldn't have given a damn if he'd impressed Gen anyway. He never had before, and with what he knew now more than likely being the cause of his rage he probably wouldn't start anytime soon.

"You really did that?" Sasuke asked, flexing out his fingers as if he were a mere hair away from charging a Chidori. Sure, he didn't necessarily like Sakura, and Naruto could get into a fight with anyone he damn well pleased, but still-, "I'm the only one who gets to watch him die."

"Well look at it this way. No matter what you're in over your head," Gen said, knowingly taunting Sasuke subtly, "If the boy does die, you're too weak to kill Akuma for being the one to end him. If the boy lives, you'll know that he's too powerful for you to defeat, since Akuma would squash you like an insect," Gen said with a scoff as he walked away to his quarters, "You children never try to amount to anything unless someone else pushes you to."

"I'm going to kill you."

"Yes, I know. I hear it so often from you that I can mark calendars by it."

"No, I mean it," Sasuke said, stopping Gen in his tracks from the timbre in the young man's voice. It wasn't the normal jerk-knee petulant rage that he associated with Sasuke's reactions to him, "You do have a bit of a point. I was getting soft here. I like this town," After that admission he hesitated to admit something one step further that Gen would have never expected, "I… actually like being around Akira. But…"

"But what?"

"But I just remembered something," The misplaced Uchiha said, his voice eerily calm, "I just remembered more than anything else why you really, really piss me off," Sasuke spat distastefully, "Some decisions aren't yours to make, especially when they involve other people's lives. That's been a problem for as long as I've known you."

"Well I've told you the only time that people like you can make decisions over people like me," Gen said, baiting the hook one last time, "The new generation has to supplant the old if they ever want any say in how things work."

Sasuke didn't say anything until Gen reached the bottom of the stairs, "I don't care about that 'generations' crap. That's why I never listened to you when you said anything about it. I'm not killing you because you're a miserable, immoral fuck. I don't care about that. I'm not killing you because I want a say in the future of the underworld, or the future of martial arts. I don't have any overreaching agenda for it at all. I'm going to kill you because I always swore I would. Because I don't like you. Because I have a _need_ to kill you, you old son of a bitch."

Gen advanced onward down the stairs, not letting Sasuke hear his final murmur as he retired to his room for the night, "Good."

XxX

(The Next Night – Naruto's Apartment)

With no school, and no requirement to any longer adhere to the strict limitations of the Glade of Ninjas on her activities, Ibuki was free to come and go and do as she pleased. Knowing that Naruto was going to fight Akuma only made her that much more determined to do something to help in some capacity, much like Cammy.

She couldn't help him defeat the self-proclaimed master of the fist. Massive breakthrough during her training to fight Oro aside, she'd be of no serious help and she knew it.

In the meantime, the company of the people she knew in Aohura City was nice, and if all else failed she'd have had time to come up with a contingency plan to help Sakura just in case things went south. Thus, she was a welcome guest at Naruto's apartment.

"-And that's what we've got going on in our hemisphere," Ibuki said, sitting with her back against a tub in summer civilian clothes, her toes tapping off of the tiles on the floor as she spoke to one of their adult friends on her phone. Her pet tanuki Don chirped in her lap, "So… what's new with you?"

"_He's going to motherfucking WHAT!?"_

Ibuki held her cell phone away from her ear at the extremely loud shout she'd gotten from their American friend on the other end of the line. Even Don winced painfully, "You heard me Ken. You can't change his mind, and he's already getting prepared for it so-."

"_Is he around? Can you put him on for me?"_

"Sure," Ibuki said. She had been in the bathroom right along with Naruto while he'd been in the tub. Normally she'd have been all for playing with him and trying to share a bath and/or shower with him, but not the one that he was taking, "I don't know why you wanted me to call him, but he wants to talk to you now."

Sitting in the tub behind her, Naruto shivered heavily as flows of ice stuck out of the water around him. His best efforts were spent trying to control his body's involuntary attempts to warm itself up while he tried to focus his mind. Aside from that, he heard something about ice baths being good to help muscles recover after extreme training.

He severely underestimated just how damnably miserable ice baths were, but since he'd made the decision to start

Ibuki held up the phone to Naruto's ear as he tried to get his teeth to stop chattering, "Y-Y-Y-Yeah? W-What's up Ken?"

"_I'm thinking of catching a flight to Japan to break my foot off in your ass, but my wife is pregnant so I'm just going to stay here and bitch at you over the phone."_

"So I'll get Ibuki to hang up and turn her phone off," Naruto reasoned, "I'm not even in the room with either my phones so I don't care if you call 'em."

"_Then I'll do it over Twitter."_

"I d-don't have one!"

"_So? I'll make you one myself just to bitch at you on it!"_ Ken shouted ludicrously at Naruto, _"What's the matter with you? You don't fight AKUMA! There's one rule to follow as a friend of mine; don't fight Akuma! I wouldn't even try fighting him now, and I was all for that a few years ago!"_

Ken had a wife and a child on the way to worry about. He couldn't afford to feel the kind of hate necessary to go off and hunt for someone like Akuma, especially since the master he thought Akuma had killed had only been taking some kind of martial arts hibernation. But when he had seen Akuma 'kill' Gouken, he'd never felt anger like it in his life.

Thus he was entire able to understand why Naruto chose to fight Akuma mere moments after hearing why.

"He wants to take Sakura-chan because of the Satsui no Hadou," Naruto said, "If I can't beat him, he'll take her and make her just like him."

The blonde hotel tycoon promptly shut his mouth after hearing that. His tone changed considerably, _"What can I do kid?" _There was no way he was going to let a girl as sweet as Sakura get taken away to be corrupted by that monster, _"Seriously. Say the word. Whatever you need."_

Naruto and Ibuki looked at each other, coming to an agreement on what was to be said. He wasn't coming to Japan to fight him. They weren't going to let him. He had a child on the way, and as two orphans they weren't about to allow the chance of that to happen to the progeny of any of their friends.

"Naruto's probably going to need help training for a style close to yours, but that's it," Ibuki said in Naruto's stead, as it was her phone to begin with, "You being here for that would be the best thing we could ask for.

"_Wait, what about Ryu? He's in Japan last I heard. He should be good for that."_

Ibuki cringed before Naruto even answered.

"Fuck Ryu!"

A few seconds passed and Cammy poked her head into the bathroom, eyebrow raised at why Naruto suddenly cursed Ryu's name at such a volume that it distracted her from her favorite show on TV. Ibuki just shook her head, prompting her to go about her own business.

The shout easily reached Ibuki's phone. If they had been outdoors it probably could have reached for a few miles. It fell to Ibuki to elaborate though, "…Naruto and Ryu aren't really very friendly right now," A growl from Naruto painted that as the understatement of the year, "He kind of told Naruto to never see Sakura again. As in 'drop-out-of-her-life-completely' never see her again. Then he tried to beat him up and make it a fight stipulation when Naruto said no."

"…_Wow, really? I knew he was-… I mean-… ugh, _really_?"_ It was too stupid for Ken to find words. He loved Ryu like a brother, honest to God he did, but sometimes he had to question not sticking with him for a bit after they'd left Gouken's tutelage. The man was as dumb as a bag of rocks when the subject went beyond fighting. He had a normally good sense of justice, but it was way too black and white to be effective in sensitive situations, _"When was this?"_

"Two days ago."

"_Lovely!"_ Ken barked sarcastically,_ "So it's too soon for me to even swoop in and try to fix anything since they're both more than likely still monumentally pissed!"_ Naruto responded with a resounding, 'Yup!'_ "Well at least your dumbass boy-toy doesn't have to fight Akuma for…" _The American champion miraculously kept himself from having a blond moment with a moment of thought, _"When does he fight him?"_

"A month from now," Ibuki deadpanned, wanting to grin at Naruto's pouting over being called a boy-toy instead of being called a dumbass, but now wasn't the time for it. By the time the desire to smile passed her by she realized that Ken had been sitting silent for quite some time, "Ken, are you still there?"

"_I'm looking for the quickest flight to Tokyo,"_ Ken said,_ "Why does the next flight out of LAX have a stop-over in Denver? I'm in California! Goddamn it Orbitz! I'll call you kids back. *click*"_

Ibuki stared at her phone, blinking vapidly before turning to Naruto, "Wait, isn't Ken filthy rich? Doesn't he have his own plane?"

"It's a company jet, not his, and he won't use it for continent-hopping street fighting."

"Wow, that's so lame."

"I know. He's rich and doesn't even use it in fun ways like Rin-Rin does," Naruto said, shifting around in the icy water before wincing and inhaling sharply, "Well, I'm gonna get out now," He said, prompting Ibuki to merely move over so he had the space to get past her, "I'm not getting out in front of you."

"I've seen everything before already," The kunoichi said with a roll of her eyes. He was being silly, "We've both seen everything. On each other. A bunch of times."

They probably would later as well since the apartment only had two rooms. She would _not_ be sleeping on the living room couch, and sleeping with Naruto in his bed would prove to be more fun than sleeping with Cammy in hers.

Also from what she'd picked up via her super-awesome kunoichi observation and deduction skills, there was a good chance that Cammy tended to crash in Naruto's bed every so often, and it wouldn't be that difficult to convince the adorably naïve little clone for fun that sleeping with her _and_ Naruto was more comfortable than sleeping with just Naruto.

Elsewhere in the apartment, a muscle in Cammy's shoulder randomly twitched weakly, confusing her greatly.

Naruto frowned and shook his head, "Yeah, but I don't want you to see me like this," Ibuki didn't know what his problem was, but her runt of a tanuki apparently did from the snickering sound it made.

It was simple enough if Ibuki had taken the time to think about it. Freezing bath for over twenty minutes equaled shrinkage, which also equaled no fun for anyone in the current situation.

He was only two days into his month of preparation. In reality, it was going to be a long month, but as far as Naruto was concerned, it wouldn't nearly be long enough for his tastes. He knew for a fact that Akuma would hardly be able to wait.

Even then he could swear that he could sense the ill intent of the man aimed right at him, knowing that Akuma was in some isolated place just biding his time and waiting. IF nothing else, he would not return until the designated time.

Naruto could feel Akuma's thoughts just permeating his skull. He knew he was looking forward to this.

"_**Don't disappoint me boy."**_

When the time finally came he wouldn't.

* * *

><p><strong>The time for contemplation is over! Now is the time for training montage action and deep reflection, both inwardly and outwardly! Cue the inspirational high-energy music sequence with the emotional bridge!<strong>

**Alright, that's enough of that. So there's the chapter.**

**Now it's my day off, and I'm going to use it playing some InFamous: Second Son and going off to get into some epic hand-to-hand combat later in the afternoon. After all, what fun is life if you don't risk your good health every now and then?**

**Also, per request of a partner of mine, I must shill the Fandom Flux Podcast, where I and other fanfiction writers talk about random shit on a weekly basis to try and amuse the masses. For those interested in hearing how dumb I actually sound in real life, the link is near the top of my profile page.**

…**There Casey W. I did it you British s.o.b., I'm expecting my check in the mail. I will also accept a gift card to Dick's Sporting Goods, or a month's supply of beef jerky as recompense.**

**Now, Kenchi out.**


	55. The Days of Your Life

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I just discovered something that rocked my childhood memories to their core a few days ago. What has been learned cannot be unlearned.

My father, a man who I used to think was great at video games because he would beat my ass at every fighting game we used to play when I was small, was nothing more than a button-masher. A lowly button-masher! It was almost enough to bring a tear to my eye.

Damn it old man, look at the move list when I offer it to you and memorize one actual move! Just one! Please! That was embarrassing! Forty-five minutes and you didn't work out one special attack at random? With anybody? The button theory is the same for basically all of them! Luck into one and reverse-engineer that shit!

**Chapter 55: The Days of Your Life**

* * *

><p>"Can't… keep up… anymore," Batsu said, worn down to the limit and hardly able to stand, "You... you... grrr…" He tried to muster ki from deep inside with his anger to activate Burning Vigor, but he couldn't pull anymore up. He'd been using it the entire time just to fight with Naruto as well as he had been. His stores of rage were purely tapped out.<p>

Which coincidentally pissed him off.

…But he'd been getting thrashed the entire time. The Kyuubi thing inside of Naruto was no joke at all. After three tails, Batsu was nothing more than a mobile punching bag.

Naruto watched Batsu fall to his hands and knees and then turned off his own four tails of chakra. Batsu had given it everything he'd had, but it wasn't enough to force him any further. He couldn't safely spar with Batsu any longer.

"This isn't working," Naruto said, breathing hard in his own right. Even if Batsu could no longer keep up with him, it had still all been an exhausting session, "I've gotta be able to work with six tails at least. Otherwise…"

Batsu punched the ground hard, angry at himself for not being able to help more, "Damn it! My bad. This is all my fault."

"It's nobody's fault!" Naruto shouted at him, picking him up off of the ground by his shoulders. What could he do, ask him to be able to endure fighting against a power that no one else he knew could rightly stand up against? "There's gotta be another way to do this…"

It wasn't looking like there was though. Along with the redirection training, Naruto had to make sure he was as accustomed to intense combat as possible.

He had a strategy to employ against Akuma when the time finally came and it involved being as loose and ready to fight as possible when the fists began to fly.

Such a thing was difficult though, because no matter how intense his sparring partners came at him, Naruto couldn't go all out and try to hammer them. Ibuki, Cammy, Batsu, E. Honda, no one he tried could stand up against too much. It was just frustrating. Not just for Naruto but for everyone. Everyone who knew what was at stake and what was to come.

They had turned the nearly uninhabited industrial district into a war zone. The massive scrapyard that they had done their heavy-duty training in for years was even worse off now than it had been when they'd first found it as an expendable place to improve. Craters littered the ground, parts of the gate were torn apart all around the limits of the property, and entire vehicles were flattened and torn apart. Abandoned cranes were broken apart.

It had only been a week and there was almost nothing left for the place worth salvaging if anyone had the inkling to go there and try to do so.

Batsu couldn't take much more either. Three days straight of being Naruto's only no-limit sparring partner was too much for him. He hadn't complained, and day after day he'd given it everything he had to make Naruto go as far as possible, but he had nothing left. That much was clear. His failed attempts to tap back into Burning Vigor mode proved as much.

And if he couldn't do that, he couldn't even begin to keep up with the pace Naruto needed to cut in order to be better.

"Come on," Naruto said, looking up in the air past the smoke and debris that their fighting had kicked up, "Let's go home, alright?"

XxX

(Later That Evening – Naruto's Apartment)

Opening his door with Batsu held up over his shoulders, Naruto kicked his sandals off and had originally planned on dropping Batsu over the back of the nearest sofa like a sack until he could call Hinata to take him home, but the scent of food hitting his nostrils stopped him.

Cammy wasn't much of a cook. Neither was he, so he'd never been enthralled by the mere scent of anything either of them made to eat. That left him with two options. Either Cammy had taken an interest in studying something intensively aside from fighting techniques or cats, or someone else was making food in his apartment.

Down the hallway to the other rooms in his home, Naruto heard a bang and a clatter.

"Ow-ow-ow, it's hot!"

"Ibuki-chan, use gloves!"

"The time it takes to put on gloves I could have already had it out of the oven Sakura-chan!"

"Well, it serves you right that you burned yourself then."

Standing at the doorway to his kitchen, Naruto found Sakura and Ibuki, along with a veritable buffet of food that they couldn't have possibly made without a few hours of work. Especially if they had worked on it by themselves.

He wanted it. In his belly. Now.

But curiosity overpowered his appetite for the time being and he wound up getting attention when he set Batsu down in a chair at the kitchen table, prompting both girls to finally notice his presence and turn around with a start.

"S'up?" Naruto asked, getting a good look at both of them. Their aprons were adorable, "What's going on?"

Batsu stirred at the scent of dinner wafting through his nostrils, "…Fooooood," He droned lifelessly. Naruto had to give him a nudge to keep him from falling out of his chair onto his face.

Ibuki let out a slight laugh and gestured to the counter with the finished food, "Ta-da!"

Naruto knew Sakura could cook. Sakura's cooking had been a form of behavioral control she'd used to make sure Naruto learned common law, and to make sure he didn't belt random kids across the face for giving him funny looks and calling him a 'gaijin' back in the day. Ibuki was something else entirely though, "Ibuki, I didn't know you could cook."

The kunoichi shrugged her shoulders, proud that she'd actually put quite a bit of work into the meal. It had been a roughly 60/40 split of the effort between Sakura and her, "It's left over from advanced assassination training. You can't really poison someone's food if they don't want to eat it, you know? Ehehe…"

Sakura returned to putting the finishing touches on the dishes with a shy smile on her face, "It isn't just us. Cammy and Kanzuki-san helped too."

Naruto gave Sakura an incredulous look at that revelation, "Karin helped cook?" Sure. Probably right after hell froze over.

Even Sakura couldn't give that bit of credit where it wasn't due, "Well… Cammy helped," Batsu let out a tired snort of laughter in his seat.

All Karin did was oversee, which was redundant because she knew nothing about how to even make herself a sandwich, let alone a meal. Apparently preparing her own meals was beneath her. Eventually Sakura had to send her out with Cammy to get something for all of them to drink during dinner to keep Ibuki from dragging a dull kunai down her back..

"We just figured it'd be fun," Ibuki said with a huge grin, "Everybody sitting down and eating together like this. It sounds nice, doesn't it?"

Batsu chimed in from where he was limply seated in his chair, his upper body and his neck hanging backwards over the top of it, "Yo. Just saying; somebody's gonna have to feed me if I'm actually gonna eat. Your boytoy's been beating the stuffing out of me for the last three days."

Sakura rolled her eyes at his almost cavalier way of dismissing his inability to move his muscles, "I called Hinata-chan twenty minutes ago. She's coming too," She had a feeling Batsu would have stuck his thumb up if he'd been able to move his arms to that degree.

Naruto had already moved past the girls and looked over the spread that they had prepared, "You guys didn't have to do all of this yourselves."

"It's just dinner Naruto," Sakura reasoned, moving him away from the counter before luck would have him mess something up, "It's okay."

Ibuki sighed and walked up to Naruto, setting her hands on his shoulders and looking him directly in the eyes, "You know, when someone does cool stuff for people, eventually they want to give that person something back in return. It's a pretty normal thing," She said, sitting him down in a chair at the table, "That's how these things work. Give and take. You see?"

"Ibuki-chan?"

"Yes Sakura-chan?"

"Could you please get out of Naruto's lap?"

"…Do I have to?"

XxX

Despite the fact that his original training at Gouken's dojo had been in Japan, Ryu had never actually done much wandering there. Really, he only came back for tournaments and other reasons. The rest of the world just had so many more challenges available and more opportunities to improve himself than the tiny island nation had. But finding himself in need of a sojourn, he took it upon himself to actually wander the countryside for a spell.

Away from the towns and cities there were plenty of tranquil areas for him to clear his mind and tend to his training. It was fairly pleasant, all things considered, and it helped temper his mood after the displeasure he'd felt upon his departure from Aohura City.

As long as there was a road to follow to take him to the next place, Ryu was fine with it. Bag slung over his shoulder, he noted that soon he'd have to find a place to stop and camp for the night. The sun was going down and that was nature's designated time for most of its creatures to wind down.

The sound of an engine approaching from behind him on the lonely road prompted him to turn around to make sure he was out of the way of whatever vehicle would pass him by on the dirt road. It didn't pass him by though. In fact, it stopped right by him, and he knew who was driving.

"…Ken?"

How he managed to find him in the middle of nowhere was uncanny by Ryu's account, but he failed to recognize that he was _very_ traceable when it came to someone with Ken's resources. Especially since Ryu didn't know enough about technology to know how easy it was to track him by his phone.

It cost a hell of a lot of money for Ken to get access to the sort of technology needed for that kind of thing, but that wasn't necessarily a problem for him.

Ken looked his oldest friend over with a grin on his face at locating him, "Man, you just love roaming around don't you?"

Ryu shrugged in response, "Maybe one day when I'm Master Gouken's age, but until then not a chance. How could I when there are so many places to go and people still out there to fight?"

And with the topic switching almost immediately to fighting, Ken remembered why he'd flown to Japan and sought Ryu out in the first place. Almost instantly his expression changed. As good as it was to see Ryu again, they needed to talk.

Patting the passenger's seat of his car, Ken gestured for Ryu to enter. He did with no questions asked, "Come on. Dan said Master Gouken returned to the dojo, so I'll take you to the mountain. I wanted to see him again anyway," He still couldn't believe that his old master was alive and well.

"He'll defenitely be glad to see you," Ryu said as he closed the door and let Ken take off down the road, "He's heard you're doing very well."

They drove in silence for longer than Ryu ever figured the two of them would go without Ken saying something to him. He never looked Ryu's way, his eyes instead focused on the road ahead of him as if anything other than his full attention would doom them both. Ryu wasn't particularly one for conversation, but to be with his best friend and not hear him running his mouth was odd.

Normally he'd be grilling him on where he'd been or where he planned on going next. That, or Ryu had expected him to talk about Eliza and the baby he was set to have with her. But none of that came up.

Eventually though, Ken did break the silence, and Ryu had quickly wished that he hadn't, "I came to help the kid," Ken said, noting a scowl on Ryu's face. Clearly there was no confusion over who he was referring to when he called him 'kid', "…Apparently, he's about to have himself a hell of a showdown."

Ryu figured that Ken had somehow heard of his little dust-up with Naruto in some form and made no bones on hiding it or labeling it a misunderstanding, "I'm not going to fight him again. Not because of that."

"I wasn't talking about you," Ken pointed out, deciding to cut to the heart of it, "Akuma came to town and tried to take Sakura," Ryu's hands slammed on the dash of the car hard enough that Ken had to raise an issue, "Hey-hey-hey, this is a rental!"

There were more important things afoot than Ken's car, "You can't be serious!"

"Why would I lie?" Ken asked, "If you have to look for a silver lining here, at least he's not gunning for you anymore," No one could ever say he didn't at least try to be positive, even if that wasn't necessarily something to advertise in place of the reality, "Apparently he thinks Sakura would be more willing to use the Satsui no Hadou than you since she's done it four times already in less than six months."

So once again, _it_ was rearing its ugly head. All Ryu could do was shake his head. If Naruto had seen his side of reasoning, maybe this wouldn't be an issue. But it was, because as long as Naruto was in the picture, she would always have that anchor of attachment that she wouldn't be able to let go of as long as it was in front of her.

Ken noticed Ryu's expression change and quickly rapped his friend on the head, "And another thing, you know you fucked up, right?"

"What?"

"If it had been me, and you'd said to me what you'd said to Naruto, I couldn't tell you what I might have done on the spot, but I know one thing," The utmost seriousness was etched on his face as he turned to his fellow martial artist, "You wouldn't have seen my family again, at least until my kid hit middle school."

It was obvious that he was referring to the statement that had led to Naruto's little street fight with him, and Ryu wasn't willing to back down on it, "The second Sakura learned enough to complete the Shinkuu Hadoken, she became vulnerable to the darker potential side of our art. Her ki is too potent now to leave it alone."

"Those two kids knew each other before they'd ever heard of you. She couldn't even use ki when they met. Before she had fighting, she had him."

"She'll turn into-."

"She won't. She's not like Akuma. Remember, Master Gouken said he was taught by a man who could use the Satsui no Hadou and not lose himself."

"And the way to do it disappeared after Akuma killed him. He only had two students and master disowned the killing side of his teachings."

Ken smirked at the point his 'brother' thought he'd made, "Then she'll either figure it out for herself, or she'll find another way," He reasoned smoothly, "She's seventeen, about to be fully grown. You weren't ever around to actually be her mentor. All she really got from you were the techniques and the work ethic."

His complete faith in the situation was startling. Ryu knew Ken had dealt with Akuma, had seen just what the Satsui no Hadou was capable of turning someone into, "How could you figure something like that?"

"Because you weren't around enough for her to pick up on other parts of what makes you who you are," Ken explained, tapping his own temple, "There's someone else that she spends almost every day with. And all I ever see that kid do is get the job done."

Ryu hadn't been around for most of their escapades, but Ken had been in the loop the entire time and had seen firsthand a few times what he was talking about. He wished he'd had the strength and the sheer force of will to pull off what Naruto had been doing since he'd been fifteen when he was that age.

No trainer? That was fine. He'd figure out his techniques by himself based on what he already knew. And Sakura took that mindset when she'd first started learning of her ki. So much so, that when she finally got a guide on how to perform the real versions of things like the Hadoken, she'd completed them quickly and kept her own innovated spin on the move.

Ryu perfected everything he had been taught by Gouken since he could walk, but he did not tend to innovate. That bit of creative spark, she got from seeing Naruto rework his own jutsu several times over to serve separate purposes. From seeing him create his own projectile attacks from scratch.

The absolute lack of quit in him whatsoever when it mattered was something that she'd picked up as well. The series of bouts with Juri was the most recent and extreme example that could be brought up.

"That's not even the most important thing though," Ken continued as the last specks of the sun began to tuck behind the horizon, "Naruto believes in her, unconditionally. Satsui no Hadou or not."

The two just remained silent from that point forward as they continued to drive along to Gouken's domain.

XxX

(Aohura City – Naruto's Apartment)

It wound up being a pretty full table of eight between Naruto, Sakura, Ibuki, Karin, Cammy, Abel, Batsu, and Hinata.

Karin had made it a habit throughout the meal to feed Naruto after trying it once and seeing the immediate displeasure on Sakura's face that the expressive girl couldn't hide.

It frustrated Naruto at first, but eventually he sat back and went with it. There weren't many times in life when a pretty girl was going to be completely willing to feed you, and you had to sit back and let some opportunities come to you when they presented themselves.

"Say 'ah' Naruto-san."

"I'm not saying 'ah' Rin-Rin, but I'll totally eat that."

"You are so much more docile and agreeable when you are well-fed," The young heiress observed, squeezed close to Naruto as her chopsticks dropped a morsel into his mouth, "I must remember this for later. This is fun," She giggled as he rubbed his head against her affectionately from the attention, "Oh, you are positively adorable!"

Ibuki knew she had no reason to comment from things she'd done in the past, but seeing Karin feed Naruto irked her. Mostly because she hadn't ever thought of it beforehand, "Are you treating him like a boyfriend or a pet?"

"Well, certain qualities of both tend to overlap from time-to-time," Karin immediately quipped with a cheeky smirk before letting Naruto go and tend to his food on his own. She didn't need to affirm to anyone how she felt. She knew and he knew as well.

Feeling a nudge on his other side, Naruto turned his head and saw Sakura smiling at him, a smile that he returned as she spoke, "So, I hope it's good."

As far as Naruto was concerned, she didn't need to ask that question. It should have been obvious from the way everyone had torn into it. Even Karin had eaten, and she usually only ate meals specially prepared by her own staff, "Yeah Sakura-chan. You seriously didn't have to do this."

"Ibuki said it earlier," Sakura said, brushing Naruto's cheek with her fist, "Sometimes people just want to do things for somebody else. And I wanted to do this. As long as you like it I'm happy."

The two shared a look but were distracted from across the table by Batsu and Hinata more or less mocking the two of them with a silent kissy-face taunt clearly meant to be an allusion to the two of them.

Naruto silently moved his foot underneath the bottom of Batsu's seat and flipped his chair back, knocking Batsu to the floor in the middle of his antics and putting an end to them. Watching his friend's girlfriend pick him up and put him back in his chair put a grin on Naruto's face and got him a knock to the shoulder from Sakura.

That wasn't the only joke of the evening, and as the meal progressed, everyone took turns talking about older times with a touch of nostalgia, even the not-so-good ones. They all told stories for the benefit of Abel, who was the newest to the way things had gone in their lives.

By now everyone in the know was aware that Naruto had dropped training trying to catch up to Akuma's brute strength altogether and was preparing a strategy for him centered around one technique he was trying to learn. The first person to steer the conversation to the elephant in the room was Cammy, who was never shy to talk about whatever when she was curious.

"So how is the redirection training going?" She took great care to refrain from calling Naruto 'master'. He was embarrassed enough by it when she let it slip when they were alone, to say nothing of her saying it around others, "Have you made any progress?"

Naruto didn't really know what to say. He hadn't really wanted to talk about any of that with them. How he had chosen to try and fight Akuma was something that he didn't want to let them know about in case it failed. If it did, he wanted them to think that he had another plan or an ace in the hole. If he wound up coming up with one, it would probably have to be something on the spot.

All he really did was take a long sip of his drink instead of answering. As the only person present for most of the functional training, Batsu took it upon himself to tell the others about what was going on. It was a simple enough question, and it wouldn't give way to the thing that Naruto really wanted to keep under wraps.

"He doesn't remember how fast Akuma's blasts are," Easily explainable enough, as during the first battle Naruto hadn't been entirely within his right mind at the time, "And even if he knew… well he says there's another problem," Batsu frowned, wondering why Naruto wasn't talking about any of this himself, "He says the thing in his gut told him he has to make Akuma give him his best shot. Apparently it's the only way to make sure he puts the bastard down with it."

Karin gave Naruto an odd look, "But surely if you did what you did against Seth, Akuma would-?" Naruto's eyes met her, clearly showing that he wasn't sure about the answer to her unfinished question either way, "I see."

Having been prompted to respond in some way, the blond ninja figured he might as well talk about it now, "Plus, if his best attack fires anything like the Shinkuu Hadoken, redirecting it might not work. Sakura-chan's and Ryu's are so fast. If his is even faster it might fly too fast to time right."

And he didn't know what would happen if his timing was off, but the Kyuubi assured him that it wouldn't be anything good. Getting hit with something like that without even trying to redirect it would probably take off a few body parts.

Thinking of something like that was enough to bring the mood down to earth. At least until one lively kunoichi decided that she had taken in enough of that atmosphere.

"Ugh. Enough of the down-ness. Everybody needs to cheer up," Ibuki eventually said before reaching under the table and pulling out two bottles, "Because I found Naruto's alcohol~!" She said in a sing-song voice as she waved them around.

All eyes turned Naruto's way as he wore an expression that clearly wondered how Ibuki had even found them. He hadn't been keeping them in the kitchen. Karin didn't particularly see anything off about it. She herself had a sizeable amount of alcohol from around the world in her house and had imbibed her fair share at social functions in the past.

"Naruto?" Ibuki asked, a little grin on her face, "Want to explain?"

Not really, but he hadn't done anything wrong the way he was certain she was implying.

"It's a gift E. Honda gave me a little while back," Back when he'd first moved in to his new place. When Naruto told him he wasn't old enough for it, E. Honda just laughed at him and said if he was old enough to do what he'd done in his bathhouse he was old enough to keep a drink or two around, "So I kept it… you know, in case of… something. I don't know. Don't look at me like that."

"In case of _party_!" Ibuki finished his previous thought for him, "If bad things are gonna happen soon, I at least want to say I drank with all of you at least once if we never get another chance."

A small uproar broke out amongst the amassed guests over the merits of drinking when it wasn't legal for most of them while Ibuki ran off to check and see if Naruto had anything worth serving any sake in. All Naruto could do was take it all in, and it put a wide smile on his face as he looked around.

This was it. This was his family. Even some people who weren't there would have counted as well. Chun-Li, E. Honda, Ken, even Guile's grumpy self.

It was as close as Naruto was ever going to get to having one, at least until he started his own, and there was nothing wrong with that. It actually felt good.

XxX

(Elsewhere in Aohura City)

Sasuke didn't know what he was doing, standing out in front of Akira's apartment building. He didn't even know what had possessed him to pass in that direction on the way out of town.

He was leaving for a while, he knew that much. Probably the country as well. Gen wasn't going to go anywhere, knowing full well that he was in the younger man's head. That was fine. He could stay at the stupid restaurant because it was his. He owned it. Sasuke just ran it. That was fine. After Sasuke killed him he'd take the place for himself and that would be that, but for the time being he needed to go find a breakthrough.

'What the hell?' Sasuke thought to himself after that train of thought had run its course through his head, 'I'm actually planning over taking that stupid place?' Why not? It was a good business that basically ran itself since there were actual managers there aside from him, and it wasn't as if it got in the way of assassination duties. It actually helped.

The restaurant was a reason to even stick around in Aohura City to begin with.

Well, it was one reason.

And somehow, his second reason wound up pulling into a spot at the curb out front. Stopping and turning off her bike, Akira climbed off of the seat and removed her helmet to grace him with a gentle smile, "Sasuke," She said in greeting.

Their interactions were simple, but they did enjoy spending time with each other. That was something Sasuke could say for very few people in the world. And he didn't need to hear her tell him anything to learn about her. She loved motorcycles and anything fast in general. She had a penchant for racing. She heavily disliked chatter and did so as little as possible.

Most importantly, she expected no ridiculous antics drawn from some romantic pretty-boy archetype from him. She didn't expect some eventual out of character display of warmth. Those weren't his things.

Akira wasn't necessarily good at them either. She made it clear that Sasuke was something more than a friend to her, but she didn't need all of the kisses and touches that most girls would seek from someone they felt strongly for. She was normally far too introverted for that regardless.

Walking up to the impassive young man, the first thing Akira noticed was the bag he carried with him. She didn't say anything, but her frown spoke volumes more than words from her would have, at least to Sasuke.

"I'm leaving for a while," He said, "Not really sure when I'll be back either," Or if he'd be back at all.

Akira didn't like it, but the fact that he was even coming to her to tell her at all meant something significant. If she were nothing to him, he wouldn't even have bothered.

…If she were nothing to him, he wouldn't have bothered.

With that thought in mind, she managed to smile again and think of something, holding up a finger to ask Sasuke to wait for a moment for her to return. Any attempt she would have made to bound off and gather a few things to offer to come with him was stopped. He knew what she'd been intending to do, and he couldn't let her do it.

He didn't need to hear her speak to know what the girl was thinking. Akira's gestures on their own were enough for someone with his eyes.

"I'm not taking you. You don't need to see what I'm preparing myself to do. I hurt people Akira," Sasuke said bluntly, "I'm getting ready to kill someone," He was treating this like an assassination contract he needed to fulfill, and he didn't bring people along on those. Especially someone who didn't need to be introduced to any of that.

Akira's mood fell, but offered up her keys for Sasuke to have in order to help him travel. Such a sweet girl.

Sasuke grabbed her hand and folded her fingers neatly back around the keys, "I'm not taking your motorcycle either," He told her. He had to be direct. Just because he liked her, that didn't mean he would sugarcoat anything. That wasn't how he operated, "You really should keep away."

Akira was soft-spoken. That didn't mean she was the type that went along to get along.

"You're dumb to say that," Akira said quietly, strangely enough showing how much steel she had in her backbone, even without the security blanket that was normally the skull helmet that hid her from the world, "You're just scared of getting close to people."

Sasuke gave her a look that would have made a lesser person take a step back at its intensity, but she didn't flinch. He'd already known that she wasn't afraid to run up against him if she felt like it. She would just be quiet about it… unless she was fully adorned in her biker gear. Then she'd be aggressive and pushy.

Alright then. He'd give her a reason if she really needed one.

"Mangekyou Sharingan."

Those were just words to Akira. They didn't really mean anything. Was he talking about his eyes? "I don't understand," She muttered.

Red eyes spun to life in Sasuke's head, and he took a step in her direction, but she still didn't move away from him. She only shook her head in confusion.

"I can get power beyond my dreams," Sasuke said, holding his hand out in Akira's direction before making her jump as sparks from his Chidori danced around his fingers, "But to get it, I have to kill the person I care about most. And I don't ever want that to be an option, just in case I really am weak enough to do it."

"Sasuke…" Akira said, smiling slightly, actually reaching out and holding Sasuke's hand with both of hers once the electricity faded, "If there's someone out there that you can consider really killing with your own two hands for any reason at all, you clearly don't love them that much."

Reasoning aside, Sasuke was able to read between the lines and gave the girl an accusatory look, "Tch. You think I'm in love with you?" It wasn't any harsher than his usual tone, which meant that there was absolutely no bite behind it.

Akira had already filled her speaking quota for the evening and wouldn't say another word. She just popped up on her toes and gave Sasuke a peck on the lips. There was her answer.

And that was that.

"That didn't prove anything," Sasuke informed her, despite the fact that he'd consciously let her do it. Akira just beamed at him and nodded. She wouldn't say a word if he really wanted to be in denial, "Stay away from Gen. I don't have a clue what his game is, but I don't think that old son of a bitch is above anything at this point."

Not after what he'd learned of what Gen had done to people that he'd only known through Sasuke. People he hadn't even introduced himself to. Sasuke would put nothing past him any longer.

He was going to kill Gen with his bare hands, and he meant it. He hadn't felt as resolute about taking anyone's life in years.

He was going to kill Gen and he was going to fucking laugh when he did. It was what he deserved. And then he would spite him a second time by forgetting about him and moving on with his life afterwards. That was what tended to happen when the only thing you were good at was killing people. The only people who would really care to remember anything about you were usually already dead.

Sasuke took a breath to calm himself. There was no use getting angry now when there was no target in front of him to take it out on. He would save it for when he returned. He had a nasty habit of holding good grudges anyway. Feeling he'd said all he could say, he made to leave.

Akira reached out and grabbed his arm before he could turn around and beseeched that he do one thing.

"Stay."

Not forever. She wasn't asking him not to go and train for what he had endeavored to do. She just didn't want to send him off into the middle of the night like that.

And he didn't know why he listened. Curiosity? The hormones that he'd been ignoring for his entire teenage life? The fact that if her brother came home he would have really pissed him off?

But he did, and even if he was gone before sunrise, before Akira had even awoken the next morning, it still counted and they both knew it. Damn woman. If Yang, Yun, Chun-Li, or God forbid that idiot Naruto ever found out that he'd gotten attached he would never live it down.

XxX

(Elsewhere in Town – Naruto's Apartment)

Abel had left hours ago, as had Batsu and Hinata. Ibuki had been quite lively when she was under the influence, and wound up wearing Karin out with an excessive amount of dancing. The two of them wound up falling out together on a sofa in the living room once it started getting late and there wouldn't be any waking them. Cammy simply saw that the two of them were comfortable before turning in herself.

Naruto had long since turned the TV and the music off, and yawned to himself as he had returned to the kitchen to see to the plates, bowls, and other things that needed cleaning before long. If he didn't his entire apartment would smell within a day or so, and that wasn't cool.

The work was quick for the most part since his new place had a dishwasher, so it was only the bigger things that needed cleaning. All he needed was the light from the bulb above the sink to finish it. Waking up any of the girls was the last thing he wanted to do, but Ibuki and Karin seemed completely out of it.

The creak of the floor prompted Naruto to wheel his head around to find Sakura leaning against the door frame leading into the kitchen, "I could have done that too you know," She said with a warm look in her eyes.

"The girl that cooks me a kickass dinner like this isn't washing my dishes afterwards," Naruto said as Sakura watched him put away the last pot he was going to clean that evening, "Not a chance," Sakura walked up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, setting her cheek against his back with a sigh, "What's up beautiful?"

"Mmm…" Sakura just hummed, shutting her eyes as Naruto finished up his work, "Hey."

"What?"

"…You know I love you, right?"

"Yeah. I love you too."

The way he'd said it so quickly without so much as a thought made her frown, as if it had been every time they had exchanged the sentiment in the past. Did he not realize that she had been completely serious? "I didn't mean like-."

"I know how you meant it," Naruto cut her off as he dried his hands, "Even if you didn't know it when I said it before, I meant it the exact same as I do when I'm saying it to you right now. Whenever you said, 'You know you love me,' and I said, 'I know,' or whenever I flat-out said 'I love you' just out of nowhere, I totally meant it like this."

But they had been saying that back and forth for years. It was to the point where one of them bringing up the fact that they loved the other was a throwaway statement. It hardly packed a punch any longer because they had said it to one another so often.

"Then why didn't we ever-?" Sakura had to stop and compose herself as she felt her heart flutter, "I mean, why didn't you ever tell me?"

"Because it seemed like you had a crush on Ryu, and I dealt with that kind of thing before. With another girl, you know? Her name was Sakura too actually," Naruto said before trying to break the tension with a laugh, "She's nothing like you though. After all, you never hit me for being dumb."

The latter subject was news to Sakura. They had never had that conversation before, and it hadn't been that he'd been hiding it, it had just never come up. It had never necessarily ever been anything Naruto wanted to talk to her about either.

What was he really supposed to say about it in hindsight? 'Hey, you know how we both want to make a move on each other but never do? Yeah, you see there's this girl where I used to live, that I had a crush on before, and she kind of messed up my view on showing that you liked a girl. And here's the kicker, her name's Sakura too! Isn't that funny?'

She didn't know how to respond to it. She turned Naruto around to look right at him as he continued.

"You went off to find Ryu, and you didn't take me with you or tell me you'd left. And when you found him it was all you could talk about. You gushed about him for years," Naruto recalled, squinting his eyes as he thought of how to put things, "And I'd already decided after the thing with the other Sakura that even if I really liked a girl, if I knew she wanted somebody else and couldn't look at me like _that_, it was her choice."

It felt like a retread when it had first happened to him. Sort of like Sasuke had been, Ryu seemed even more insurmountable to a fourteen year-old Naruto when he'd made the decision.

Ryu was stronger, to the degree of being a world champion while Naruto was still being kicked around by people like Batsu and other members of Aohura City's finest delinquents. Ryu was silent and more composed as a person. He was handsome and actually grown up. He was Sakura's hero, and the fact that she could actually reach out to him and stand with him simply drove the point home that it would end much like the situation with Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke had ended in Konoha… or something like it.

Being her friend had been enough, even if it was awful to be so close and know that he'd be gated off from what he really wanted. And that bled over into his relationship with other women around him as well, keeping him from ever being too proactive with them, even when he was aware of the depth of the feelings he had for them and vice-versa.

Sakura looked up into his eyes and finally took note that this was why he had never actually wooed any of the girls that liked him. He'd tried it before when he'd been younger, and not only had it failed miserably (more so than she would ever know), it had made him give up being the active one in relationships altogether. Sakura always figured it had been strange that with the force of Naruto's personality he'd never been the one to guide anything to intimacy with the other girls.

Sakura's short brown hair shook as her head did in the negative, "I… you already know how I feel. I told you, my dark side is kind of obsessed with you. And wow, that didn't sound as creepy in my head as it did out loud," She said with a few giggles as she leaned forward into Naruto's chest.

She was extremely feely and loose tonight, more affectionate than Naruto was outwardly used to from the girl. It had taken him a moment to figure out why, as Sakura had been one of the people against actually getting into his sake stash for the novelty of trying it, but the soft glow on her cheeks in the low light and her relaxed eyes were a sort of giveaway. He didn't even remember seeing her take any.

"Sakura-chan," Naruto said, trying to hide a grin and look offended, "You had to get yourself drunk just to come in here to try and talk with me like this, didn't you?"

Sakura puffed her cheeks out and roughly nudged her forehead against his, "I'm not drunk…" She should have known what would come next simply from how close the two of them were together.

They shared the sort of kiss that Sakura had always wanted. She wanted it to last and wouldn't have let him go even if the world had started ending at that very instant. It didn't take her any time at all to run her tongue against his lips, begging him to let her in. Naruto's response was to battle right back. Sakura couldn't help but grin into the kiss, feeling competitive with Naruto as their tongues lashed.

It was simply an exercise in emotion. There was nothing teasing about it whatsoever.

Naruto wrapped her up and lifted her off of the ground onto a nearby counter. She didn't even fight, wrapping her legs around his waist to help keep herself up as he kissed her, "You suck at lying. I can taste it on you. What would your mom say?"

Sakura furrowed her brow in troubled thought at what was supposed to have been a joke, "You sort of have a point there. She's going to know when I get in, and she'll see me like this," Her mother would know she was drunk, and she would not be amused. Sakura was fairly certain that the only reason she made it over to Naruto without having him see her stagger was because she'd followed the pattern of the tiles on the floor to reach him.

The solution from one of the most uncomplicated men walking the planet was quite simple, "So stay the night," Naruto whispered in the silence of the mostly darkened apartment. The only sounds aside from the two of them were the soft noises of Ibuki and Karin sleeping in the living room.

"I don't want to be a bother," For Sakura it was only a fifteen minute walk home. For Naruto, that was fourteen minutes too long, especially with what had been happening lately.

"Not a chance. Everybody else is staying," And he wasn't letting her out of his sight as she was. She had clearly never drank before, because she was far gone and he wished he'd noticed it earlier in the conversation when she stumbled over her words. Sakura usually didn't have any trouble coming up with what she needed to say, "If you think I'm letting you outside in the middle of the night like this, you're crazy."

He didn't think he could let her go, and it wasn't for altruistic reasons either. He felt her rubbing herself against him, and it was driving him mad.

Sakura contested weakly, "You can't make me stay," As if she wanted to leave in the first place.

"I'd love to see you get back up after I got you all the way here."

"Huh?"

Sakura hadn't even noticed that Naruto had basically ghosted to his room with her in tow, at least, not until he dropped her butt-first onto the center of his fairly large bed. Waiting for her body to settle and her head to stop swimming, Sakura shot him an adorable glare before she laid herself back on the mattress with a sigh.

Arms crossed, Naruto just stood and waited for her to get all of the fight-back out of her system, of which there wasn't very much. Only some half-hearted writhing to try and roll herself over and up, but she remained right where he'd dumped her.

When she didn't move again, Naruto figured he had to do something before she fell asleep and hogged the entire center of his bed for the night. Grabbing onto her toes he gave her a shake, only for her to kick her foot free with an annoyed moan. The second time, he grabbed onto her ankle and did it again only for events to repeat themselves, only with a louder, more annoyed groan. A third tug wound up with Naruto being hit in the face by Sakura's shirt, "Really?" Removing the article of clothing from his head resulted in him then being hit with her skirt, "Woman!"

Sakura held her legs in the air after kicking her skirt directly into Naruto's face, grinning in the dark at her own cheeky action. It wasn't dark enough for Naruto to not see it though, and once more time he hooked one of her ankles in place. Sakura tilted her head off of the bed high enough to look Naruto right in the eye.

"Could you close the door?" She asked, prompting Naruto to grab a nearby pillow and hurl it at the door without even looking to knock it shut, "Showoff," She slowly yanked her own leg back and pulled Naruto with her onto the bed, bringing him to a rest right on top of her, situated between her legs, "...Hi."

Naruto could feel her writhe underneath him, as if trying to wriggle herself into some sort of position, as if he had to guess where, "Hi," Her hands had already snaked underneath the bottom of his shirt to pull it up and over his head. Once it was gone, there was no pretending that they weren't about to do what they were doing, "So, tell me why tonight Sakura-chan?"

Sakura bit her lip and looked away. What was she supposed to say? She knew why. It wasn't complex. Because she wanted to experience a night with him. Because she hadn't before. Because earlier, Ibuki's words had stricken a sort of nerve.

Her friend had a point when she'd been talking about drinking with everyone, only Sakura was taking to it differently. She didn't know how many more chances she would have to be this close to Naruto, and if the worst came to pass, for him, for her, for the both of them, she wanted to make sure she had no regrets.

Most importantly though…

"Because I choose to," Sakura said, answering his question, only to see Naruto's eyes go wide at what she'd said, "What? Does that sound familiar?"

It did, because it hadn't been that long since he'd said it to her, "You were actually awake for that huh?" Naruto asked, feeling self-conscious now that he knew Sakura had actually heard his little speech he'd given her in her sleep at the hospital.

"I can't stop you," Sakura admitted, running her hands through his hair, "I won't. It wouldn't be fair. So if nothing else I want you to know that you can't lose. You've got reasons to come back, alright?"

He knew that already.

"Reasons, including Sakura-chan?"

"Yes silly, reasons including me. So-," With a determined sigh, Sakura reached behind her back and loosened her bra, a soft snap noise coming from the undergarment, "-Now what?" She had a rough idea of what she was doing, but not much really. She knew what to do, but not necessarily how to go about it. She'd always been something of a good girl… for the most part at least.

Naruto gave her an odd look before chuckling slightly, "You're so lucky I've done this a few times already, and wow that was stupider than it sounded in my head," He said, getting off of her and sitting with his back against his headboard, "Come here."

Sakura sat up, holding her bra to her chest before she realized how redundant the action was. With a roll of her eyes she let the piece of cloth drop onto the bed and crawled over to Naruto, coming to a rest straddling his waist.

Lemon Start

It wasn't some awkward position that they had somehow wound up in while they were play wrestling like when they were younger, where they would linger in a situation like this just to get a second or so more of a curious touch of Naruto's growing muscles or Sakura's budding curves. There hadn't been any accidental brushing of lips here. No one was apologizing. No one would be moving away.

If it hadn't been readily apparent at all before, it was crystal clear now that the two best friends were both all grown up.

Naruto had to take a moment to drink her in. This had been a long time coming, and he'd thought about it too often to not let those things cloud his mind now. Everything he wanted to do came to him automatically, no thought given whatsoever.

Another kiss, with a quick dance of tongues, and then Naruto directed his mouth lower down Sakura's neck. Her lips were plenty sweet, but it was the rest of her that he'd yet to experience.

Biting her lip in anticipation, Sakura's eyes followed Naruto carefully as he laid kisses on her bare chest. His hands on her waist worked her panties down as Sakura pushed up on her knees to help him get them off, "Yah… not much you're gonna be able to do if you keep those on is there?" She asked, hinting at his pants.

If he'd been thinking clearly, Naruto would have more than likely rattled off a snappy response along the lines of, 'You'd be surprised,' but his mind was too busy elsewhere, focused on the young woman before him.

Sakura's heart hammered in her chest as Naruto cupped her breasts and slowly started massaging them. Ibuki's were bigger, but Sakura's were comparable to Karin's, which were fairly large. They were perfect on her. He fondled and suckled both of her breasts carefully, taking great care with her.

They could have been doing this years ago. Years! Every touch she'd given herself out of loneliness felt so much warmer, more electric, coming from him.

Sakura had several pressing needs that had to be tended to, this being one of them and she mewled at the attention she was receiving until she felt a light nip at one of her hardened nipples. Entirely unprepared, she let out a sharp gasp and swatted Naruto on the head, "No biting," She let off, mostly out of instinct.

It… hadn't been that bad actually.

"You know you like it," Naruto stated before popping one of her perky pink nubs back into his mouth, idly noting that she didn't fight him back on that observation. He could feel it. She didn't pull away when he'd done it, instead grinding herself against him. That was his girl.

He took his time, lavishing attention onto both of Sakura's tits, feeling her muscles clench up. Hearing her struggle to stay quiet and keep from moaning made him want to hear her cry aloud.

It was agonizing for Sakura. So close and yet so far, all because of a pair of pants in her way. She didn't want to get off of Naruto, but his pants would only go down so far as long as she was sitting on him. Every time she bucked forward, Naruto lowered his hands down to her ass and held it tightly.

"God Naruto, why?" Sakura whispered harshly, rubbing herself against his covered erection as his hands groped her behind unapologetically, "C'mon already," She whined fitfully before feeling a quick rush of aggression go through her.

She had been getting bolder about the idea of actually being with him and was feeling markedly frisky and constrained by then.

Naruto's pants and boxers found themselves casualties of this via being torn off of his body, and as he sat relieved of his clothing, still fully erect, he didn't know what to say. Yes, he had many more clothes to wear in his supply, but even so… "What was that?"

"Uh, my dark side?" Apparently it didn't like having a string dangled in front of her as if she were a kitten.

"Wow," Naruto mused, wondering just how this would have gone with slightly different circumstances, "Well I guess it's a good thing we're doing this now. I don't think Sunburned Sakura-chan could wait any longer," She was clearly embarrassed, sitting on the bed away from him, unable to look at him.

He moved over to her and gave her a kiss right on her lips to show her that once again, he didn't care if her Satsui no Hadou side came out to play. He was pretty sure that Dark Sakura would have made up for her complete lack of experience with the most aggressive sex he could possibly imagine. That was a moot point however.

Naruto guided the girl's body to turn around, facing away from him on her hands and knees. She looked back at him with a nervous smile and wiggled her bottom to beckon him her way. Naruto had always thought that Sakura had a cute ass. Apparently she knew it from her shameless displaying of it.

The shinobi took his spot right behind her, one hand on Sakura's hip, the other prodding at her pussy. She was as ready as she could get, "Can I?"

It was probably redundant to ask, but what little gentleman tendencies there were in his mind couldn't help it.

"If you don't, I'll probably kick you through the wa-, oh," Sakura's voice cut out when she felt Naruto slide himself inside of her. All the way in. Slowly, "Mmm."

Thank goodness for training accidents… in hindsight at least. Because Sakura's hymen had already been broken in the past, neither of them had to deal with it right then the way Naruto and Karin had to.

That was the only real fear Sakura had going into any intimate experience, and it didn't hurt at all. That made it much easier to introduce her to the joys of the flesh.

But after months, if not years of pent-up romantic frustrations and finally deigning to take the plunge, Sakura only wanted to go further, "I want to see stars by the time we finish," She said after her lover began slowly pumping himself in and out of her.

Naruto reveled in the complete freedom he found inside of the pretty, young fighter. No warm-up necessary with Sakura.

"I think it's a perfect fit," He grunted out, pounding into her and increasing his pace as he found that she could take it. It was true. She accommodated his erection tightly, but she had gotten so wet and worked up that the only resistance he found was a squeezing pressure that just made it all better.

"Perfect fit," Sakura muttered repeatedly under her breath, losing her concentration and finding her head in a dark-filled haze. She focused back up and arched her back with a yelp when an open palm impacted off of her ass, "Ah!"

"One for every year I've wanted to fuck you," Naruto smacked Sakura's ass four times, eliciting a moan and counting them off for every blow that landed. Sakura bucked her hips and Naruto pulled her into his thrusts to drive himself deeper inside of her, "…You're lucky you're such a sweetie."

Sakura set her face down into a pillow that helped muffle her love cries. Turning her head to the side to look back at Naruto she spurred him on further, "I fought with Karin yesterday," She said, hoping he'd get the hint. He only spanked her hard enough for the sound and the sharp sting on her butt to turn her on more as he plowed into her, and she didn't necessarily hate it.

*SMACK*

"Mmm!" She winced, closing her eyes tightly, "And today when I was cooking."

*SMACK*

Naruto flattened Sakura out so he could nibble on her ear and whisper to her as he continued to pump in and out of her, "Sakura-chan's been a bad girl," Naruto teased, kissing her cheek before a sharp thrust that made her cry out, "She's supposed to be a good girl. I thought she was for all of these years."

"Naruto makes her a bad girl," Sakura told him in the third person, swearing that she'd have been clawing tears through his sheets if they hadn't been making love on his thick comforter, "You make me so crazy," She moaned, one cheek buried into the pillow beneath her.

He hooked underneath one of her thighs and spread her wider. Her eyes went wider at the focused pounding she was receiving. Her toes curled around the covers tightly, and Naruto swore he could see a bit of a red glow bleed into her eye that was visible to him, "You can be as bad as you want to be," Naruto said, not only to Sakura, but to her darker side that may have been bleeding over, "Only with me. I won't tell."

Sakura began to shake her head wildly at the feeling of satisfaction building up inside of her, trying to push herself back up with arms that felt like they were made of jelly, every nerve in her muscles seemingly connected to her honey pot, "Hah… hah…" Naruto planted a hand right on one of her shoulders to keep her pressed down. It didn't take a bit of effort to do so, "You're terrible."

"Stop smiling about it then," Naruto told her in between the girl's gasps amid the sounds of their glistening skin slapping together. The sound of the bedframe rocking filled the quiet apartment bedroom along with their panting until Sakura's began to take on a shaky timbre. She tried to kick her leg free of Naruto's grip, but he'd placed his knee right at the back of hers, keeping it right in place, never allowing her to writhe free and upset their rhythm.

She couldn't take much more. Her throwing of a fit on the bottom of a robust fucking was the last that her body would allow her to do.

Sakura grabbed Naruto's wrist, pulled it forward, and bit down on his hand hard enough to draw blood. Her scream was muffled by the coppery taste in her mouth as she shuddered through her release. Naruto felt his hard-on twitch in warning before he pulled out and shot his load on the top of the comforter underneath them.

A tired laugh came from Sakura as she came down from her euphoric high, "I've been on birth control Naruto. You didn't have to play it safe."

Naruto let out an upset grunt and pulled Sakura up to her knees, causing her to gasp at the cooler air of the room hitting her perspiring body. She lolled her head back onto his shoulder as he spoke into her neck, "Could have said that before I did it."

"Wasn't thinking. Couldn't think," Sakura reasoned breathily, "Thank you."

"I can't be mad at you," Naruto said, nuzzling against her as they both fell backwards onto the pillows by the head of the bed. The two just basked in the company of one another, both of them sweaty and catching their breath.

They could hardly believe that any of that had actually happened.

Everything had all been a whirlwind since they'd left the kitchen.

"W-Where did that come from?" Sakura eventually asked, still quivering somewhat in the aftermath, "Three years of unresolved sexual tension maybe?" She ventured as a guess. All she knew for sure was that she wanted to do it again.

"Four," Naruto corrected as he moved the two of them on their sides, his softening cock still between the girl's thighs as he fit the two of them underneath the covers, "I kinda wanted you before you went off on that trip of yours without me," He began to pull out from between her legs, but Sakura grabbed behind over his thigh to keep him in place, "Hm?"

"No. Stay there," Sakura asked, rubbing her slick thighs together, getting a groan out of Naruto, "I like it like this."

With a comfortable sigh, Naruto reached underneath Sakura's stomach and playfully brushed his fingers against her thin brown patch of pubic hair. Within minutes the two were fast asleep, and would have the best night of it either of them had gotten in weeks.

A pair of mischievous brown eyes peered through a small crack opened in the door, closing it silently when it was clear that the activity had come to an end.

She'd thought about sneaking in and trying her hand at getting herself a go as well, but this was for Sakura's sake. She'd had the courage to go ahead and put herself out on the line, and that in of itself was enough of a reason for Ibuki to behave. Every young girl had a sort of vision for how her first time was roughly supposed to go, and for Sakura's first time she shouldn't have been drunkenly shoehorned into a threesome.

…Even if Ibuki knew that she definitely could have swung it with a little coaxing.

No, if Ibuki was going to wind up in a threesome it was going to be with everyone a consenting, sober party, so she and the rest of them could at least remember it later.

Ibuki walked back soundlessly to the couch that she had been cuddled up with Karin on and easily picked the girl up before walking her to Cammy's room. The reasons being that Cammy had a big bed, the former Doll probably wouldn't mind, and Karin would undoubtedly bitch if she woke up on a couch first thing in the morning even if she'd been having fun the night before.

Cammy cracked an eye open at the sight of them, fully aware of their entry, but quickly shut it and shifted around slightly to get comfortable again. The lack of a rebuke for their presence was enough for Ibuki to figure that it was okay and quickly found herself in an impromptu sleepover.

'Sakura-chan had better appreciate the restraint,' Ibuki thought to herself with a pout, relieved of her street clothes as she slept on the outside right of the three girls in the bed, 'Ooh, now I have to go to bed all bothered and turned on.'

Taking great care to keep quiet, Ibuki slid a hand beneath the waistband of her panties and began to stealthily tend to herself for the evening.

At least today had been a peaceful one. With what was coming their way, there was no guarantee that things would ever be as serene as they were that night ever again.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright, that's chapter. Nothing but a daily life piece really. Oh. And the lemon. That happened too.<strong>

**Sorry to slow it down as far as update speed goes. Work's been kicking my tail, I've got several projects going on, and now that I actually have money to put behind it again I'm working to get myself ready for another fight. It won't be until October though. I've been out of stringent training for too long to just jump headfirst into another bout on a few weeks notice.**

**I don't even have a sleep schedule anymore. I basically just drop whenever I'm not doing something vital and my body tells me it's time to steal some z's for an hour or two. Sleep doesn't even refuel me at this point. Apparently you're supposed to live like that when you're twenty-two, but I must have an old soul, because I'm not a fan of it.**

**And here another thing, totally off-topic by the way. **

**I've been debating going with a story that would be strictly DC Universe in its basis, but I'm not certain how well it would do, mostly because the main character would be an OC, as I couldn't find a DC character that would fit what I needed out of the lead, as it requires a personality and perspective on what's happening around him that needs to be built from the ground up. I've already written a minimum of two chapters for it and know what I'm going to do for the most part as far as the storyline goes.**

**My mind wouldn't leave me alone until I put something into word document, and that something wound up being almost three chapters worth of work that I haven't decided on putting up. Just a look into how cluttered my head is at all times of the day. I switch trains of thought like I'm literally changing tracks.**

**And that's it. I'm done. I hope you enjoyed.**

**Kenchi out, you jive turkeys.**


	56. Zero Hour

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I need a new fighting game like Bushido Blade to come out. One of my favorite titles lost to time. I was a big fan of that combat system, and I was impressed with it back in PS1 days. I can only imagine what a game like that would look like and play like now.

**Chapter 56: Zero Hour**

* * *

><p>Dust settled as Sakura stood with her hands still outstretched from a blast of her mightiest Hadoken, her eyes locked on Naruto in shock and awe. He stood barely twenty feet away with one arm pointed at her and one pointing away from anything that could have been destroyed.<p>

Limply dropping from her pose down to her knees, Sakura scoffed and couldn't help but slowly smile, "You did it," She knew he could, but it made her heart flutter to see it firsthand.

A trail was burned into the ground in the space between them. Sakura had shot her Shinkuu Hadoken right at him. She hadn't wanted to, and had been afraid that she'd hurt him badly the entire time due to how much stronger her ki attacks were now, fully capable of killing their targets, but Naruto insisted, saying that it was one of the most important things he would ever ask her to do. He never asked her for anything, so reluctantly she had given in.

Not only had Naruto stood his ground against the killer attack, he had redirected it.

Standing off to the side, Ken observed, breaking into a slow clap after the dust had settled and the sound of the attack's rumble had dissipated into the air. He'd been helping Naruto train for a fight against someone with a similar base in fighting style. He'd also been the one to suggest that Sakura fire something heavy at Naruto in the first place.

Ken's focus had been to make sure that Naruto was prepared for the physical portion of their martial art. When it came to the actual sparring, he'd been absolutely relentless. Anything he had the fortitude to throw at Naruto full-speed during a spar would still be nothing compared to what Akuma would bring when the real thing happened. His raw ki manipulation was beneath Akuma's, Ryu's, even Sakura's at this point, but when it came to the actual hand-to-hand he was philosophically their superior.

Still, what he'd just seen…

"Congratulations kid," Ken said, "You just stopped a blockbuster-level attack," Just to stand up in front of something like that took no small amount of courage, but to have the presence of mind to use a technique to turn it back around... 'I don't think saying he has balls is enough of a compliment here.'

Naruto didn't beam cockily, or laugh at his own success. He merely looked at his hands and clenched them into fists. They were numb, but he still felt just fine. This was the jutsu that would make or break the most important fight of his life.

Sakura jumped up and ran over to Naruto, throwing her arms around his neck for a massive hug, "You did it! You finished it!" She could have almost cried. She didn't think it would have meant so much to finally see it happen, but it did.

Naruto squeezed around the girl's waist, shutting his eyes and sighing in deep relief. A stark contrast to his usual demeanor. This had been the most important part of his preparations, and he needed to know that the redirection technique was usable against an attack that would without question maim, or even kill him if it hit him directly.

He knew why she was happy. She knew the gist of his plan when it came to his reason for learning the redirection technique.

Seeing him actually use it, and stand up against her best attack without a scratch while doing it gave her hope. Hope that Naruto wouldn't lose. Hope that he wouldn't wind up a stain smeared across the Pacific Rim.

Hope…

Yeah, he was good at that.

XxX

(With Ryu – Mt. Mikagura, Japan – Gouken's Dojo)

Trekking up the mountain that he'd spent his entire childhood and teenage years on brought on a wave of nostalgia that Ryu hadn't expected as he returned to the only place he had ever called home. He could remember running the barely beaten path up and down, to and from the small dojo day after day for years, at first alone and then with Ken when he'd begun training there as well.

Things were so much simpler then. Train to be the strongest. That was all there was to it. And that was how things had remained, even then. It was just that things kept getting in the way.

He hadn't been back since he'd first left to travel the world and try his hand at taking on the strongest the world had to offer. It was definitely time for a return.

He could think of no time better with the knowledge that Gouken was truly alive and well, and he could think of no better reason to head back than to get his master's advice. The issue with Akuma, Sakura, the Satsui no Hadou, and so many other things were looming just in the distance.

Ryu had hoped that staying there for a few days would have given him some clarity. He wanted some sort of guidance. A way to find a solution to the several situations surrounding him.

Sitting out in front of the small dojo building that had been home in his youth, Ryu leaned his travel bag against his side before looking over. His beloved master stood next to him before sitting down to accompany him. The two reserved men simply sat and stared at the scenery, and it really did feel like old times; back when they had nothing but each other's company.

It had been a time when Ryu could expect to receive Gouken's direction and advice without actively seeking it. But now, it seems he'd come to the source of so much wisdom as though he were a man suffering of thirst, returning to the well which had borne him an untold amount of water in his youth.

Gouken had not advised him, because honestly it was no longer his place. Ryu was an adult. A martial artist of worldwide repute, revered in dozens of nations spanning the globe. He would not make his decisions for him, nor tell him how to live. He could only make suggestions, the way he had for the young girl Sakura. In the end, it was up to the person listening on how to interpret and apply what they were told.

"Master Gouken," Ryu eventually said, feeling the weight of his own thoughts and expectations, "I feel like I'm missing something about all of this. About Sakura, and my own growth," What had happened the night he'd fought with Naruto resonated with him. He couldn't shake it off and just state flat-out that Naruto was wrong about what was the proper thing to do, "I feel as though there's something fundamental that I'm failing to grasp."

He failed to reply at first, but that was simply his way. Instead of simply talking, Gouken wished to measure his words carefully, both to get his point across and to do so in the way that was the easiest for the listener to understand. For Ryu, the best way in the past had been to be direct.

The old man turned to his adopted son and protege, "Ryu, there comes a time in every martial artist's progression where they have to figure out what they stand for, if they wish to continue forward," He explained, tapping on his head and then at his heart, "You must find a tangible focus for your energies that will bring you peace to think about. A balance. Being the strongest is an unclear goal to aim for."

There was no real way to measure it. There were people in the world stronger than those Ryu knew of, and even beyond. To be ridiculous, what if there was life on other worlds? Would he then concern himself with trying to prove himself the combat superior to every being in the galaxy? What if there were other dimensions as well?

It was an intangible goal not just because of that, but because it was one that he could never keep and maintain. Eventually, Ryu would age. He would eventually slow down a step. The condition of his body would eventually reach its limits, and then it would all go downhill. It was nature. There was always someone stronger, and if there wasn't at a certain point in time there would be later.

Even if he ever reached that achievement to a satisfactory degree in his mind, one day he wouldn't be the strongest anymore, and then he would find the inevitable end of the line with his defeat. If there was anything that was clear by now, it was that Ryu did not take the prospect of defeat very well.

Ryu furrowed his brow in thought and consideration. This had gone against certain things that he had determined for himself. Nothing mattered, but the fight. The steady, disciplined progression of his skills, "I don't understand. How am I supposed to find what this is? I can think of nothing of the sort. Is it really such a vital thing?"

You didn't have to be a grizzled adult to find the center of your universe, the thing that would keep your feet on the ground.

"It isn't so terribly difficult. It's something that's supposed to come naturally," Gouken said, "For one thing, Ken has done it. If you want another example, the boy that Sakura has found herself attached to has already done it as well," That much had been clearly evident when he'd met Naruto the first time, "Age, experience, and diligence have nothing to do with it. It's not something that you can consciously seek. It's something that comes to you, but only if you're open enough to accept it."

It was taking most of Ryu's ability to understand to keep up. He couldn't look for it? So how would he know whenever he found what this just so happened to be? And it was supposed to be something concrete? Because it sounded just as abstract as Gouken said his life's goal was.

Ryu's furrowed brow was evidence enough that he either didn't get it, or still didn't see it as important. Possibly both. Thus, Gouken continued.

The easiest way to turn Ryu onto something was to appeal to its use as far as the martial arts went, "If you need a practical reason, this helps you create techniques that better suit your own dynamics and philosophies. From a metaphysical standpoint, if you continue to fight and grow with nothing to stand for, you can find yourself lost. Gaining power just for the sake of gaining it will never bring about one's full potential."

"Why?"

"Attempting to break limits and reach beyond current plateaus is best done with a sense of urgency," Gouken told Ryu with a smirk, "Training to improve is all well and good my child, but in my experience, the greatest strength comes forth when it is truly needed."

It was clear that who he was talking about. The circle of kids out of Aohura City. It was obvious. Naruto and Sakura weren't the same kids he'd gone up against at an airport in Hong Kong for kicks. The two of them alone had gotten stronger over the course of a full year than he'd thought possible, to the extent that they could pass him.

If Naruto hadn't already.

"And they found a need?" Of course they found a need. He didn't even have to ask such a question. The sheer danger that they'd been thrown in since he'd come to town the first time alone would have been enough to make them step up to deal with it. It wasn't just Naruto and Sakura either. The ninja girl, Cammy, the Kanzuki heiress, and Naruto's friend Batsu. Even Naruto's frienemy Uchiha Sasuke had raised his game in response, "…They all found their reasons? Real things to maintain a hold of?"

Now he seemed to be getting it, at least a bit. Gouken nodded in confirmation, "Yes. They've found reasons to make their leaps and bounds in strength, whereas your only concern has been to ensure that you are stronger than the next person in front of you."

Just being stronger by itself wasn't enough of a need to find that breakthrough to the next level? Once again, such thinking went against the very foundation of Ryu's understanding.

Ryu stood and took his travel bag with him, slinging it over his back before turning to Gouken and bowing, "Thank you for your hospitality, master. I believe I've learned what I hoped to. It was... so good to see you again," He finished, truly glad to have seen his master once again. But the road called.

"You as well my son," Gouken said before reaching out and planting a flat, conical hat onto Ryu's head for him to travel with, "Take care. Your real potential still hasn't been realized, and I know you will be greater than I could ever dream."

Ryu stood back up and adjusted the hat on his head with a true, wide smile on his face, "I'll return soon for a visit. There are things I need to take care of first."

This had been just what he'd needed to begin working things out. Whatever his answer was to become the kind of man Gouken knew he could become, he would find it. One day he fully intended on making good on Gouken's belief that he would be the greatest fighter of them all.

XxX

(Aohura City, Japan – Karin's Mansion)

It was a matter of days away, the to-be fight with Akuma, and the closer that day seemed to get, the more closed off the normally tight-knit crew of youngsters in Aohura City seemed to become. They kept mostly to themselves as their concern over the outcome grew, but Naruto kept them all in the loop even if seeing him did make them worry further.

Even if he wasn't in good conscious going to allow anyone he cared about on that battlefield, he wanted them well aware of how he was going to go about getting the job done.

"I am… uncertain about this Naruto-san," Karin admitted with a thoughtful frown, concern clearly evident as she gave her viewpoint on the matter, "You are relying heavily on several unrelated traits of your opponent in order to ensure your stratagem's success. In my opinion, if one aspect fails, I am afraid you will find yourself at a loss."

Him being at a loss during that fight meant that he would probably actually LOSE the fight, and him losing that fight more than likely meant that she would lose him. When she said that she was afraid of him being at a loss, she really, honestly meant it.

"Look Rin-Rin, planning shit isn't my strong suit. I'm more of an adjust-on-the-fly kind of guy," Naruto admitted with a grumble at hearing the doubts being sent his way, "But to me, Akuma is the kind of person that fights one kind of way all of the time."

If no one has ever been powerful enough to force you to deviate from your normal method of combat, why would you choose to? That was the basis behind the planned approach. Even though he'd already fought Naruto once, as well as Sasuke, Sakura, Ken, and Ryu, the common factor in all of those fights was that Akuma had fought almost the same way every time around.

Which to an extent made him predictable. Still, just because Naruto sort of knew how Akuma was going to fight didn't mean he was ready to endure it. No, it just helped him in formulating a way to get what he wanted out of the battle from the raging demon's end of things. He had never strategized for a battle with anyone in his life, at least not beforehand.

"Besides," Naruto said with confidence, trying to assuage her concerns, "This whole thing is Cam-approved."

Karin felt that something about that logic was off. Cammy was the most tactically adept of them all. If there was a way to fight something, it was more than likely that she would be the one to know how to, or find a way to get it done. Very little of what Naruto had told Karin sounded to her like anything the cute little assassin would have signed off on, "Cammy-san approved of your plan, you say?"

"Yeah, I ran all of this by Cam first, and she took out enough of the sucky ideas and came up with better ones to make her feel better about me doing it," Naruto explained, visibly deflating as he remembered how Cammy had hacked away at his original 'plan', "She wasn't even nice about it the way you're being. She just told me if I did stuff a certain way I was definitely gonna die."

Well that made more sense. Good. There were only so many ways to get things through Naruto's head. In Karin's experience, the easiest approach was to simply force it right in there. Way to go Cammy, "So this is merely a revised version of an even more foolhardy plan? I shudder to think what it had been before."

It wasn't Cammy-approved, just Cammy-accepted. There was a difference. The latter simply implied that it was simply the best that was going to be done in a given situation, not that it was an established method to be taken. In the end, Cammy had accepted it, because she of all people, with her complete, unconditional loyalty to Naruto, was not going to be the one to keep him from doing something.

"Well this is what I've got," Naruto told her, bringing that conversation to a stark conclusion. The two sat in silence as Karin stared down at the tea on the table in front of her. No doubt by now it was ice cold. It had been poured for her by her butler nearly a half an hour before he'd left her and Naruto alone, "Are you scared?" He asked her out of the blue.

The earnest question caused her to sit up ramrod straight. Kanzuki Karin did not admit weakness of any sort so readily, least of all fear of another living creature or _for_ another living creature, "Of course not!" She protested loudly before seeing the earnest expression on her beloved's face, "...Are you saying that you are?"

Impossible. Not he, who faced down enemies that most people in the world could never have dreamed of. Not he, who was her strength and courage when there was no reason for her to have any.

This was one person that she could have said without a doubt in her mind feared no mortal creature in existence. At least, she would have until that very moment.

"Yeah, I'm totally scared," Karin's eyes open wide in complete surprise. Naruto had never admitted to being afraid of standing up to anything before, at least to her knowledge. Naruto saw this and smiled at her, "Surprised?" She nodded slowly and uncertainly, "You know, I think you try harder when you're scared. That's... that's when it works best for me, I think."

"But you… you…" Karin struggled to find the words in the face of Naruto's nervous smile, "…You are the most courageous person I know. H-How could you be afraid?"

"Being brave isn't never being afraid of anything," Naruto told her, placing his hands on her shoulders, "Being brave is when you're scared to death of something, but you face it down anyway," After saying his piece, he frowned and tried to yank some of the gravity out of the conversation, "You're the only one I've ever said that to, and I'm still gonna rearrange his face. So if anyone else asks, no I'm not scared of that asshole."

"Why?"

"If everybody else knew I was scared, they'd be scared too," Naruto said to the wealthy young lady, "I figured if anybody'd understand hiding what you're feeling and stuff, it'd be you. That's why I'm telling you."

Karin bit her lip, not quite knowing how to approach him. Dealing with things like this were not necessarily her forte. Yet this was the man who had always been there for her, even when she had questionably been a brat to everyone around her.

She didn't have the strength to stand with him on the battlefield against this Akuma being, if what she had been told about him and had seen with her own eyes was any indication. But no matter what, he still had her support, and she would make sure that he knew it as best as she could.

Sliding into the ninja's lap, Karin wrapped her arms around Naruto's neck and embraced him as tightly as she could, as if he would disappear back to whence he had originally came if she let him go. Pulling away just far enough, she kissed his cheek and slid her lips close enough to his ear to whisper softly, "If you die, I will invest in a way to return you to life, just so that I can kill you myself. Do you understand?"

Naruto hugged the wealthy young woman back, snugly pressing their bodies together, relishing in the close contact. A grin covered his face at the thought of Karin trying to talk tough and be sweet at the same time. Oftentimes there was such a conflict between her actions and her words, "I know you would."

But he didn't need them to match up to know that Karin honestly cared.

XxX

(Hokkaido, Japan – Rishiri Island)

Akuma's eyes were set to the sky as the sun came up. Today was the day. Last night had been the first of the full moon period. The sand had run out of that boy's hourglass to prepare. Whatever he had come up with in the last month had better have been enough, or else his life was forfeit.

He had survived once when Akuma knew that his Shun Goku Satsu had made full contact. That by itself was exciting enough. A challenger with enough strength to survive an attack that had killed everyone he'd stricken with it before, and enough strength to come back from it even stronger than before.

"This must be it," Akuma said to himself, "He will not let me down. I am certain of it."

The boy would fight. He would keep coming without surcease. It would take Akuma's full measure to destroy him, and that was what he wanted. He hoped that for once he could finally show the full fruits of his decades upon decades of labor.

It was time. More than anything else before, Akuma sorely hoped that he would not be disappointed by this challenge. For the first time since smiting his coward of a brother and putting him six feet deep, he hadn't been excited to fight. Now it was even more so, because unlike that pathetic pacifist Gouken, the boy was actually fully willing to attack him with intent to kill.

The thought was almost enough to make him smile. Almost.

He had waited until the agreed upon date. He had chosen the battlefield that he wanted. Now he just needed to summon his quarry.

XxX

The first night of the full moon, Naruto didn't sleep. He couldn't. He stayed up, sitting on the roof of his new apartment, staring at the full red moon. A damn blood moon. It was almost funny to think about after Cammy had told him what it was. Either way, Naruto wound up staying awake until sunrise, staring at it with Cammy by his side. Neither of them said anything, Naruto unusually silent.

It was only after he was suited up the next day and ready to put boots to the ground that he came to the startling realization that he had no idea where he was supposed to go.

He tried to fool himself into thinking that the blank stare the gorgeous little assassin gave him after learning this information was just her usual expression, but he knew that she had long since been showing more emotion in her demeanor. On this particular occasion it was all because of him.

So of course he had to make a call to someone with resources, fortunately the only person he would have thought to call had already made her presence felt. It was so convenient knowing a girl with a fleet of luxury vehicles, who could produce a helicopter within the span of ten minutes. The only problem was that since it was her helicopter, using it fell underneath her rules, and she was not willing to grant flight without her presence.

The resulting argument between two forces of stubbornness lasted long enough that the party of three became a crowd of six. Sakura felt partially responsible for this occurring, and wanted to see it through to the end in her own right. Ibuki wanted to support Naruto the way he had done for her when she had needed it in Brazil, the way he had ever since the day they had met. Batsu had only driven over to see Naruto off before he headed off to battle, because that was what bros did for bros.

With time wasting, everyone eventually climbed into the aircraft, trying to figure out where to go while Karin's steward piloted.

"How do you not think to ask where this thing's supposed to happen?" Batsu asked, shaking his head as his hand covered his face. The entire time he'd been getting his ass kicked helping Naruto train for a showdown as best he could, and they didn't even have a venue, "God, how did none of _us_ even ask you before now?"

Because they figured that with the seriousness Naruto had taken everything regarding the conflict with Akuma, faith and outright discomfort over the idea of such a battle happening had prompted them to forgo asking the particulars. That had clearly been a mistake.

The hood of Naruto's fighting outfit was pulled over his head, hiding what it could of his face out of embarrassment, "There was a lot of stuff happening," And that was his defense.

"I think that's enough," Ibuki said, brushing Naruto's arm with her fingertips in a comforting gesture, "Complaining about it won't do anything now," Part of her was hoping that this was a sign that it wasn't meant to be, that it wouldn't happen.

She had been the first person to find Naruto after his original tussle with Akuma, and what she had seen that day could never be unseen. Ibuki would have been just fine if this could have become someone else's problem, or better yet, no one else's problem at all. It shouldn't have been the responsibility of any human being at all to have to stand against that… thing. She'd only ever seen Akuma once, looked into his eyes once, and even from a distance that had been enough.

It was impossible to imagine actually standing and fighting against something like him.

Cammy sat and thought it over before realizing that two of their immediate inner-circle had something that had proven to be very useful in this regard, "Isn't it possible for Naruto or Sakura to sense him?" Both had displayed that sort of ability in the past.

It was a fair idea, but it wasn't apropos in this instance as Naruto shook his head with a frown, "Not from super-far away. Not unless he's _really_ projecting it," Turning to Sakura, everyone saw her trying to close her eyes and focus in on the obvious feeling of Akuma's Satsui no Hadou, but to no avail as well, "If it was that easy to sense him out, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have gotten anywhere near Sakura-chan the last time."

_The military is investigating into what could have caused such a disturbance this morning. If you're just joining us, around ten o'clock this morning, a single character was carved into the southwestern face of Mount Rishiri. It is unknown as to what could have created the symbol so quickly and vanished just as fast, but it seems to be a beckoning-."_

From up front, Shibazaki turned off the news announcement that had interrupted the commercial radio station that they had been listening to. Without a word he turned around in the seat and got a nod from Karin before changing course and taking them all north. They would have to fly up past Hokkaido to reach that place.

Really? Cutting a message into a mountain to get him to approach? How gaudy.

But Rishiri Island, eh? Well at least now they knew where to drop Naruto for this little showdown. That was the moment where it all felt real. The mood inside of the helicopter felt airtight, as hardly anyone seemed to want to even breathe. The only thing cutting through the oppressive silence of the passengers was the sound of helicopter blades turning.

No adults this time. It was all on them, or more specifically, on one of them. On Naruto.

Things hadn't been this serious when they'd been going to fight Bison. Then, the battle with Vega had taken off some of the tension, and the entire time they had deferred to the adults in Guile, Chun-Li, and Charlie until right when it all escalated.

Things hadn't been this serious against Mad Gear, as they were just a gang, led by a military-minded, talented man, but still just a gang. Everything was right in their wheelhouse for that conflict.

Against Seth and S.I.N., Naruto had been so angry, and everything had transpired so quickly that there hadn't been time to let anything sink in. Now everyone had a month to let Akuma's challenge, and the repercussions of it sink in.

Looking around at the fallen faces of those closest to him, Naruto shut his eyes and pulled back his hood, undoing the headband that he'd worn for years. The metal from the original plate of the forehead protector was dinged and scratched, but the cloth was replaced every so often to keep it in good enough condition.

"Here," Naruto said, holding out the headband to Sakura, her eyes wide at the implication of such a gesture, "I'm pretty sure it'd get torn to bits and I'd lose it today anyway."

"Naruto, I-," Sakura stopped talking when Naruto moved forward and gently kissed her on the forehead before placing his headband on her. As he pulled back from her, he could see moisture building up just behind her eyes "...Why are you giving this to me? Isn't that the only thing you have from your home?"

"Yep. You haven't been wearing the white one you got from Ryu lately, so take care of mine for me," Naruto told her. She had more than likely lost it during her fight with Akuma, because he hadn't seen her with it since, "Besides... _this_ is my home."

It was his home, and just like the last one he had – no, more so than Konoha in a way, because he had chosen to accept this one as his own – he would fight to keep someone from ruining something beautiful in his life.

XxX

(Some Time Later – Hokkaido, Japan – Rishiri Island)

Akuma took up his time sitting on the rocky shoreline of the island, his eyes turned to the south, waiting for the sight of what he wanted coming along the horizon. He could feel it edging closer and closer as the day dragged on. Apparently the message had been received. It was one thing that the weaklings of this planet were good for; if nothing else they knew how to get word around.

Apparently they were so effective at it, they could get word to people who had no business being there as well.

Ryu stood less than twenty feet away, behind the very monster that he had spent years fearing becoming anything like. And yet, Akuma did not acknowledge him for even a moment. Not for the better part of an hour after the white-clad warrior's arrival.

Eventually a low, irritated growl came from the self-proclaimed 'Master of the Fist', "The message I left was not for your eyes, whelp. There is nothing for you here, not even oblivion at my hand."

Ryu's hands clenched in his red gloves, as it had taken a deep introspective look at himself to muster what it took to come out and confront Akuma. He would not simply turn around and leave, "This is what you wanted isn't it? Well stand up so we can end this today."

"I have no interest left in you," Akuma said bluntly to Ryu, "I've grown weary of getting my hopes up. Every time you take a step forward with your power, you take two steps back. Coward," He snorted, "…Afraid of your own strength. What possible value could I find in crushing you?"

"So you challenge a child-?"

"That is no child."

"-You challenge a CHILD," Ryu continued, not allowing Akuma's weak point to stop him, "With the intent of killing him and ruining another? You validate your place by killing anyone who may show a hint of promise before they can even reach it?"

Akuma did not rise to the bait of Ryu's questioning of his fighter's philosophy, "I've lost faith in this world. It's been so long since I've had a true test. What is the use of all of the power I have at my command when I can never fully use it?" He had honed his powers, given of himself to the Satsui no Hadou, only to learn that he could find no equal to match him on the battlefield, "Fighting the weak is something only the weak would take pleasure in. I want the sort of battle where I see my life flash before my eyes. I want to see death standing directly in front of me so that I can lash out at him. You will never be able to bring me such a thing. I see that now."

"And Sakura will?"

"That… is undecided," Akuma did finally open his eyes to speak on the subject at hand, "The fight I want, I'm not expecting out of her anytime soon. Just call it an investment in the future. Besides, I've already challenged the one I _know_ will give me what I seek."

Ryu closed his eyes in consternation, as he had already been aware of what was going on, "…Naruto."

Akuma felt an honest jump of excitement in his heart, thinking of the young man's growth since he'd first annihilated him, "I don't need to place my hand in the process of guiding him. All I need to do is put something he wants at risk and he'll stand to face me. There's no question of _if_ he can rise to the occasion. It's simply a question of _when_. And I say, that time is now."

And if it wasn't, well that would just be too unfortunate for him, wouldn't it?

"I won't let you," Ryu declared. There was no part of him that thought this was right. He would not, could not allow this happen as long as he had the power to try and stop it, "No matter what it takes."

"You are a fool. You are not even enough for a warm-up," Akuma declared, his fancy with Ryu's development having long since passed, "So go. Let the ignorant masses refer to you as the best in the world. As long as you know the truth for yourself; that you are nowhere close. Because of your own fear of what you could have been," Ryu still stood, thus prompting Akuma to drive the nail in deeper, "I told you to go, you whimpering babe! You no longer hold my interest!"

He concluded this by smashing his fist into the ground, causing a shore-shaking tremor. But Ryu held his ground, merely taking a step back to garner himself some extra space, "You'll punch at the earth but you won't fight me? The ground rarely ever hits back, just so you know."

That did it.

Ryu felt the stagnant pressure of the air around him increase as Akuma stood up and slowly turned to face Ryu. Perhaps there was something to this whole 'taunting' thing after all? Ken did it all the time, and he had never seen the point of it, but now… he was beginning to see the applications to such an infuriating tactic. It did seem to get him the results that he wanted.

Then he felt the first punch. It came without warning, and Akuma hadn't even bothered taking up a stance before gliding over to him like a phantom and blasting him in the chest. Ryu was barely able to protect himself before he was sent flying.

"Begone, weakling," Akuma said, watching Ryu's body smash off of several rocky, seaside peaks before falling into the water. It served him right. Akuma had no time to suffer fools. He didn't make an appearance to humor the egos or senses of justice possessed by others.

Wait, since when was the sound of helicopter blades nearby?

Damn Ryu! He distracted him enough to mask the approaching signature of the boy! By the time Akuma realized this he had been hit by more punches than he had ever taken at one moment in his life. An engulfing mass of vengeful blond shinobi hit him as often as they could, thinking nothing of their own existences as Akuma tore through them like tissue paper, dispelling them and the rest of their brethren.

But it never ended.

Naruto did not let up. Every blow was thrown with ill intent. Every shot that landed was meant to break bone, to tear flesh, to hurt him as quickly and as finitely as possible. The second wave of clones, having learned from their vanquished ilk, even drew kunai, for the little good that human-made steel would have on his skin.

"**ENOUGH!"** Akuma roared, flaring his devilish, red ki, killing off the remainder of Naruto's dozens of clones with the violent initial discharge. The man stood aggravated in a small crater of his own creation as he pinpointed the weakened signature of the perpetrator, standing forty yards away, completely out of the line of fire, **"You."**

"Me," Naruto said, not taking a step forward. Instead, he formed a half-ram seal to do nothing more than draw upon his own chakra. At Akuma's feet, the sound of dozens of snakes alerted him, but there were none.

Instead there were explosive tags buried underneath the rubble of the ground that Naruto's clones had been dispelled on. Tags that had ample time to detonate with the time it took to scope them out. Whoops.

***BOOM!***

The resulting blast was large enough that Naruto had to move out of the way lest he find himself caught within its confines, and even then he still felt the scorching heat of the explosion licking at his bare arms and the unwanted extra push of the shockwave driving him farther away.

Naruto dragged his feet to a stop on the rocky ground and turned around to look at the fruits of his labor before being chided for it, **"Don't stare, dumbass!"** The Kyuubi bellowed at the dog he had a stake in for this fight,** "You know that wasn't anywhere near enough! Hit him harder!"**

He punctuated this by forcing enough chakra through the seal on Naruto's body to enshroud him. Already on the job, Naruto had already finished the hand-seals for his next move, firing chakra bullets from his throat with a yell, all of them locked on to the combat energy signature that had long since been established as Akuma's.

The volley continued until Naruto's throat felt bloody and raw, the only thing that stopped him from continuing. Sucking down air to try and catch his breath, the chakra cloak around him stabilized enough to form one visible, waving tail behind him.

Even that hadn't finished him off. But hopefully it had angered him, or goaded him into stepping things up. One or the other. Both were just as good. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be that simple to get what he wanted. And if Naruto couldn't get what he wanted out of his opponent, there was no way he would win.

"Yes," Akuma said as the dust around him settled. He found himself pleased at the sheer killer instinct behind Naruto's initial onslaught, "A fair opening attack. If that is how you plan on fighting-," He stopped a Rasengan aimed right at his face, just short of making contact by grabbing Naruto's wrist, "-This may be worthwhile," A sharp squeeze felt the bones in Naruto's wrist pop out of joint as his Rasengan lost its form.

Gritting his teeth in pain after the dislocation, Naruto's whisker marks darkened and thickened, as the red cloak of energy around his body grew in strength, bubbling intensely. In his free hand, an even larger Rasengan formed, one that Akuma couldn't have stopped, even if he'd caught the young man by the wrist again, "Odama Rasengan (Great Ball Spiraling Sphere)!"

Naruto slammed the technique into Akuma as he blocked with his own free arm, smashing it downward and causing the rocky shore side beneath them to crack and shatter, sending them both down to the ocean. He was able to stop himself by clinging to a cliff with chakra as rocks and debris fell and splashed into the water.

Wincing at his injury, Naruto snapped his wrist back into place and waited for Akuma to surface. The damaged area burned intensely as the chakra did its work of repairing what was left to fix. Rolling his hand around, he prepared for the first sign of the enemy to continue.

From below, the seas parted. A purple blast of energy flew up at Naruto, the size of a 747. Choking down a gasp, Naruto scampered up the cliff just in time to avoid being caught in the scope of Akuma's killer Hadoken. Naruto beat a hasty retreat away from the rocky cliffs as they seemed to lose all of their structural integrity once the ki attack passed by, crumbling and falling apart.

Stopping at the entrance to a nearby forest, Naruto dodged again as Akuma crashed down from the sky, slamming his fist into the ground and rending the landscape into rubble.

The monster of a man stood straight up, dust and pebbles dropping from his hand as he addressed Naruto, "Did you learn anything from the last time we fought?" He said as he watched a third tail of chakra emerge from Naruto's cloak, "That kind of power by itself won't be enough to even scratch my flesh."

Naruto had reached the limit of how far he could safely go on his own. That much hadn't changed since the night they had clashed in Budokan Hall. He had found ways around it, ways that he felt the need to tap into quickly, but he could only hope that it would be enough to draw Akuma's very best forward.

"I know, but it's like an engine. I've gotta warm it up," Naruto said, trying to put on a confident facade, "I can't just go from zero-to-sixty. Give me a sec."

A smirk came to Akuma's face at that, "No."

Naruto felt what little sense of security he'd had about the battle sink with that one word, "No?"

"No," Akuma confirmed before explaining, "I'm fighting you because I believe that you have the ability to truly test me. What kind of ability would it show if I _let_ you utilize your best attacks. That's not the way a battle should ever work. It's up to you to attempt your best, and it's up to me to keep you from doing so. Whoever succeeds will win, whoever fails will die."

He wanted to see how skilled Naruto was when he had to work against him. That did not mean that Akuma would grant him liberties to give him an advantage. An opponent he had to hold the hand of throughout a fight to ensure a challenge was no one worth fighting in the first place.

Naruto's eyes went wide as the last thing he wanted to happen began to occur; Akuma began to fight him at his base level of power. The original plan called for Naruto to hit Akuma as hard as he could, as often as he could, to force Akuma to draw on as much power as possible quickly into the battle. The assumption had been that anyone actually willing to take the fight to him would have alarmed him so greatly, he would have retaliated in the easiest manner, by coming back with more power.

Pounding away with three tails of chakra wasn't enough. That had already been established. But Naruto hadn't had the time to split control and go for six. There had been an opening, where he could have gotten the drop on Akuma unawares, and he had taken it. Hitting six tails before making his move would have lost him the element of surprise.

When balancing and weighing his options in the span of a handful of seconds, he'd taken the free, open shots on a negligent foe opposed to powering up and taking him head-on in a situation that still wouldn't have guaranteed success.

Akuma's movements were difficult to keep up with. Only Naruto's failed attempt to stop him by extending his chakra arms gave him the warning he needed to dodge a crushing straight punch. The force behind it was so great it cleared a path through the forest after it had missed, barreling down trees for yards.

Naruto avoided peril from several punches and kicks by pushing them past him without ever putting his body in the path of their trajectory. He'd learned from training with Ken the way that a master of the style intended to throw their physical attacks, and there was no disciple of that style more adept with the actual hand-to-hand techniques than Ken.

He moved in and wrapped Akuma in a five-limbed bearhug, using his arms and chakra tails to try and crush Akuma's body and burn him with the powerful, caustic chakra of the cloak. The focused force of all of Naruto's strength being harnessed in such a small area caused the ground to shake underneath them.

Looking up at the hulking martial artist's face, Naruto saw no reaction, even as he looked down to stare right back at the young ninja. Akuma broke the hold, with what felt like nothing more than a full-body flex of his muscles. Without a second of wasted motion, Akuma grabbed Naruto by the face and took off through the forest, felling trees by slamming his body into the trunks.

Naruto dug his three chakra tails into the ground to try and drag Akuma to a stop, but he only wound up serving to effectively till the ground, as any speed lost wasn't significant enough to keep the man's actions from hurting him.

On one of Akuma's swings, Naruto freed himself, flying forward until he landed ahead of Akuma in the middle of his path. Charging forward, he met him, shoulder lowered, and slammed himself right into Akuma's torso. He barely budged, and Naruto held tight in his own right. Sinking his claws into Akuma's gi, he then wound up and sank both of his fists into his kidneys.

Akuma let out an irritated growl and lifted a fist up, covered in purple ki, intent on punching it straight through Naruto's back, when a powerful blue Hadoken exploded in his face.

The surprise attack gave Naruto enough time to grab Akuma with two of his chakra tails and lift him high into the air before slamming him down into the dirt, using the third tail to smash him down even harder. Before Naruto even felt him twitch, his tails dragged him through the ground, bringing him back up long enough to be served up on a silver platter.

"Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (Tornado Whirlwind Leg)!"

A very familiar attack came spinning into Akuma like a buzzsaw, the user's ki looking similar to lightning around his body. He came in faster than Naruto had thought possible from someone not named Ken, blasting Akuma dead-center with the hardest point of his heel. Akuma's mouth was forced open from the impact as blood and bile rocketed from the inside of his body.

Like the world's meanest game of tetherball, Akuma played the ball, while Naruto's chakra tails played the rope, only there was no pole. The black-clad destroyer cleared an entire section of forest with his body, propelled by the force of one man's leg.

Naruto watched Akuma disappear amid the violent sound of trees snapping and uprooting from the soil before turning to the perpetrator of the attack, "R-Ryu?" He asked, keeping control of the delicate balance that his temper existed under when using three tails. Ryu wasn't really his favorite person in the world at the moment, but any port in a storm, and there were few people Naruto would have trusted to actually be capable of bringing the noise against someone like Akuma.

If he was there to help, more power to him.

Half of Ryu's gi top was gone, one side hanging off of his shoulder. His body was covered in bruises and cuts from Akuma's single punch that had knocked him out before Naruto had ever even arrived. He woke up after feeling the clash of power between the two and quickly made his way to interject himself into the proceedings, "I would ask you to leave this to me, but I doubt that you would. You've invested too much into this already to just turn and flee."

Naruto nodded, glad that Ryu understood that much of the situation, "If you're aimin' to team up, that'd be great."

"It shouldn't be that difficult," Ryu said just as an explosion of power rocked the two of them from a distance, "...I believe that would be for us."

"Give me a sec," Naruto said, holding a hand-seal as he tried to clear his mind and focus, "I'll be right behind you."

Ryu believed him, and headed forward in the direction of Akuma, stopping when he found him slowly walking their way. The sheer dark red aura around him burned with enough strength to bend and break trees out of his way as he walked by them.

Not stopping to gawk, Ryu dashed right at him and unleashed jackhammering punches at Akuma. He dodged them and struck back with a single open palm full of the sickening ki of the Satsui no Hadou. Ryu avoided it, but Akuma's hand struck the ground and sent rocks and dirt flying right into his body, eyes, face and all. Akuma flipped over the debris, and barely able to see, Ryu prepared to defend from an aerial attack.

"Hyakki Gouzan (Hundred Demons Great Slash)!" Akuma landed in front of him and ducked low to slide right into Ryu's legs, knocking him to the ground.

His adversary downed, Akuma lifted his leg and stomped down at Ryu's face with his sandal-clad foot. Ryu caught it in his hands, barely able to keep Akuma from crushing his chest cavity. It took all of his strength just to absorb all of the impact and save his life. His entire body sank into the ground as Akuma's sandal touched his chest.

Removing his foot, Akuma prepared to elbow down through Ryu as though he were a stack of bricks. Thinking quickly, Ryu pressed his hands together and fired a Hadoken into the air from his back, missing Akuma's face by inches. Using that opening to get back up to his feet, Ryu grabbed Akuma by the collar of his gi. Akuma quickly broke his grip and turned the tables, using Ryu's collar to slam him into a boulder.

As he was held against the rock, Ryu felt his skin begin to bleed and burn underneath the grasp of the ruthless fighter and his oppressive aura. He just couldn't dig deep enough. Akuma wasn't offering him an opening to hit his go-to moves. Akuma knew every technique Ryu knew, and could utilize them with a killing edge to back them up.

Ryu had gotten him twice with the element of surprise, but otherwise he'd been neutralized consistently. Twenty more years of his high-end training, and Ryu still wouldn't have been certain that he could reach that level. It was on par with, if not beyond Gouken.

It shamed him. It made him feel lower than he ever thought he could feel. He had come to fight in place of someone who he thought could not defend himself, only to find that he wasn't any better off. He did not have the might to bring Akuma down. Not alone.

But he wasn't alone. And it was at that moment he remembered that fact, forcibly.

A look of surprise registered on Akuma's face as he felt Naruto's energy signature literally double in intensity in a single moment. It was all the time he had to register this new, interesting turn of events as Naruto bulldozed every bit of foliage in his path, using his speed boost to appear at Akuma's side and swat at him with all six of his chakra tails. It was three more than Akuma had last seen, and though he blocked enough of them to keep from taking a real blow, the impact sent him spinning away, carving an infinity-like pattern in the ground with his feet as they remained planted in the dirt and grass.

What he locked his eyes on, he almost mistook at first. A small body covered in bloody red, pulsing energy, the bones of what appeared to be a fox armoring the top of his head and the back of his body. This was not a human being any longer, but it was all Naruto.

It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen mankind produce. A being that clearly only had one purpose to exist, to destroy whatever stood in the path that required its presence in the first place.

Ryu's jaw dropped at the sight as he pressed his back against the rock Akuma had first slammed him against. This was the level of power that Naruto had achieved. The sort of power that made even Akuma stop and take notice.

Naruto's voice came out distorted, as if two of him were attempting to speak from the same body, "I told you didn't I?" He vanished and reappeared at Akuma's back, "Just give me a sec."

A grin on his face, Akuma turned to deliver a bone-shattering punch, but all he hit was the red afterburn of Naruto's aura. A chakra tail latched onto the extended arm and attempted to pull Akuma, but he clenched his toes and kept a hold of the ground. With a wrenching pull, he yanked Naruto off of his feet and sent him into the air.

"Let me show you," Akuma said, ducking down as he prepared to leap into the air, "A taste of the power that will rend the heavens asunder!" He left the ground like a rocket, flying at Naruto with the fastest, most powerful Senpukayku he had ever lain eyes on.

The technique was unstable and would only inflict grievous harm on its target. Instead of it focusing on the blunt parts of the user's foot and leg, it incorporated the blade portion of the foot, and the thinner, sharper area of the leg itself. That was to say nothing of the staggering killing power behind it. If done to a weak enough target, it would cut clean through whatever it was, and not much seemed to be strong enough to endure it.

Before Akuma could head up after him though, Naruto preempted him, throwing out all of his tails as a balancing tool to right himself in the air. The tails began to rotate in front of Naruto, red beams glowing from their tips. Raw chakra fired from the tails, reminiscent of a six-barrel gatling gun, "Jidou Shinkoshoku Hanabi (Automatic Crimson Fireworks)!"

Akuma let out a roar as he was engulfed by shell after shell of Nine-Tails chakra tore apart the landscape around him. Errant shots flew all over, so much so that Ryu had to dodge a few. The boulder he had been leaning against was turned to scraps of rock just from a handful of them.

Moving right through the center of Naruto's focus of fire, Akuma rose into the air, leading with his fist, his body cloaked in red ki, "Goshoryuuken (Great Rising Dragon Fist)!"

Naruto cut off his rate of fire long enough to push himself through the air and avoid the punch that would have cut into him, vanishing into the rising smoke and dust. Akuma maneuvered his way to the ground quickly with the Ashura Senkuu movement, and kept his senses wide open upon landing, knowing full well that Naruto would use the cover to move around and strike at a weak point whenever he found it.

"Shinkuu Hadoken (Vacuum Surge Fist)!"

The cloud of debris split wide to clear the way for Ryu's shining blue energy blast that burned a trail through the ground as it rushed to its target. Akuma moved out of the way as Naruto stormed in, attacking with a swipe of his claw. Despite the miss, it caused a wave just off the coast of the island. Trying to follow through the motion with a kick was Naruto's folly.

Akuma caught Naruto's leg out of the air and twisted his own body around it before dropping to the ground on top of it, all of his weight and force aimed right at Naruto's kneecap. Naruto howled in agony only for Akuma to wrap his hand around Naruto's open mouth, ki pulsing in the palm of his hand, set to fire down his throat, "Taste oblivion, child!"

Ryu kicked at Akuma's face and found it blocked by his free arm. The simple act of repelling Ryu's attack knocked him ten feet away where he responded with a Hadoken. Akuma swatted it away with the back of his hand only to feel razor-sharp teeth sink into the bottom of his hand, even through the ropes he kept them wrapped in. He stood up off of Naruto and pulled his hand away, losing a chunk of it in the process.

Naruto's tails pushed him off of the ground and quickly went above his head, forming the largest Rasengan any of them had ever seen him make, and that Naruto had ever even tried, aimed right at Akuma. Both Akuma and Ryu moved as far away from Naruto as possible in opposite directions as the jutsu hit the ground with a guttural roar .

The land composition of Rishiri Island did not agree with that particular course of action. Unfortunately for it and everyone else on it, the parties responsible weren't exactly worried about the widespread consequences of their powers.

* * *

><p><strong>Oh man. The rumble in the north is on. It's going down, and there's no telling who or what will be left standing in the end. Our main man is having a rough time trying to force Akuma into doing what he needs him to do. Even reaching the limits of his own control, Naruto has yet to force Akuma to go all out.<strong>

**And Ryu is finding himself coming up short and falling behind as he strives to make a difference and rid himself of his literal demon. To prove to himself that he is not guided by the darkness in every person's heart, that he is above it, he must vanquish the man that embraces and embodies it. But will he lose sight of his reason and principles in his bid for supreme victory?**

**Ooooooohhhhhh.**

**Now, once more I find myself compelled to pizimp the Fandom Flux Podcast, because I'm trying to make that internet money, you know what I'm saying? If you want to hear what an idiot I am in real life and my dumb opinions on things, there's a link near the top of my profile page to the Youtube page where the episodes are, as well as to the actual site itself. **

**...Trying to get some fat stacks here. Or Phat Schtackz if you're cool.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. Kenchi out.**


	57. The Folly of Man

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. I challenge Yoshinori Ono to a match of VS. in any incarnation of the Street Fighter IV games. If I win, I get the rights to Street Fighter for life. He wins, Capcom gets an unpaid intern until the day Ono retires.

I can definitely beat someone's ass in the game that they produced themselves. No sweat.

**Chapter 57: The Folly of Man**

* * *

><p>From above the battlefield, all anyone watching from the helicopter could see was a bright, gigantic blue ball guided by six red arms, crashing into the ground. It was at that point the island decided that staying together in one general piece was too much of a chore with all of the abuse it was taking. The ground around the mountain in the center of Rishiri Island started to break apart and sink into the water.<p>

"Oh God, did he really try that here?" Sakura asked, pressing against the door and window as if it would get her that much closer to the fight transpiring below, "Naruto, why?"

"What?"

"The Rasengan has been Naruto's finishing move for as long as I've known him," Sakura began to explain, "And he's always been trying to make it bigger and bigger, especially after I started working on the Shinkuu Hadoken."

Because bigger things were cool, and Sakura having a Hadoken bigger than Naruto's Rasengan just was not permitted. He had Rasengan, she had the Hadoken, so he learned Odama Rasengan, but she learned how to make her Hadoken bigger and then learned Shinkuu Hadoken. It was like a race between them to see who could bloat their signature attack the fastest into a gigantic 'look-at-me-I'm-better-than-you' ball.

"I guess that just jumped the shark, huh?" Ibuki said with a nervous laugh as they watched the destruction.

As the reality of what they were seeing settled in, the most astute amongst them took it upon herself to point out something that everyone else either didn't know, or didn't want to voice aloud, "You do all realize..." Karin began deliberately, "...That there are people living on that island, do you not? Rishiri Island is not a deserted locale."

Sakura's hands curled into fists, her fingernails scraping against the glass, "...What?"

"People live there," Batsu repeated in the heiress' stead, the stark actuality of the situation dropping into the pit of his stomach like a stone, "On the other side of that mountain. If this goes anywhere near there, and they haven't evacuated yet, people are gonna die."

There wasn't any question about it. The mostly uninhabited part of the island was now sitting underneath the waves in millions of pieces. Add a settled location and thousands of panicking people and the results would be obvious, and grim.

In an intelligent world, people would have started evacuating after Akuma carved the kanji into the mountain face that summoned Naruto to begin with, but this was the real world, where people didn't leave even when there were natural disasters coming that they knew about days in advance. If they hadn't started getting off of the island and were just now getting around to it, things were going to get worse before they got better.

"No way," Ibuki reasoned, more to herself than to anyone else in the helicopter, "Naruto won't let that happen. He wouldn't."

With a grim sneer on his face, Batsu looked down at where he could see Naruto moving along the side of the mountain, seeking Akuma to destroy, "I train with the guy, a lot, so I should know. The more of that red chakra Naruto uses, the less of a fuck he gives about the stuff around him," And he was using more than Batsu had ever seen. He'd been warned by Naruto before that anything past three tails was playing fast and loose with his control, "If they start getting into it while there are people in range, I really don't think he or Akuma would care. Not right now."

Sakura's eyes went wide, but she had seen what Naruto could do. The fight with Seth in the desert hadn't been a dream, and she had been there for it, "But… Ryu-san wouldn't let either of them hurt anyone."

"Are you watching the same fight the rest of us are watching?" Karin asked, "Ryu-san cannot stop them, or turn them away from anything. He is barely able to keep up in his own right!" Which was something many people would have found unimaginable if they had heard it.

Ibuki didn't want to say it to Sakura either on top of everything else, but it didn't seem like Ryu would have stopped to protect anyone in the way either. It was in the man's character to try and keep innocents out of the line of fire normally, but as the fight carried on he seemed to be losing more and more of his discernible traits to the desperate nature of the battle.

There weren't any heroes in this conflict. The only thing that mattered between those fighting it was who wound up walking away when the dust settled.

No adult was going to pop out of the blue with the answers and the actions for them to follow that would save the day. It was up to them, a bunch of kids hovering above an island battlefield in a helicopter, none of whom were any older than eighteen at the eldest.

Growing up was more than just winning fights without turning to someone older and usually wiser. Growing up was also coming up with the solution to problems that didn't involve direct, brute force without being told what to do and how to do it.

Apparently it was time to grow up.

"So are we going to go try and save people now?" Cammy asked, unable to accurately gauge the mood of the passengers in the helicopter. The danger and the importance of what their next actions would be mattered none to her. She had been prepared to do something proactive from the outset, having never felt like a child in the first place.

She was quite the example to follow… for all the wrong reasons. After all, none of them had been programmed to be perfect, emotionless killing machines. But still, it wasn't wrong in this case. Nothing ever seemed too big for her to try and handle. That sort of bravery and willingness to take action was what they needed.

It was something Karin picked up for herself immediately after hearing the blonde little soldier. Being wealthy didn't mean the same thing to her that it meant to many others. She was not entitled as many people would think. Having her family's wealth didn't mean to her that the world owed her anything because of who she was. It meant that because she was born to such a position in life it was up to her to excel and prove that she deserved everything she had.

If it meant she had to risk her neck to try and save as many people on an island as she could before it wound up being turned to rubble, so be it. The most beautiful diamonds were formed under the greatest pressure after all.

"But of course," Karin said, trying to will all of the confidence her tone of speaking conveyed to the rest of her body, "Shibazaki, if you would," She requested as the helicopter began to bank in a direction to find somewhere safe to land.

"As you wish ojou-sama."

XxX

As Ryu ascended Mount Rishiri via the foot trails while he did his part to try and keep up with the booming fight between Naruto and Akuma, he turned back around to the lower level of the island where they had been fighting before.

Much of the island now rested under the sea, and he had almost been amongst the pieces that now were.

He was now taking Dan's comments about Naruto moving a mountain with his strength much more seriously. Rishiri Island wasn't going to stand up to much more of this if it dragged on too long. The last time Ryu had fought Akuma, the man had destroyed that island with a single punch once he had gotten what he wanted out of it.

He didn't think that Naruto would do the same, but he was fighting a much more violent style than he had been previously.

As he moved along, he was stopped at the sight of Naruto's red chakra-covered body slamming into the side of the mountain, sending boulders, dust, and other debris flying everywhere.

Looking up into the air, he saw an incoming Akuma, his arm extended, set to fire a ki blast, "Zankuu Hadoken (Air Slashing Surge Fist)!"

With Naruto buried in the wall with nowhere to go he was a sitting duck for the purple balls of energy, prompting Ryu to fire a smaller Hadoken of his own, not strong enough to overpower them, but enough to knock a few off-course.

Naruto exploded out of the tunnel, screaming past the disrupted Zankuu Hadoken balls and back into Akuma's face, slamming into him and sending them both crashing into the trail right by Ryu.

The white-clad martial artist jumped into the fray, dodging an errant chakra claw from Naruto to land a punch on Akuma's body while he was sidetracked.

He folded sideways over Ryu's punch and swatted at him with a backhand that knocked Ryu several paces away, turning that same hand into a bludgeoning punch for Naruto that was caught by one of his chakra tails, "Those cursed things!" Akuma snapped, readjusting the position of his arm in Naruto's grip so he could grab onto the tail himself.

Before Naruto could retract it to safety he was caught and slammed time and time again off of the ground and against the surrounding rock face.

Ryu jumped in and landed on Naruto's chakra tail, pinning it to the ground underneath him to stop Akuma and causing the half-man half-monster to hunch over enough for Ryu to blast him in the head with a kick that sent him careening away.

Naruto picked himself back up off of the ground, and regarded Ryu after his kick that saved him from taking more of a beating than he already had, "Nice shot," He said in a moment of clarity.

In return, Ryu just smirked at the distorted version of Naruto that stood before him, "Thank you."

"I don't think it did anything though."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because he's coming right back!"

Naruto punctuated that by sweeping Ryu's legs with his tail, just before Akuma could reappear in a heartbeat via Ashura Senkuu and cut Ryu's head off with his version of the Senpukyaku kick.

Akuma's red eyes glared pure murder at Naruto for saving what he saw as an unworthy interloper in his grand battle, "Boy, you-!"

"Shut up!" Naruto wanted to hear nothing of what he had to say and instead retaliated with twin Rasengans, one in each hand. Akuma stopped him by catching him by the wrists, the amount of strength it took creating a shockwave in the air that made the earth rumble.

Naruto anchored himself with his tails before realizing that he had dug them into the mountain for support.

It was a risky idea, but if it paid off he could bury Akuma and freely vaporize what was left afterwards just to be safe. If nothing else it would make him realize that fighting both Naruto and Ryu would require his absolute full power.

"Rasenshinsen (Spiraling Tremor)!"

Akuma felt the ground fall out beneath him as Naruto's earth-rending jutsu caused an entire side of the mountain to collapse and crumble away. Ryu had to get up to run and launch himself as far as his body could take him before he found himself caught in the landslide as well, but he underestimated just how much of the mountain would suffer from the technique.

Falling, Ryu began to save himself by hopping from falling stone to falling stone as if they were platforms. Jumping faster than they could fall, he managed to salvage his health, at least until he caught sight of Akuma doing the same. The dark-skinned demon's eyes were locked solely on Ryu as he navigated the midair maze of debris, coming right at him.

Ryu hadn't the slightest idea how to react, leaving him a sitting duck in midair until a red chakra claw grabbed him and pulled him up before Akuma could drive a punch clear through him.

Missing, Akuma spun his body around to see the chakra claw slam Ryu right into him, fist-first, straight into Akuma's jaw.

Quick to react and realize his situation, Ryu improvised, building as much to fuel his body as he could, throwing in a slight twist that turned Naruto's chakra claw along with him. If this was going to happen, it was going to happen his way, "Tsuirakuryuuken (Crashing Dragon Fist)!"

It was the exact same process and motion of the original Shoryuuken, only with the added force of gravity's natural pull and Naruto's strength willing it forward along with Ryu's. The traditional martial artist couldn't remember ever hitting another living being as hard in his entire life.

Ryu felt bone burst. Not just Akuma's, but his own. Both the radius and the ulna in his forearm shattered from the added force that Naruto added to his already formidable punch. Akuma didn't so much as fall the rest of the way to the ground as he was fired there off of the end of the cannon that was Ryu's fist.

Despite the sounds of an entire mountainside worth of rock crashing and tumbling down, the sick crack of Akuma's body hitting the ground before tons of rock piled up on top of his fallen frame echoed louder than anything else.

Naruto pulled Ryu back up to a level surface and set him down before his chakra could burn him too badly. Naruto would have said he was sorry if he had been in an apologetic state of mind, but at the moment, with his sense of aggression only halfway dulled by the focus of his more docile side, all he could really worry about was keeping Ryu alive so that Akuma didn't have a better chance at winning.

But that didn't seem to matter anymore. Naruto had literally dropped a quarter of a mountain on top of his damn head. There wasn't a being alive that could survive something like that, the fall and the aftermath.

…But just to be safe...

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" Naruto formed thirty clones. Knowing that they wouldn't last long due to the chakra that borne them simultaneously destroying them, they all plunged off of the cliff, massive Rasengans formed by their tails, all screaming at the top of their lungs as they collided with the rubble Akuma was buried underneath, creating bombastic explosions one after another.

Ryu held onto the edge and looked over the edge in disbelief. He had to clutch to the rock face hard enough to cut his palms open to keep from being shaken or blown off. Turning to his side, where Naruto stood observing, seething in his six-tailed form as he waited for a sign that it was all over or that he needed to do even more. Either way, he was anticipating the other shoe dropping at any moment.

He really could move a mountain if he had to. A fight involving Naruto could require the maps to be redrawn. If it were in the cards, Naruto could sink the entire island, just like Akuma had right in front of Ryu's eyes years before.

'That level of strength...' Ryu thought to himself, ignoring the cuts and bruises, the chakra burns, the grime, and the blood covering his body, 'It's inhuman. I can't match that like this. On my own. It's not enough.'

The southern side of Rishiri Island had been utterly leveled. It looked as though half of the place had been the subject of high-grade weapon testing. But at least the island still stood. At least there was something left. If there was anything positive it was that there was land left for things to even be rebuilt on.

He breathed a sigh of relief. Worst-case scenario in this instance didn't happen, and in the end he had managed to make a difference with his own two arms, one of which happened to be broken at this point, "You needed to defeat my Shoryuuken to have a chance, Akuma."

Naruto spared him an odd glance, but in his current state, banter wasn't exactly the first thing on his mind. Ryu realized this partway through the battle where Naruto would have normally been running his mouth to boost his own adrenaline and tear at his opponent's will, and thought nothing of it.

Except for when he wondered why he was still like that. It had been two full minutes and nothing had moved underneath what some would have dubbed 'ground zero'.

Naruto knew, or was still anticipating something that Ryu hadn't been. As the chakra-clad teenager stood like a statue save for the tails waving around him, that prophecy fulfilled itself when the island began to quiver and quake anew.

It seemed like an honest-to-goodness earthquake, but Naruto knew better.

The rock surrounding Akuma's body didn't crumble so much as it ceased to exist underneath against the pillar of ki that fired into the sky underneath what should have been his grave.

That was when he emerged, and the seemed to go dark from the Satsui no Hadou energy spread out in the air above the island.

With white hair, rippling veins all over his body, and bolts of unstable red ki snapping off of him like lightning, there was no question. This was everything that Akuma had within him.

"I'm… pleased. Maybe this world is not as weak as I thought," Akuma mused aloud to himself before looking up nearly one-thousand feet at Ryu and Naruto, more specifically at the latter, "I have lived in this mortal place, perfecting my killing power for decades. Now, you can see it firsthand. Now, you fight the True Demon."

Ryu rested on his knees, slackjawed at just what he was seeing and sensing, "There was... more?" Dear God, there was more. Akuma could pull out _more_. He could have always pulled out more, the entire time. He simply never had to.

Naruto showed no fear, or any apprehension whatsoever. This was what he had been waiting on. It needed to happen if he had any chance of winning this battle, to force Akuma to his absolute depths of strength. He couldn't back away from it now, even if it was far more than he'd anticipated it ever would have been.

Raising all six of his chakra tails, they all formed claws on their ends that flipped Akuma off in unison. That was how much he cared. It was all he needed to say. Caring nothing for his own well-being, Naruto dropped himself off of the edge and hurtled at Akuma with intent to inflict grievous harm.

Akuma didn't move, watching the entire time as Naruto went right at him.

The punch that Naruto landed with all of his force behind him was truly catastrophic.

The ground underneath Akuma thirty feet down in a circumference of fifty collapsed into pebbles, but at the bottom of it, the enhanced monster stood, Naruto's fist sunken into his cheek, unmoving. A single drop of blood trickled from his mouth, drawing a smirk from him before he grabbed tightly onto Naruto's arm, caring nothing for the poisonous miasma that was Naruto's chakra. His fingertips themselves tore through the natural armor the chakra created, digging into Naruto's flesh itself.

Naruto didn't see the overpowered Akuma punch him. He didn't remember being hit the first time, but he began to feel it around the twelfth time that Akuma struck him. He could not think clearly enough to intelligently retaliate before falling to the ground and going dark.

What he did remember however, was waking up upon hearing a guttural scream from Ryu. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Akuma's fist punching a gaping hole into Ryu's chest and out through his back.

Naruto couldn't see Ryu's face as his body crumpled to the ground.

He fell and Akuma turned back to Naruto, his angry red eyes boring a hole into him, thinking nothing of the life of the man he had just snuffed out.

Naruto said a short prayer in his head and stood back up. He could not stop and mourn. He would only be wasting breath asking why it was that Ryu had to be disposed of in such a heartless way. This was what he had been waiting on, and it hadn't exactly failed yet. He couldn't call for a mulligan on the gameplan now.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Elsewhere on Rishiri Island – Rishirifuji)

Karin had made arrangements to evacuate the population. She could mobilize such a thing before the JSDF could get around to doing it, as they were probably just now getting the call that things were going crazy out there.

Now the most difficult thing they could do was convince as many people as they could to stop rushing around and panicking. They needed to get everyone together near the northern shore, away from the fighting that was taking place on the opposite side of the island.

There were only two towns there, spread out along the coastline across over 30 miles. They had to split up and corral as many people as they could, as quickly as they could. Karin's helicopter dropped Batsu and Cammy in one location, while she and Sakra sought to tackle the other.

Four teenagers to try and save over 5000 people.

Sakura and Karin went about their task on foot, leaving the latter's attendant Shibazaki in the helicopter with the task of keeping as much of an eye on the battle as he could while looking out for Karin's evacuation transports. There wasn't much that one recreational helicopter could do for that many people anyway.

The ground shook, window panes clattered, and people screamed as an accident blocked the main thoroughfare of Rishirifuji. The two towns on the island weren't huge. One badly jammed road could plug up traffic for a while, especially when everyone with an automobile was trying to make a run for it at once.

Karin was elsewhere, funneling people away from the jam before they could get stuck in it as well, but for those that were still there caught, they didn't have any other way but forward, and Sakura was the one that had to move it aside.

It was three-thousand pounds in an awkward, jumbled form, sans tires due to being on its roof. Every muscle in Sakura's body screamed in protest as she tried her best to move the twisted metal wreckage, the ground scraping every time she so much as even caused it to budge. She couldn't clear it out of the way though.

Naruto without tapping into the Kyuubi's chakra could move a jeep that was still half a ton heavier, but even then, that had wheels.

Giving it another try, Sakura put her entire body into the action, her feet digging partially into the pavement as she tried to get her footing. Even when she did, it hardly mattered.

'I can move this!' Sakura thought to herself doggedly, gritting her teeth as she strained every inch of her being, 'People are counting on me, I can't just give up!'

As she continued to push, a yellow-skinned hand pressed itself right above hers and gave it a hearty push, sending Sakura barreling forward without warning, shoving the car ahead and out of the way.

Sakura caught her footing and stumbled to a stop, turning around to see who had done that. Had Karin swung around to try and help?

Standing there, in his bound-armed, tattered clothing glory, Oro gave Sakura a grin, complete with his missing teeth, "What? That was all you," He said, "All I did was give you enough of a shove to get you started."

That wasn't what she had been staring at him for, "O-Oro-san? What are you doing here?"

The old man moved out of the way as cars sped past now that the way was open again, speaking casually as if he hadn't been close to being run over, "Oh, well I was around when your friend was training so hard, and I was interested. Now at least I know what it was for-," A loud booming noise reached them from a distance, "-And how well it's paying off."

Sakura had been able to keep her mind off of it by focusing on what she needed to do, but once it was brought back to her attention what was happening, a shiver went down her spine. Her ability to sense energy was strong, not that it needed to be with the output that she was feeling.

"Oh God, he's even stronger," She said, thinking aloud about Akuma's power. It didn't seem possible. His power had been as deep and wide as the ocean before, but now it seemed as vast as the sky, "Oh no."

Even Sakura's dark side momentarily balked at what she was feeling, before stirring a feeling of panic inside of the girl.

Oro closed his eyes and took in what he could feel of the fight from a distance. Seeing it within his mind's eye, he could perceive nothing positive happening on Naruto and Ryu's front.

This man was strong. Too strong. Ibuki's very best attack, something absolutely none of the members of their group of friends would have tried to stand up against, could only make Oro consider using his other arm to fight her.

Someone like that could at least help stand up against Akuma, if not take him.

"I know you don't have any stake in this," Sakura began to say before bowing to Oro, "…But I know you can feel what's happening here. I think you're strong enough to do something about it. Maybe even stop it."

A weathered sigh came from the timeworn warrior, "I cannot," Oro said solemnly, causing Sakura's heart to drop. How he hated to see such a worried expression on a pretty girl. But this was how it was, "One way or another, it will be over before I can get there. This island won't last through it if what I'm feeling is correct."

Even then as they spoke, Rishiri Island shook as if someone were trying to tear it from the Earth. It wasn't a random occurrence. Ever since the shaking had started, it had never stopped.

If Oro wouldn't or couldn't get to Naruto in time, Sakura would take what she could get, "Then… then could you help us get these people away from here?" She requested of him, clasping her hands together pleadingly, "Please! Everyone here is in danger! We can't just leave them!"

"Hmm," Oro made a show, as though he were thinking things whilst people fled and panicked all around him, "...Okay. I don't see why I couldn't," He said lightly, with a ragged old man's laugh behind it, "Come along child! There's work to be done if you want to save these folks!"

XxX

(With Naruto – Elsewhere on Rishiri Island)

Naruto had been hit so hard he thought he'd had a second of clarity in the constant joust for mental control that was maintaining his six-tailed state. It wasn't until he stood up and looked at his own hands that he realized with no small amount of alarm he'd actually fallen out of that form.

Looking at the rocky ground and his hands, slick with crimson ichor Naruto realized just how much of it was clouding his vision, 'Oh, that's my blood. Oh... that's all my blood,' He thought woozily.

There was a considerable amount of it, to be sure.

Getting up and looking around at the craggy mountainside battlefield, Naruto made out the sight of a grimy bare foot visible within a pile of crushed rock, "Ryu!" Naruto called out to him, his voice echoing into the air over the sound of the ground shaking. He hoped with all of his might that he had only been seeing things before, a symptom of blunt force trauma to the head.

There was no response. Everything he had seen had happened. Ryu was a bit thoughtless and other things, but he wasn't a bad person. Dying in such a way, to such a horrible being wasn't how he deserved to go out. But very few people in the world got the exact sort of ending that they desired.

If Naruto didn't make something happen, he wouldn't get the sort of ending he desired either.

He dug as deep as he could, reached for as much power as he could muster, but his body betrayed him. As Naruto pulled out more of the Kyuubi's chakra, accepting his dark side's tendencies as his own and making them his to bond and synchronize control of red energy, he managed to form the sleek, full-body chakra cloak, but just as soon lost it.

Yelling at the top of his lungs to pull it all out, he barely reached past four before the stabilized form tapered out, leaving him with the bare-bones version he had been using for years.

All Naruto could do was laugh. But there was no humor in it. It was the sort of laughter that came from a man as if to say that whatever was happening was just their luck. This had never happened before. He had blown his wad, and the battle wasn't over yet.

Over the course of four hours, Akuma had dealt him the worst physical beating he'd ever endured, and that had been before he'd even broken into his real power. The last time Naruto had utilized the limits of his own power that he could reach, it had been against Seth, and it didn't turn out to be that much of a fight from that point forward.

But this...

"Is that all you have?" Akuma demanded to know, sounding put out at the possibility that Naruto could no longer continue to test him at his full strength, "I've waited for decades to do battle against an enemy that can stand up against my full might. Do not rouse my ire by giving me what I've wanted and taking it away so unceremoniously!" He snapped, rock tearing up from the ground around them as his temper rose.

Naruto stared him down, no fear in his eyes. The time for that had long since passed. He wasn't some boy who ran into an act of God out of the blue inside of an arena in Tokyo anymore. He was someone who had prepared for a fight to the death with someone he had only one or two chances of winning against, "What if I said I was done?" Naruto replied, "What if I said I didn't have anything else? What exactly are you gonna do, kill me?"

Akuma's red eyes narrowed at the mocking tone of Naruto's last words, "Boy..."

"Shut. Up," Naruto bit out, silencing Akuma, if nothing else because of the sheer novelty of being told such by anyone. It gave Naruto the opportunity to expound on his thoughts, "I don't care how much of a monster you are. I'm not scared of you anymore. You know why? Because at the end of the day you're only good for one thing. One thing that you never get to do because no one's good enough for you to fight. And I wish this was a situation that I didn't have to give you the satisfaction, because if it wasn't for you gunning for Sakura-chan, you wouldn't mean a damn thing to me."

Instead of angering the raging warrior, Naruto's words only served to calm him. What 'would have been' and 'might have been' didn't matter, especially since 'what was' happened to be exactly what Akuma wanted as an outcome.

"But I did, and you have," Akuma pointed out, his power rippling around him as the island began to rock once more, "So finish it, or I'll finish you. But I wonder... what kind of fight the girl willl give me when I drop your corpse at her feet. It won't be anything like this was, but it it should be a good appetizer for when I finish molding her into my ideal opponent."

Naruto bit his tongue to keep from flying into a rage. That would do him no good at this point if he couldn't even harness it to balance out his use of the six-tails form. Now it was all or nothing. He had to get what he was after or lose everything, "This is your chance tough guy. Hit me with your best shot, because I'm the only one that can take it"

That seemed to be the key phrase it needed to turn the situation even further on its head.

Naruto and Akuma's attention snapped to where Ryu had fallen. Naruto thought he had been done. He _had_ been done, they had both felt it. There had been nothing left of his life energy after Akuma drove his fist right through him.

His appearance was startling, to say the least.

Ryu's appearance was much more menacing and powerful. He bore his teeth with visible fangs as he seethed angrily. What was left of his outfit was better described as red and black tatters rather than clothing, stained with his own blood and the deep soil that had been torn into from the intensity of the battle. His skin was darkened to a color Naruto likened to Akuma's. Ryu's short hair spiked wildly, tinted red with a combination of blood and his ki, which whipped around him uncontrollably.

The most notable new trait he possessed was the single gigantic, ugly scar that sat in the middle of his chest, glowing like a dying star.

This was his Satsui no Hadou.

"No way," Naruto whispered to himself. It was just like Sakura's. No, not quite, "...It's stronger than Sakura-chan's..."

Far stronger. Because Ryu had been officially trained in the ki-fortifying techniques of his fighting style, his power had already been formidable enough for him to last throughout the fight and keep up. Not only was Ryu now using the Satsui no Hadou, he wasn't fighting it off. It was just there, and he was letting it, because he had to.

He had to win.

He had to win.

He did not lose.

Even to someone like Akuma, he would not lose to him. Not ever. He didn't fight the dark red pulse of energy that ran off of his body. It was good for him. It was giving him what he wanted, needed. It felt... right. Why had he been trying to hold this back? It wasn't hurting him. It wasn't destroying him. It would only destroy what he wanted it to.

Every step Ryu took from where he had originally fallen caused a crater in the ground as he walked over to Naruto and Akuma.

As intimidating as it was, Naruto didn't know if this was a good or a bad thing yet. His first instinct was to treat Ryu like an enemy. Every warning in his head told him that both of these men would murder him without a second thought. But Akuma was still stronger, and it didn't seem as though they were siding together. They were going to fight no matter what. He just had to make sure they did it before turning to him so he could finish off whatever was left if Akuma survived, or try to bring Ryu back down if he was left standing.

It seemed as if Ryu didn't know quite what to make of himself, experimentally moving his arms and flexing out his hands. He ignored what this must have done to his broken arm, as pain meant nothing in regards to seeing what his new power was capable of.

Akuma stood back, arms crossed and observing as though he were pleased with what he was seeing. He didn't say a word.

Eventually, Ryu shifted his stance and built his ki in his hands by his side, slowly charging up his energy, a flashing purple and red Hadoken building in his hands. Naruto immediately shouted at the top of his lungs to get the preoccupied fighter's attention.

"HEY!" Naruto slammed two of his chakra tails into the ground to make a wall of torn up earth right in front of Ryu, "CUT IT OUT!"

That was the side that people were on. A Hadoken that powerful would carve right through whatever part of Rishiri Mountain it hit before continuing on through, and Ryu hadn't been aiming into the air. He wanted to take out the mountain and whatever was behind it.

If Akuma carved into the mountain to demonstrate his might, Ryu wanted to destroy it to show off his own.

Naruto had to avoid a similar fate to Ryu's, getting a hole punched through his chest from Akuma as reprisal for keeping Ryu from showing him how much stronger he had gotten. Naruto narrowly dodged it and glared at Akuma.

"Do not interrupt, boy," Akuma threatened before turning his gaze to the other man present, what he deemed as far more important, "Ryu. Your power calls out to me, telling me to snuff it out. So tell me, have you finally transcended your humanity?"

Ryu deliberately stood up from his Hadouken-charging stance and turned to face Akuma, his gaze pointed at the ground as though he were coming to grips with what had overcome him.

"The darkness seeks out those who need it the most," Ryu said, shaking his head in disbelief at the power flowing through him. It was crisper, purer than it had ever been before when Bison had yanked it out of him, when Ken had driven him to such a point during the tournament. Both times before he had fought furiously against it, "What was I thinking before now? I was so... confused. But now, this is it. This Hadou, it grants me more power than I'd ever dreamed of, all I've wanted out of martial arts."

The only thing he'd ever wanted was to be the best. Was that really so much to ask when one dedicated every ounce of their being from the time they could walk to that goal? Winning was his life. Why did he fight against the literal manifestation of his desire to win?

Akuma's booming laughter filled the air. It was a horrible sound, like that of a man that had forgotten what it felt like to feel good about something, going through the motions just because, "I had given up on you! But I should have known better; that it takes a brush with death to bring a man the most clarity."

Naruto wasn't nearly as vindicated by hearing Ryu's words as the battle-craving Akuma. It made him sick to his stomach. This was what was in the heart of the champion that every fight fan in the world lauded as the greatest example of martial arts? Someone to try and emulate.

This wasn't some outside thing. The Satsui no Hadou didn't just supplant these feelings into the people that embraced it. It took what was already there in great detail, the double-edged sword of your personality that made part of who you were, and picked at it, focused on it, magnified it until it became a potent enough point about a person to be weaponized.

"That's it? Winning was all that ever mattered? The _only_ thing? You're what, 27? That's the only thing you want?" Naruto never got it to begin with, why so many people he knew: Sakura, Chun-li, Ken, E. Honda, people he actually looked up to for one reason or another, treated Ryu as though he were the greatest person. Akuma was probably just like him before the Satsui no Hadou took over. That was why their words were so similar, "...Why would anybody look up to you?"

Ryu turned his hateful gaze onto Naruto, "Who cares about something so worthless?" He spat harshly, clenching a fist tightly, "I don't seek any adulation! I don't need any pitiful weakling's worthless acceptance the way that you do! There is no place for the weak to exist! Power is all that matters, and it's all I need!" He lifted his fist into the air and struck down at the ground with all of his might.

Naruto stuck to the surface as large slabs of the island heaved, tossed, and turned, splitting up from the rock base that connected it to the earth's crust. Akuma stood and laughed, knowing exactly what Ryu's aim had been, to destroy the entire island the way he himself had done to the one they had first fought on years ago.

"You have the raw power, but you are far too inexperienced with it to ever hope to copy my skills," Akuma boasted cruelly, mocking Ryu for trying one of his techniques, one he himself hadn't even finished yet, "Try again in fifteen years... if you live that long."

Ryu stood up from where he had struck the ground with his fist and turned to Akuma with an undecipherable expression on his face before suddenly speeding behind him with the Ashura Senkuu. Surprise registered on Akuma's face for a split second before he raised his hand to stop a blade hand from hitting his vertebrae.

He turned his head to admonish Ryu's attempt on his life but caught a punch to the face from Naruto. He wasn't going anywhere.

Both Naruto and Ryu traded strikes, blocks, and parries with Akuma. He had to keep an eye on both of them as they attacked from opposite sides, dedicating one half of his body to taking on one and the adjacent half to the other.

Now Naruto found himself hard-pressed to keep up, as more of Akuma's focus was leaning toward Ryu than him, 'Kyuubi... I'm at the end of my rope here. I can't pull up anymore of your chakra,' He was so tired he was seeing triple. He kept himself as a threat simply by aiming for the one in the middle.

"**You have to make do with what you have. You'll just burn your body out faster trying to bring up anymore now. "**

'Alright,' Naruto thought to himself before almost losing his head to Ryu's foot. The man had tried to kick Akuma, missed, and decided to continue on to try and brain Naruto with it instead, "Now both of you assholes are gonna try and kill me!?" Naruto reached past Akuma, grabbed Ryu's arm and pulled him back into Akuma, disrupting the scrum and knocking them both off-balance while his other hand held a Rasengan that was aimed at the both of them, "Fine!"

Both Akuma and Ryu dodged with the Ashura Senkuu and tried to crush Naruto between both of their fists only to wind up punching one another when Naruto managed to avoid their counter. Ryu was shoved back by Akuma's strength and grit his teeth to ignore the pain in his hand.

The momentary focus on one another made them lose sight of Naruto, almost costing Akuma a stealth Rasengan to the kidney. Sliding out of the way, Akuma dropped an elbow down onto the the low-crouched Naruto's back, smashing him into the dirt.

With a spiteful look down at the floored jinchuuriki, Akuma raised his fist, prepared to try and strike Naruto down for good, only to feel Ryu's power building along with his temper. With a scoff, he looked up at the young fighter, the brand-new and improved Ryu. Apparently he wasn't prepared to accept that taking the Satsui no Hadou into his heart didn't automatically make him Akuma's better, as their clash of fists demonstrated.

If that was the case, and Akuma wanted to play the part of the old lion, unwilling to let the younger, faster, stronger one with more time on his side end his wretched life, Ryu would simply have to show him just how much his opinion mattered on the issue.

Naruto had interrupted him from trying this out the first time, but the heat of battle was as good a time as any to find out the limits of his power.

Holding his hands a basketball's width apart, Ryu's ki began to twist and surge between his palms, barely restricted by the barrier that his energy had created for itself. Once again, just like before, it took an unnatural purple and red color. A stark contrast from the bright and healthy blue look of a regular person's ki.

It was a reflection of the very mind and spirit of the person using it.

All Ryu saw, all he cared to see, was a perfect target. A victim for the full breadth of his might.

"Messatsu Gou Hadou (Annihilating Great Surge)!"

Akuma spared a glance backwards at Naruto who was hardly able to stand back up, and smirked before jumping mightily into the air, over Ryu's city block-sized blast of energy. With that, he could write Naruto out of the equation, 'Good Ryu. Now for you,' Hanging high above, Akuma formed his own similar Hadoken, "You fool. Now perish before the power of MY true Hadoken!"

Ryu would die by the technique that he so brazenly tried to make his own. Even if he pulled back on it now, he wouldn't recover in enough time to do anything about Akuma's own attack.

It had been a marvelous battle while it had lasted, but once again, the undisputed lord of the deathmatch would reign supreme.

"DIE!"

Naruto's yell tore through the air and Akuma saw a purple flash of light beneath him that wasn't from Ryu. Looking down, he saw the impossible sight of Ryu's Messatsu Gou Hadou flying out of Naruto's right hand, aimed right at him.

No. How could he have possibly survived, let alone countered and turned Ryu's move into his own?

The Hitobashira no Kinkou (Balance of Human Sacrifice)."

When the Hadoken had gotten close enough, Naruto opened every tenketsu in his arm and used his chakra as an anchor to absorb it into his body. At that exact moment, a mental trigger to the Kyuubi prompted it to forcefully reverse the flow of Naruto's chakra. Since the Hadoken couldn't go back out the way it went in, it had to go out through Naruto's other arm, which was the reason for such a precise measure. A wrong move or a slight hiccup in their timing would have at best blown off one of Naruto's arms and at worst caused his entire body to explode.

It was a technique dangerous enough for only Naruto to be insane enough to try, and the risk that came with it was there with every ki attack he would try to use it against, from the weakest of the weak to the strongest of the strong. It wasn't worth the danger unless the attack would kill or maim Naruto anyway, which was why it was only to be used in all-or-nothing situations.

Akuma covered up as best as he could when the blast hit him, and screamed as the sick purple energy tore away at his clothing, skin, hair, and muscle indiscriminately. Even with his own mighty supply of power, whatever this was had been more than he could endure. It didn't make sense to him. Even if Ryu's Hadoken had hit him, it shouldn't have done that kind of damage.

He had no idea that it had gotten a bit of a booster from Naruto's chakra when he had used his own powers to reverse the move. The sum was greater than its parts, and that extra kick had been too much for him to take.

Ryu, angered that Naruto's technique and not merely his own had resulted in Akuma being so gravely injured, would not let the unworthy, weak boy have the last say in who got to murder Akuma.

That designation was for him alone.

With one great bound, Ryu launched himself at Akuma fist-first, "Death awaits you!" The curve of his rising punch cut Akuma's torso open in a bloody display from waist to neck, the monster's mouth stuck open in a soundless scream of pain and hatred.

His fist covered in gore, Ryu twisted in the air, gathering his dark energies into it. As gravity won out, he followed Akuma's falling body down to the ground, taking careful aim before smashing a second punch right into Akuma's skull at the exact moment he hit the ground.

"Messatsu Gou Shoryuu (Annihilating Great Rising Dragon)!"

As Akuma's head cracked and sprayed blood and brain matter in Ryu's face, Rishiri Island had taken enough of a beating. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. Segments of the island finally began to break away off of its overall landmass and slip into the ocean, water quickly filling in all of the cracks and bringing it all underwater.

Ryu didn't move an inch, merely staring down at Akuma's expression, twisted in a vile, deformed visage of horror mixed with pain. For a moment, it felt gratifying. More gratifying than any victory he had ever taken. The bitter tang of Akuma's blood tasted sweeter than any sip of cool water taken after a job well done in training or battle.

But it was far too fleeting. Just like that, the satisfaction was gone. The adrenaline had faded.

Closing his eyes as the rapid waters of the gathering seas took him under as well, Ryu only had one thought on his warped mind.

"It's not enough!" His cry of rage was drowned out by the ocean crashing all around him.

XxX

It took a team effort and hours of work while Rishiri Island fell apart around them, but Sakura, Karin, Batsu, and Cammy were eventually able to get thousands of people to the extraction point Shibazaki had called in for Karin's evacuation team. It paid for her family to have a private army on speed dial it seemed.

They had brought a seafaring vessel large enough to contain the majority of the island's population, as many as the kids could get to take with them.

All of them knew that there had been some that they didn't know to go after and reach or some that had tried to sit and wait it all out. They didn't want to think about what happened to those people when they saw the island crumble apart like a stale cracker. Regular people couldn't survive something like that. They didn't even think any of them could survive something like that.

Which was why it was so alarming to think about the possible fate of Uzumaki Naruto.

Sakura and Karin had resorted to holding each other for comfort as they waited for any sign, positive or negative. Though the sight and sound of nothing seemed to be the most alarming indicator of all. None of them had the stomach to say it out loud however. They didn't want to think that way.

Even Sakura couldn't sense anything any longer. No Naruto. No Ryu. No Satsui no Hadou. Nothing. It terrified her more than anything else.

"I don't see him," Ibuki whispered, her eyes locked on Rishiri Island sinking beneath the surf. It seemed impossible for an entire island to be obliterated over the course of one battle, but she had borne witness to just that. And one of the perpetrators of such was her primary concern, "Where's Naruto? He didn't... He couldn't be…"

Oro closed his eyes and shook his head, "You young people are so quick to panic," He said, getting the eyes of everyone present that cared to dart to him, "The boy isn't dead. Of course, unless he has gills that might not be the case for much longer, but-."

Damn old man. Couldn't he just say that Naruto was stuck underwater? Was it really that hard.

"Fuck," Batsu cursed, stepping up onto the railing of the ship and leaping into the drink. He would be damned if that idiot drowned on his watch. Not after all of this, "Not a chance. You're at least living long enough to see me graduate!" He said before diving underwater, hoping to spot some sign of Naruto.

It wasn't as impossible as he thought it would be either. Naruto's body still glowed red with the presence of the Kyuubi's chakra, forming a beacon of light to follow underneath the inky blackness. Batsu dodged loose boulders, pieces of boats and homes, and more as he swam his way to the downed shinobi.

The light was fading faster with every moment, so wasting none of it he quickly made it back to the surface where Karin's chopper quickly began to circle overhead.

A ladder was dropped that Batsu snagged with one hand, promptly lifting them out of the water and into the air.

Batsu started to climb, sincerely hoping that he didn't have to perform CPR to get Naruto to start breathing. Fortunately he was spared the fate of giving mouth-to-mouth when Naruto started coughing, spitting up salt water straight from his lungs to clear them out.

A sigh of relief came from Naruto's old running buddy, as the pace of his climb slowed significantly now that the immediate danger was over. Batsu was tired and he hadn't had to throw a single punch all day long. He could only imagine how physically spent Naruto was.

"Did I win?" Naruto's voice asked weakly from where he was precariously dangling over Batsu's back.

The wild-haired teen spared one glance back behind them where an entire island used to be.

A chill went down his spine, wondering just what kind of powerhouses it took to do that sort of thing to an entire landmass. He was carrying one of them away over his shoulder.

"I don't know," Batsu said, "You're gonna have to tell me."

* * *

><p><strong>The pressure of not being strong enough, not being the best, and losing in battle finally got to Ryu enough to get him to lose his ever-loving mind. He's turned heel WITH A VENGEANCE. The dark side is strong, people.<strong>

**Now Ryu is EEEEVIIL! (INDEED!)**

**Akuma's hubris came back to bite him twofold, and Ryu used his fist to turn his brains into a Jackson Pollock inside of his skull. Yep, he scrambled them like eggs. Just like mom used to make. Or dad. Or… me.**

…**Who can't make scrambled eggs?**

**I'm getting off-track.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, and there will be more.**

**Kenchi out.**


	58. This Too Shall Pass

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Street Fighter. When Street Fighter V comes out, it's gonna be on, rest assured of that. I can't wait. I'm not sure how much I'll get done that week as I'll be stuck in front of my PS4 in my spare time, killing it, as I am wont to do from time to time.

**Chapter 58: This Too Shall Pass**

* * *

><p>"<em>The Japan Self-Defense Force is still investigating the circumstances around the disaster that caused Rishiri Island to sink. Nearly 5000 people are displaced and over 200 are still missing. The events of that day began with the mysterious carving of a broad symbol in the south-facing Mount Rishiri cliff face…"<em>

From his bed, Naruto stared up at the ceiling as the news droned on from his television set. It had been two weeks since the battle with Akuma, and it was still the most talked about event in all of Japan. In all of the world, even. And why not? An entire island had been destroyed and very few people on the planet could even comprehend what had caused it.

It hadn't been an act of war from another nation. It hadn't been terrorism by some extremist group. It hadn't been a weapons test by Japan's own military gone wrong.

It had been partially caused by a man that had been a hero to the martial arts population of the world. Callous destruction that made him no better than the monster in human form that he had given his own morals over to defeat.

'Was there something I could have done to stop him?' Naruto thought to himself as his vision lost its focus on the blank surface above him.

There were things about the fight he could remember, and things that he couldn't. What he couldn't remember, the Kyuubi was able to fill him in on after the fact. All the while, the powerful being inside of Naruto asserted the same fact over and over again whenever the topic came up.

"**There was nothing you could have done to keep him from giving in to that power, short of killing him beforehand. It was a choice."**

Hearing something like that didn't exactly help, but Naruto realized that he had to suck it up and move on. Akuma was dead now. Very dead. He had to be. Ryu punched him in the head with enough force to obliterate an entire island. If there was any creature on the face of the planet or beyond that could get up from something like that, Naruto certainly didn't want to face down whatever it was after the fact.

It was a moot point now, because it was all over. What had happened, happened. There was no going back and acting as though none of it existed. All anyone could do was get up and move along.

And speaking of getting up…

Naruto slowly tried to sit up, only to be nudged back down by Cammy. A nudge was literally all it took. The little soldier had hardly left his bedside, having very little to do with her free time when not given directives by Naruto. In this instance, she had been told by everyone else to make sure he stayed in bed until he actually had the strength to try and fight her off.

She listened because again, she had little else better to do, and she knew full well that Naruto would likely do something to hurt himself before he recovered well enough to deal with it.

For some reason, prolonged exposure to the Satsui no Hadou gummed up his recovery abilities significantly. This time wasn't anywhere near as bad as it had been when he had taken the Shun Goku Satsu, but it was still annoying to be for the most part… mortal. It was the best way that Naruto had to describe his predicament.

"Cam, let me get up."

"I can't do that."

"Seriously, I'm really bored."

"No."

She wasn't going to budge. She hadn't whenever it had been up to her to hover over him. He knew this already.

Naruto didn't want to pull this card. As a matter of fact, he'd been working for quite some time to break Cammy of this sort of thinking, but desperate times called for desperate measures. There was only so much daytime TV he could stomach in one lifetime, "Aren't I like, your master or something?" He said, squinting his eyes at her, "Doesn't that mean you're supposed to follow my orders?"

Cammy moved some of her undone blonde hair away from her face while she thought. Naruto did have a point, but for some reason she was ingrained with some sort of operational procedure for situations like this. She had no idea where it had come from, probably that nasty Bison person, but she had stopped caring about the hows and whys long ago, "You are. But in situations where I'm stronger than you-," Such as right then, "-Anything you tell me to do is less important than keeping you healthy."

Fine, bribery it was then. Naruto wasn't above such a thing, "...What do I have give you, for you to let me get up?"

Cammy blinked her large blue eyes for a moment, showing that she had actually stopped to think about it for a moment, "I don't really want anything."

Naruto muttered to himself, temporarily resigning himself to his fate. Why were all of the girls in his life so hard to bribe? Cammy was too diligent to do anything to go against his better health, even if he was the one that wanted it. Sakura was stubborn and absolutely would not let him up until he was medically cleared. Ibuki liked him immobilized in bed so that she could tease him more easily. Karin was just utterly impossible to bribe, because there was literally no material possession in the world that she couldn't manage to procure for herself if she so desired it.

Batsu wasn't a solution either, because Batsu wasn't allowed to watch him at all. That was probably for the best, all things considered. He wasn't exactly health-conscious, and Naruto would have easily talked his way into getting out of the house simply because Batsu would have been almost as bored as Naruto was.

"What do you think's gonna happen if I get up?"

Other than the fact that he wasn't strong enough to get up in the first place? Cammy was willing to humor him, "I remember what happened the last time you were badly hurt and you tried walking around. The last time you'd had a month of lying around beforehand that you don't have now."

Naruto pouted in his bed. Oh, sure. She could remember that, but couldn't remember anything important, like anything she did before waking up in Thailand after they had destroyed the Psycho Drive, "Damn you, Cam! You're sexy as hell, but you can't keep me here forever."

...Lording over him in that damn leotard and nothing else. Why did her first choice for clothing leave nothing to the imagination? And it was worse because Naruto knew just what it all felt like underneath firsthand.

Cammy gave him a blank stare in return for his compliment/declaration, "I'm not keeping you here forever. I'm keeping you here for right now," Naruto was certain that she had to know somewhere inside how much of a complete smartass she was being. There was no way she didn't, "The moment I can't any longer is the moment when I'll know that you're actually healed, and then you can leave."

Oh, that was all it took? With a roll of his eyes, Naruto began stirring to try and rise, only to find Cammy quickly sitting on him and keeping him down with her full body weight. Normally, she would have been tough to move under normal circumstances, because she wasn't exactly weak despite her size. Now though, it was like trying to wrestle a wet blanket off of him back when he was three years old.

Cammy realized Naruto was only providing her so much fight, and in the most spirit-breaking thing she could do in that situation, simply turned around and faced the other way so that she could watch TV while continuing to calmly straddle his stomach.

Naruto's jaw fell open at the sheer audacity. Okay, she definitely had to realize how much of a smartass she was being. She could keep a blank look on her face all she wanted to. No one did those sorts of things unconsciously.

From the way she was seated, had Naruto not been directly underneath her, Cammy would have been sitting on her heels. And from that positioning, it left her feet right by his upper body. If she was going to stick to him every time he tried to force her off, that was fine. He'd make her get off of her own free will.

He grabbed one of Cammy's bare feet around the ankle and locked it to his chest before she realized he was doing anything. From there he had free reign to relentlessly tickle the mild-mannered young woman, immobilizing her so that she would have to use enough power to remove herself from him to get herself out.

It took all of two seconds for Cammy to be affected by the odd, unfamiliar sensation. She had never been tickled before, and had absolutely no defense or mental resistance built up against it the way she had for pain and most other things due to her Doll programming.

She laughed out loud, which almost caused Naruto to stop. He'd half expected it to not work. Cammy never laughed at anything. Ever. Who knew all it would have taken was something that simple?

Still, ever diligent, Cammy remained in place on top of Naruto amid the laughter and the uncontrollable urge to squirm and writhe away from the feeling. Leaning forward, she wrapped her arms around his legs to keep herself attached to him, though her grip was notably weak.

It was a fight for her to keep from kicking Naruto in the head with her free leg on reflex, or from trying to turn and kiss him until both of their lips were red. One of those things would hurt him, and the other would ensure that he got the upper-hand over her and would technically fulfill her parameters for his being allowed to get up.

She was certain that Naruto would make sure that she enjoyed being overpowered, he was always good to her. Still, her master's health had to come before being led into any naughty hi-jinks, not that he was making it easy.

After a while, Naruto didn't even care about getting up anymore. He wanted to before because he had been bored. Well, tormenting Cammy was quickly ridding him of that attitude, "Aw... I love you Cam. So do you wanna get off of me now?" He said, pausing long enough to get a coherent response out of her.

"Noooo…" Cammy whined, very uncharacteristically before breaking into a new chain of laughs once Naruto continued to tickle her, "Master, stoooop!"

"What'd I tell you about calling me that?" Naruto asked, as a means to cruelly chide her further, ignoring the fact that he had basically owned up to it barely five minutes before, "Promise to be good and let me up, and I'll stop."

"Oh, you're such a bad liar, Naruto."

Naruto stopped when he heard Ibuki's voice and turned his head to see the kunoichi in question standing at his doorway with a very pleased and scheming look on her face at the possibly compromising position she found the two of them in. Cammy looked up, grateful for the distraction, red-faced and hair slightly disheveled.

"Ibuki," Cammy said, catching her breath, "W-What did you need?"

"Nothing, It's just my shift to watch Naruto to make sure he stays in bed," Ibuki said with a shrug, the smile never leaving her face, "I came to relieve you, but it looks like if I came a bit later, Naruto would be in the middle of doing that himself."

Naruto denied nothing, instead turning his head away to avoid eye contact. If he'd have made Cammy lose it to the point where she wound up jumping his bones, he would have definitely gone right along with it. It would have without question livened up his hospice service.

Cammy yanked her foot out of Naruto's grasp, but didn't remove herself from on top of him, being right where she wanted to be after getting all worked up. She certainly did need the kind of relief that Ibuki had been referring to. Her guard down, she didn't register Naruto sitting up and wrapping his arms around her tiny waist before pulling her over and down into bed with him, where she was assaulted anew with more tickling.

"Okay, 'Bu. You could do the whole watching me thing-," Naruto said to Ibuki, marveling at the joyous sounds coming from his little bodyguard's mouth as he toyed with her, "-Or, you could pick on the wounded animal and help me mess with Cam 'til she's a puddle on the floor."

Now that was a hard choice, and Ibuki had to step back and take a moment to ponder it, "Sit watching you and try breaking you down into fits all the way from scratch, or pick on Cammy... and then do who knows what later?" On second thought, it wasn't much of a choice. One seemed far more certain to end in sexytimes for her than the other, "…I'm so sorry Cammy, but this is way more fun. Let me in, Naruto!"

"Why'd you take off your pants, 'Bu?"

"Look at you and look at Cammy. I feel overdressed."

"...Alright. I wasn't complaining though."

XxX

(Sea of Japan – Formerly Rishiri Island)

As morbid as it was, in the two weeks after the fight with Akuma that had destroyed it, Rishiri Island had become something of a tourist attraction. It was almost a modern day Pompeii. In a matter of hours, a bustling place where thousands of people lived was more or less wiped from the face of the planet. Gone with nary a trace, save for those who managed to make it out beforehand.

There were still search boats scouring the waters around the island for any of the people announced as missing, but for the most part, private citizens could still sail in those waters. Many of them even took to helping out with the search. Only a handful had been found though, and not alive.

Ryu was included in that total. But to be honest, some people weren't certain if it was even for the best to find him.

"I can't believe it," Ken said, his voice laced in disbelief, both that his friend was gone and that he had gone in such a manner that was unlike him, "Ryu... after all of that. He gave in."

He had been fighting against the allure of the Satsui no Hadou for years. He had fought against it when it tried to influence him during their fight at the World Warrior Tournament. To think that it had become too much for him now. Could it just have been Akuma's presence this time, or was it something more?

Dan leaned against the railing looking into the water where Rishiri Island once sat, looking in with a listless expression on his face, "Believe it," The entrepreneurial martial artist said, "That Uzumaki kid might be a dirty, cheating, trickster, but if he says something's true, it's true. I'm sure you know that."

Ken could admit to that, as much as it pained him to do so when it came to what had become of Ryu. The Aohura City group were a bunch of good kids. Their word might as well have been bond. Speaking of whom, "How's Sakura taking it?"

"Not well," Dan admitted remorsefully.

Sakura was the one of that group that he liked the most. Not only because she was cute, but because she was basically the only one of them that even _tried_ to show him respect as an elder. Naruto and Batsu went out of their way to disrespect him at times, Karin believed she was above everyone all of the time, and Ibuki just didn't care altogether.

Recently, Sakura had been popping into Dan's dojo to see if there was a chance that Gouken had possibly returned. She wanted to speak to the old master about something, but he'd never returned after leaving for his mountain hideaway once more.

That was how Dan knew what she was up to lately, "She's been occupied by looking after that dumbass kid while he's healing, but when she's not, she's training a lot," He told Ken, "More than before. Harder than before."

"That's probably her way of dealing with it," The blond fighter nodded with a deep frown. He had expected as much. Sakura had looked up to Ryu more than anyone else. His ability was everything she had aspired to achieve for herself. She had done her best for years to learn techniques by his example, to emulate him as best as she could.

Ryu had been her role model. Her idol. For a long time, she had even had a crush on him as the older, handsome pinnacle of what a martial artist should have been.

The poor thing was probably a jumbled up mess on the inside. Fortunately, she had a world-class system of support behind her.

"They shouldn't have had to deal with that," Ken said, knocking his fist against the metal railing around his boat, "I should have been here myself. A bunch of kids shouldn't have had to handle anything like this by themselves."

"Whoa-whoa-whoa," Dan said, brazenly cutting Ken off. He knew that the guy meant well, but that was just an asinine thing to say in this case, "What could you have possibly done here that they didn't do? All you would have done was put your neck on the line instead of theirs. Don't you have a kid on the way?"

"Well, yeah, but-."

Dan didn't want to hear any heroic excuses. Those were just a waste of everyone's time, "I know you're pissed about Ryu, but there is no 'but' here. What happened, happened," The purple-clad fighter asserted, lying down on the deck on his side, lazily, "There's no use complaining about what you could have done, especially when there's nothing you could have done that someone else didn't already do."

That froze Ken in his tracks. There really wasn't anything he could have done himself. If he'd have been in the shoes of the other kids he would have done what they had to get people off of the island. If he had been in Naruto's shoes, fighting the battle as he wished he could have… he probably would have been killed.

Getting killed in a battle he had no business stepping foot in, just because, would have been an all-time selfish thing to do for a man about to become a father, "I guess you have a point," Ken admitted with a chuckle, "Is it weird that you're the one giving me advice?"

Dan scoffed and picked his nose rudely, "Don't insult me," He declared, "I'm a self-made man. A martial artist of the highest acclaim with a successful business acumen that reflects my skill in the ring. Handing out crummy advice to wishy-washy guys like you is part of my job as an accredited teacher."

"…How'd you like to swim back to the mainland?"

XxX

(Aohura City – Naruto's Apartment)

Sakura trudged up the stairs to her former best friend, now lover's domicile, holding together what was left of her school uniform skirt and shirt with her hands. She had gone vastly overboard during her training today in an effort to shut out any thoughts of the life-altering event she had experienced two weeks prior.

She didn't want to drag anyone else into her problems, least of all Naruto while he was healing, so she kept them to herself and worked through them the way everyone with the similar means to do so should have; by destroying inanimate objects with her bare hands and hard-earned superpowers.

"I'm ho-!" Sakura started to announce to the quiet apartment before stopping and quietly laughing to herself, "Ha. It's not my house."

Taking off her shoes at the space by the door, Sakura walked inside heading straight for the bathroom. Her school clothes were an absolute mess, and she knew her mother would absolutely let her have it when she got home for ruining them. Fortunately she had one or two spare outfits at Naruto's place that she'd left in the past. One school outfit wouldn't be missed.

It was quiet, so she decided that it was a good time to take a quick shower to wipe away the signs of her heavy training and change clothes before anyone could come around to take a look at her. She was overworking herself to keep her mind off of things, and she didn't feel like talking to others about it at the moment. Not that she was trying to avoid her friends, but she didn't want to talk about the things weighing heavily on her until she'd had time to go over them herself first.

Sakura didn't remove her delicate school uniform so much as she tore it the rest of the way off. She would have to trash it on the way home later. As she started the shower and stepped inside, the sound of the door opening prompted her to turn around where she found Naruto, barely any better clothed than she was.

"..."

"..."

"...Hey Sakura-chan."

"Hi," Sakura's eyes roamed Naruto's form for several seconds before she valiantly tried to be responsible, "...Isn't Ibuki-chan supposed to be watching you to make sure you don't get up?"

At that, Naruto wore a victorious smirk that made Sakura roll her eyes. She could only imagine how he'd gotten himself out of that situation, "Heh, she was supposed to be," His expression faded though when he noticed Sakura's body covered with scrapes and marks, as well as dirt and grime that was steadily washing off from the water running over her, "Hey, what happened to you?"

"Just a little training, Naruto," She told him with what she hoped was a reassuring smile, "It's not a big deal."

Naruto looked her full, bare body over, then eyed her ruined clothes in the corner of the room. It was a wonder that they had held up for the walk to his place, or however she had gotten there from the usual junkyard training spot. He could see blood on the white shirt as well. Her blood.

He said nothing to her, instead just looking at her sorrowfully. He knew there was more to it. She knew that he knew. Whenever it was her, he always did without needing to be told.

Ever since the fight with Akuma, she felt awful about what had become of Ryu. He knew this. She never let it show around him, for the few hours that she would stay with him, spending time with him and watching over him. But when she was gone, away from Naruto, the only person who was there to see Ryu's descent in person and someone she knew would feel responsible for allowing it to happen, she could let it out.

She was terrified of something like that happening to her. Even if she had come to accept that the Satsui no Hadou was a part of her, and only wanted what she herself wanted most, it was a part of her that would go to extremes to ensure that those utmost desires were met. It was the most selfish part of her given tangible power.

Sakura didn't want to _be_ controlled by her desires. She wanted to control them herself. Her passion was her power, but letting it overtake her would make it no better than the thing that Akuma became in the end.

"I'm going to learn both, you know?" Sakura said, "The Satsui no Hadou and the Kyomu no Chikara."

Both the Surge of Murderous Intent and the Power of Nothingness. She wanted to master them both. She had to. Balancing one half of her style's extreme with the other end was probably more difficult than she could ever imagine, but it needed to be done.

The kind of strength that Ryu and Akuma displayed on Rishiri Island was a terrifying display of just what she herself could possibly do if she ever lost her mindset. It wasn't the destruction itself that scared her. Thta was just the kind of power she had grown accustomed to certain people displaying, what with even Naruto himself possessing it. No, it was how careless the use of it all was. People were dead and homes were lost for thousands of people before of it.

Naruto nodded as though that were that, as he stepped into the shower with her and stood under the water as well, "Okay," He didn't doubt for a moment that she could and would do it. This was Sakura, the girl that by sheer force of will, diligent study, and God-gifted natural talent managed to reach the level that she had since the age of 13, "You know I've got you, right?"

"I know," Sakura mumbled, bridging the small space between them, wrapping her arms around Naruto's torso. She leaned her cheek against his chest and shut her eyes when she felt his arms engulf her, "Power isn't a gift or a right, it's a responsibility. There's no getting rid of the Satsui no Hadou. I don't want to anyway. But if I have it, it's my responsibility to make sure that it doesn't hurt anyone it's not meant to."

"Mmhmm," Naruto hummed in agreement as he rocked with her underneath the showerhead, "You won't. I know you won't," He said, burying his face in Sakura's short, wet hair, "Do you hate me, because I couldn't stop him?"

It wasn't a funny subject, but Sakura still found the thought laughable, "Even if you hadn't already fought Akuma, I don't think hitting Ryu in the face and telling him to knock it off would have stopped him," No, the Satsui no Hadou was a little too influential for even a little Naruto concussion-talk therapy to work on, "The only one who could make it stop was him. There wasn't anything you could have done."

"So how are you feeling about, well, everything," Naruto asked, "We haven't talked about it."

A frown marred Sakura's pretty face, "…Still don't wanna talk about it yet," Eventually she would, when she'd come to terms with it all and what it meant for her. But for now she wanted to keep it to herself.

If there was anyone that understood keeping things to yourself, it was Naruto. Even if he wanted Sakura to get it off of her chest, there wasn't any rush, "Okay, we don't have to," He said, reaching past Sakura to grab for the soap.

It was a big deal, but then again it wasn't. They had all the time in the world, and he would be right there whenever she was ready.

"Sorry," Sakura said, much to Naruto's confusion as he started to lather up the both of them.

"For what?" He asked with a tilt of his head.

"For getting all girly on you," She hadn't cried or anything, but there was still a bit of drama that Naruto would admit to not being particularly equipped to handle,

Naruto grinned and tilted Sakura's face up by her chin to look at him, taking advantage of their close proximity to plant a quick kiss on her, "I want my Sakura-chan to be girly. It sure makes stuff like this a lot more fun," He said, gesturing to the shower and their current unclothed state.

"Perv."

"Whatever. I know Sunburned Sakura-chan likes it."

"Regular Sakura-chan never said she didn't either."

XxX

(Karin's Manor)

Karin's sharp brown eyes were weary after scanning through every major recent printed publication from around the world. Earlier that morning she had taken the time to do the same thing on the internet. Other than a few crackpot news sources that no one would take seriously, there wasn't a peep about any involvement in the Rishiri Island incident with Naruto or Ryu.

Her eyes were so terribly sore from all of the reading she had been doing, in so many languages, both on a screen and in print form. If she needed glasses after this, she would be none too pleased.

She rubbed at her tired orbs before turning her attention to her loyal steward Shibazaki, who had been doing all of the leg work in regards to containing the news coverage. He had been jet-setting all over for the past two weeks, carrying out her will in-person.

"That will be all, Shibazaki," Karin bade him with a wave of her hand, "Thank you for all of your hard work. Please, take a few days off," If she herself was tired, he had to be exhausted. But there he stood, hands neatly behind his back, posture as straight as ever, "I insist. It would make me feel much better about all of the running about I've subjected you to."

"You need think nothing of it, Karin-ojousama. But as you wish," Shibazaki bowed to his mistress before leaving the room respectfully, "Call me immediately if there is anything else I can do for you."

Karin smiled at her employee, grateful for his efforts, "I do believe I can manage on my own for a short time."

As he left, Karin massaged her brow and sighed. Keeping the lid on Ryu and Naruto's roles in the destruction on Rishiri Island had been very hard work. Work that she was still in the midst of doing. Cover-ups of that nature didn't just happen. She had to go out of her way to bribe news sources all over the map to refrain from reporting certain things, and hackers to make sure that certain pieces of data that had managed to surface up and disappeared.

So far, she had been able to keep any inklings of the solid truth from being known by every major news source in the world and all of the ones that had swarmed the scene for coverage in Japan itself.

Such tampering left a sour taste in her mouth, as she despised doing business that way, but it was for the best for Naruto.

As long as that were the case, she would do anything.

Aside from that, it was the best for Ryu's legacy as well. Even if the man had lost it at the end by giving in to the Satsui no Hadou, he had still done so much positive before that. He had made prizefighting popular again, as martial arts was seeing an ongoing swell in support worldwide. He had been Sakura's idol, and many of the adults that were important to them such as E. Honda, Guile, Chun-Li, and Ken, looked up to him in a way.

To her, after all of the good he'd done, it wasn't right to have the last thing people remembered him for being what he became. He was more than just one ill decision, titanic though it was.

"I can do that much for Sakura-san, at least," Karin muttered to herself, swirling around the drink in her hand before taking a sip.

This would all blow over eventually. As hollow as things felt now, they would settle back into the kind of routine that they were all accustomed to. Admittedly, their normal routine was crazy enough by anyone else's standards, but that made no difference. It was still theirs.

XxX

(Five Months Later – Tamagawa Minami High School)

School reopened on time at the end of summer after the damage Akuma and Sakura did to the neighborhood was repaired, and though it was just as boring to Naruto as before, it was a bit of normalcy that he and everyone else needed to get themselves back together.

"This is your last year of high school, and many of you may want to think about college," The homeroom teacher said at the front of the class, "I have literature for cram schools if any of you are interested. I know there are many of you that would do very well in a university setting. There's a lot of potential here," She said with a smile as she looked her students over, Naruto included.

Cheating his way through 70% of his courses via clones to improve his grades really helped how the teaching staff saw him. Still, doing anything after high school wasn't really in the cards for him. Naruto didn't know what he would do, but he sure didn't think it would involve a book in his hands.

Naruto looked around at the girls who sat by his desk. Sakura would definitely be going to college. She wanted a degree in something that would help her when she decided to found her own dojo, so something sports and/or teaching related. Karin would unquestionably be going as well. Not just because having a degree was a mark of status, but because she was going to run an entire company one day, so she kind of needed it.

"Psst," A bored Ibuki hissed to Naruto in front of her in a whisper, "Speaking of college, how's Batsu doing in university anyway?"

Naruto grinned at the thought of his friend and how he was handling life in advanced learning, "It's not as bad as he thought it would be," Batsu still thought it was a waste of his time, but he didn't have any better ideas, and it was at least a way to stall until he figured out what he wanted to do with his life, "Hinata has to get on him about studying, but they share a place so they've got that going for 'em."

"And Batsu's parents are okay with that?"

"Oh, Principal Imawano doesn't give a fuck. He's just glad Batsu's going at all," Naruto stated bluntly, remembering Batsu's powerful, extremely surly, estranged father, "I mean, yeah Batsu's mom thinks it's kind of indecent, but she's liked Hinata ever since the whole fighting high schools thing a few years ago."

Ibuki smiled and leaned forward, her cheeks on her hands, "You guys still need to tell me about that, by the way. Long story, or not. You reference it way too much, and I hate being out of the loop."

She was going to continue her education after high school as well. Ibuki was going for a degree in journalism. Not a bad job for someone trained as a ninja to have, honestly.

It made him feel a bit odd. They were all smart girls, and they were going to succeed at whatever they put their minds to, because that was just the kind of high-caliber women that they were. When they all got into whatever school they would wind up attending, they would all leave town. Only Cammy would be left with him in Aohura City.

Hell, if Cammy had ever had any interest in going to school, she could do the exact same thing. But even Cammy was doing things that could be seen as drifting away. She was taking missions on her own due to their constant backlog of assignments, and she was spending more time with her 'brother' Abel.

It sucked to think about, but they were too good to be stuck dwelling in the same-old day-to-day insanity that was their status quo. Exceptional people did exceptional things, and they were all capable of just that, even if they had to leave to make it happen.

For the girls that found something worth cherishing about him. For the girls that loved him, they could do whatever they wanted. Whatever made them happy. The time they had given him was more than he could have asked for back when he'd first been dropped in that world.

'No matter what happens, I'm a better person because I met them.'

He idly realized that Karin had been trying to get his attention, "Is there something troubling you, beloved? You seem preoccupied," She asked, holding onto his hand

"Just… thinking," Naruto said with an unsure smile and a shrug of his shoulders, "I don't know what I'm gonna do next after this. I only started going to high school because Sakura-chan made me-."

"You make it sound like that was a bad thing," Sakura said, taking offense to the way Naruto worded it.

"-But what the heck would I go to college for? And if I didn't go, what would I do then?" Naruto continued to try and reason out, "And either way, we won't end up in the same place."

"Says who?" Both Sakura and Ibuki said at once.

Karin interjected at that point, chest out and nose turned up, "I do. As if any university prestigious enough for me would allow your sort to attend as well."

Sakura just deadpanned a stare at Karin for several seconds until the haughty heiress felt uncomfortable and quit puffing out her chest. She had a point to finish making, thank you, "Naruto, even if we didn't, do you have any idea how many universities are in Tokyo? Even if we all don't get into the same one, our test scores won't be low."

Naruto squinted his eyes, thinking deeply on that. She had a point. Sakura and Karin's test scores were nationally ranked. Ibuki's, to her credit, oftentimes showed up at the very top of the school lists. They could pretty much pick where they wanted, more or less, "Hmm."

"Yeah!" Ibuki exclaimed, throwing an arm around Sakura as she hugged the girl closely to her, "Sakura-chan and I could get an apartment together, or Karin could be a peach and put us all up in some posh penthouse in the city that I know for a fact her family probably has."

Karin crossed her arms and looked away with a blush on her cheeks at being called out, "I do… and I may indeed wish for some company while I see to my education. We can discuss it later," Her eyes then slowly moved to Naruto and her blush intensified, but a small smile did come to her face as well, "Of course, beloved, you are welcome to come as well if you so wish."

"I'd just be tagging along with you guys like a puppy or something."

"With all of the things that are in Tokyo, you could find something that you want to do," Sakura insisted, "…Or you could always just go to college and find a major to get interested in while you're there."

"You're not gonna let that go, are you?"

Sakura just smiled at him as if to say 'of course not', "Never. You could be thirty years old, and I'll still bring it up if you haven't done it yet."

Naruto had a lot of potential, and it went past the ability to fight, even if he didn't think it did. Sakura could and had seen it in flashes every now and then for years. He was creative and passionate about matters that he cared about. It was just a matter of getting him to pay attention to the things going on around him so that he could find just what his 'thing' was.

XxX

(Hong Kong)

After a long day of work, Chun-Li felt the drag of the hours weigh heavily on her. Her footsteps felt languid as she entered the small property of her family that had belonged to her since her father's passing.

It wasn't that she was tired, it was just that she wasn't quite feeling it the way that she used to. In her career, she hadn't spent much time sitting behind a desk. Most of it had been spent heading out, traveling around to find and follow leads, and then undertaking missions to apprehend suspects or do her part to thwart their catastrophic aims.

When she'd become an Interpol detective and gotten to take her first serious case regarding Shadaloo and M. Bison with his aims to terrorize the world into domination, when she'd had to deal with what was supposedly left of it when she took on S.I.N. for its illegal human experimentation, militarization, and planned genocide...

...Those were the times when she felt as though she were contributing. She was doing her job, the part of it that made her know that she was making a difference. It was how she'd eventually come to peace with her father's death, despite not being the one to end Bison. But now, it was just desk work and calls, and it had been that way for months and months.

Maybe she needed to take a few days off? Perhaps she could go and bother those kids in Japan for a bit? Maybe go and make sure that Yang and Yun were keeping themselves out of trouble?

So caught up in her thoughts was she, that she hardly noticed that there was someone waiting on her to come home until she saw them out in front of her house. She was set to greet the visitor, until the sight of the person jabbed at her memory.

Thoughts of a tanned redheaded woman in a high-tech suit made to look like business-wear came to mind. Then she opened her mouth to speak-.

"I guess Interpol pays way different than my agency, if this is where you live."

-And the voice only drove things home further.

"It's my family's home," Chun-Li replied smoothly, "Speaking of which, you're trespassing. I don't mind it though, since I don't like leaving loose ends untied anyway."

She remembered her as the woman who was working with Juri Han during the series of incidents with S.I.N.

Her hands clenched into fists as she smoothly stepped into a posture that would let her fend off an attack or wage one of her own with hardly any difficulties, "You've got quite a lot of guts showing your face in front of me. So do you have new job with someone else I've pissed off, or is S.I.N. surviving underground now?"

Crimson Viper stared Chun-Li down before taking off her sunglasses with a sigh, wiping the lenses as she thought to herself how to approach the hostile Interpol agent. There was no way Chun-Li would outright trust her, but there was no way to twist any of the facts without refraining from divulging anything that she needed to know. The best she could do was simply come forward with what she had and hope that her word was accepted.

"I didn't come to fight," Viper said coolly as she put her glasses back on. She slowly reached into her suit, putting Chun-Li further on guard until she pulled out a smart phone, "I came to warn you."

Chun-Li's face registered surprise before skepticism tinted her expression, "You came to warn me? About what exactly?" She asked, stepping out of a fighting stance and crossing her arms sternly, "I think you'd better start at the beginning, as in why you're telling me anything helpful after the last time we had anything to do with each other."

Viper figured it would come to this, but it was alright to talk about now. The case Chun-Li was speaking of had long since been closed, "I was undercover in S.I.N. to steal one of their more promising projects for my government, not because I was invested in S.I.N.'s well-being in any way," She explained, "Now I'm coming to you because of what's about to happen."

"Wait, you were a spy?" Chun-Li asked in bewilderment. Viper had almost killed Ibuki. She'd been there for several of the nastier things S.I.N. had done just before its downfall, including kidnapping and torturing Kanzuki Karin, "Does that mean you're C.I.A.?"

She seemed American, in many, many ways. Some of which were rather infuriating.

A smile tugged at Viper's lips, "I'm not at liberty to say," Just as quickly, the smile was gone without a trace, "There's a secret organization that has a foothold on too many world stages to list. I don't really even want to, as I've probably said more than enough about them already to be killed for."

"So it's a criminal organization like Shadaloo?"

If only it were that straightforward, "Oh no. Much older than Shadaloo, and not quite criminal. At least not, merely," Viper said with a shake of her head, "But what's really bad is that we have no idea what they're after in the grand scheme of things. You've probably heard of the Illuminati at one point in time, correct?"

This was the part that Crimson Viper had been afraid that Chun-Li wouldn't believe. Right on cue, the international officer walked forward, waving her hands as if to stop Viper from continuing, "Now hold on one minute. You've got to be kidding me," She said. Having something like that unloaded on her was not how she figured her Wednesday night would go, "That's not a real thing, is it? It's just a crackpot conspiracy theory, isn't it?"

Viper shrugged her shoulders, sliding through images in her phone as she looked for what she wanted to show Chun-Li, "Afraid not. I'm not sure how much of the things people have said about it are hogwash or not, but if nothing else, it's a real thing and it _has_ been manipulating events," She continued to explain, "For how long and to what extent, I couldn't say. Me, and anyone else that's tried to look into anything that winds up involving them are convinced in one way or another to look away."

"I didn't think you to be the type to be coerced like that."

"Normally no. I'm not particularly afraid when it comes to threats against me. But when they involve my daughter…" Viper trailed off, eliciting a wince of understanding out of Chun-Li. Yes, with Viper professionalism ended when her child was brought into play. She couldn't go any further than she had already, "…That's why I'm coming to you. I think you're the type to see something like this through. Plus, you don't exactly have anyone that they can use against you."

Chun-Li frowned at Viper's rather blunt way of saying that her entire family was dead. Apparently tact wasn't something that one could expect from a C.I.A. agent. Even if her father had been gone for quite some time now, it just wasn't the sort of thing you threw at someone so directly.

Still, she had a point. In the most ass way possible, yes, but it was still a point.

"All we know is that they're putting together some sort of competition." Viper continued, breaking the awkward silence by showing Chun-Li a symbol on her phone; a silver pyramid with an eye at the top. The traditionally believed symbol of Illuminati, "If you receive anything with this on it, be cautious."

A look of distaste crossed Chun-Li's gorgeous face, "It's not a fighting tournament, is it?" After the World Warrior Tournament, she had seen quite enough of those put together by shadowy organizations.

Thankfully, for her sake, Viper shook her head in the negative, "No. I don't think it's going to be that organized," She told her, "But they're getting in contact with the best fighters in the world. The very best. They seem to know who those people would be, so look out in case you're… 'chosen'. They're not the kinds of people who take no for an answer."

Chun-Li didn't have any machinations of backing out of a fighting competition anyway, "And you don't think you'll be 'chosen' for this little competition?"

Viper smiled and shook her head. She assumed the same as Chun-Li at first, but realized why Illuminati wouldn't be interested in taking her in their intended contest, "I'm an alright martial artist, but most of my abilities come from this little suit," She said, gesturing to the outfit she currently had on, "Without it, I'd be smashed by people like you. They're not interested in that."

"Well what exactly are they interested in?"

"The easy answer would be people like you, but the truth as to why is… I have no idea."

XxX

(Undisclosed Location)

"HAIL LORD GILL! HAIL LORD GILL! HAIL LORD GILL!"

Thousands of voices screamed out in unison just beyond the curtain. A thunderous noise of support and anticipation for the one person they all sought to see. The one told of in their prophecy to lead them past the cataclysm that would befall the planet and into the future.

Behind the curtain, a tall, thick man stood, listening to his followers as they shouted their allegiance to him. His appearance was concealed by a light brown and red hooded long cloak with a long blue-green robe underneath and brown sandals.

A woman dressed in a business outfit with long blonde hair swept up partially into something of a topknot walked over and stood behind him, waiting until she was addressed to speak.

"…Yes, Kolin?"

"It's time, Lord Gill."

"Yes," The cloaked man, known as Gill said, reaching out and grabbing the curtain, "Yes it is."

He threw the curtain open and walked out on stage to address his crowd that roared at the sight of him. He stood for a moment, arms wide as he basked in the adulation of the people he had been raised for his entire life to lead.

Gill stood and accepted the excitement of the people at seeing him. As Emperor of the Illuminati, he had to make sure that the people saw him, knew his face. Knew that he was just as driven as the rest of them were when it came to the things that the Illuminati had to do.

He lifted his hand and the crowd quickly silenced for him.

"Much is expected of us all," Gill said to begin his speech, his voice easily heard throughout the vast auditorium he spoke in, "It has to be us. You have all known this from the very beginning. Without us, the entire world will devour itself once the end occurs."

And the end, as the rest of the world knew it, was coming. It was nothing that Illuminati was preparing to do themselves, nor was it something they were capable of stopping. It just was. It was going to happen, and it needed those who were strong in body, mind, and heart to bring things together after the world was torn asunder.

No one else was prepared but the Illuminati, and Gill was the man seen to be worthiest of leading them.

No. To call him a man was laughable. He was closer to a God, for so many reasons.

Gill's face turned stern and harsh, as his speech to the crowd continued, "Power is not a gift, nor is it a right. It is a responsibility," Gill said, so quietly that the auditorium had to go silent just to hear him, "And it is my responsibility as your chosen one-. No... as your God! To lead you all past _Ultania_, into the future! From the ashes of this withered, tired, weak world, something greater CAN be built! WILL be built! And it is up to us to make it happen!"

Gill's robes suddenly burned away into nothing but a white loincloth he had been wearing underneath it all, revealing himself for the entire crowd to see. His long, flowing blond hair trailed behind him. But his most startling feature was his skin. His muscular body was separated down the middle, perfectly into red and blue.

He stood silently, letting the crowd of Illuminati's followers bask in the view of his God-like form. The red and blue perfect asymmetry was the mark of their prophesy's identifying moment, soon to come to pass.

"Rest now," Gill told his awe-inspired crowd, "For a great task is ahead of us. Once you weather the storm that is to come, I will have need of all of your strengths, your will, your dedication, in the New World Order that is to come!"

XxX

There was a disturbance, but Oro couldn't tell where it was or what it indicated, and that disturbed him deeply.

He normally felt the touch of the very environment around him no matter where he was, thus he could keep a watchful eye on his surroundings even far away from any trouble, but there was something about _this_. It was too far away. Farther than he should have been able to reach out to.

This was why he couldn't tell where. But something about it felt extremely familiar... just far more corrupted than the last time it had passed through his senses. More corrupted, and stronger than he could have ever dreamed a mortal being could be.

"Oh no," Oro muttered to himself, sitting inside of a maid cafe where he had previously been having a grand time. That had changed in a hurry, "...Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong."

And for all intents and purposes, he could feel that despite all of his abilities, he was powerless to stop it.

* * *

><p><strong>An action-less chapter. But I just had an entire freaking island get destroyed last chapter, so I think a down chapter or two is in order, no? Anyway, I think when I said that this was the last arc, I should have specified better. This is the <strong>_**beginning**_** of the last arc, if you can believe it. So in other words...**

**It's.**

**Not.**

**Over.**

**...Not yet at least.**

**Let's see if I can make this an ending worth all of the mayhem I've been trying to throw out there for the past 58 chapters. If what I see in my mind is as effective to me as it will be to you, I think it'll live up to a worthwhile finale.**

**You have questions and assumptions? I have answers... that will come in the form of word on the written page.**

**Thanks for investing your time, jerks. I hope you enjoyed and will continue to do so.**

**Kenchi out.**


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